A story for every day...
Our Lady of La Salette, “Reconciler of sinners”
In the commune of La Motte-Servolex, an old man more than eighty years old, an impious Voltairian, was going to die and to die with blasphemy on his lips!… Close to him, however, was an angel of prayer and devotion: his pious daughter was there, nailed to his bedside in pain, anxiously following the frightening progress of the evil, imploring incessantly the conversion of her unfortunate father. But she did not dare to venture a religious word in his ear, much less to offer him the help of the Church; for the name of a priest, like that of God, was enough to excite the rage of the moribund and make him leap on his bed uttering the most dreadful imprecations… The poor child was therefore silent, and prayer was her only resource… Oh, how ardently she offered it for the salvation of her father! How she begged Mary, Comforter of the afflicted, to come to his aid! Suddenly she said to herself: “If I mixed my father’s drink with the miraculous water from your fountain, O Our Lady of La Salette, Reconciler of sinners! Good Mother, wouldn’t you like to make it a remedy for his soul?” And immediately her hand secretly pours a few drops of this blessed water into the potion prescribed to her father, while her heart repeats many times: “O Our Lady of La Salette, Reconciler of sinners, I entrust him to You; You will save him! You will save him!…”
Mr. André took the salutary beverage without suspecting the pious fraud, and soon after he fell asleep peacefully. His daughter was still praying, prostrate at the foot of his bed, when suddenly horrible convulsions, ominous signs of a coming death, suddenly interrupted the short sleep of the patient. It is done, life is extinguished… the shadows of death already veil his face… a few more minutes and all is finished…
“O Our Lady of La Salette,” cries Miss Amélie in the most unspeakable anguish, “Our Lady of La Salette, Reconciler of sinners, I have entrusted him to You… save, save my father!” At that very moment, the dying man opened his eyes: “My daughter…, my daughter… a priest!… Quickly… quickly… a priest!…” His daughter rushed to look for the minister of God: he was soon found, he ran… Mr. André confessed with all the signs of the most sincere repentance; and, of a hardened impious, the regenerating grace made in a few minutes a docile and fervent Christian!…
A few drops of water drawn from this fountain, an invocation to Our Lady of La Salette, were enough to bring about a double miracle: Mary wanted Mr. André to recover at the same time the health of his soul and of his body. This good old man consecrated the life he had been given back to publishing the mercies of the Lord and the power of Our Lady of La Salette. His fervor was the edification of his family and of all those who came near him.
