Our Lady of Laus: the apparitions to Benoîte Rencurel (1664 to 1718)

Benoîte Rencurel was born in 1647 at Saint-Étienne-d'Avançon, in the southern French Alps. Her father died when she was seven. By twelve she was a shepherdess, and at seventeen she still could not read or write. In May 1664, by her account, St Maurice, a locally venerated martyr, appeared to her. He sent her to the valley above Saint-Étienne. "That is where you will see the Mother of God."

The Vallon des Fours. Benoîte was praying the Rosary with her flock. Near a grotto and a spring, she saw "a dazzling lady standing on a rock, holding a beautiful child in her arms." The lady wore a veil. She smiled, but stayed mostly silent. Benoîte offered to share her hard bread, softened in the nearby fountain. It "made the beautiful lady smile." After a while the lady took her Child in her arms and disappeared into the cave in the side of the rock.

For about four months she returned every day. On 29 August 1664 she gave her name. "I am Lady Mary, the Mother of my very dear Son."

Then a month of absence. Late in September 1664 she reappeared at the Pindreau. "Go to Laus, you will find a chapel there from which sweet scents will emanate, and there you will speak to me often." The next day Benoîte followed the smell to an old chapel, Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre. Inside, she saw the Virgin over the high altar.

Later accounts describe her "dressed as a queen, a crown on her head, all shining with light." She asked for a church and a house for priests. "Pray continuously for sinners." She taught that the oil of the sanctuary lamp, applied with faith, would heal. Only Benoîte saw her. A neighbour heard her voice without seeing her. Pilgrims spoke of "a heavenly perfume unlike anything they ever experienced."

Embrun's Vicar General, Fr Antoine Lambert, arrived a sceptic. Then Catherine Vial, her legs bent backward for six years and judged incurable by two surgeons, was healed during a novena and walked into the chapel. "There is something extraordinary occurring in that chapel," Lambert said. In September 1665 the diocese authorised the pilgrimage. A church rose around the chapel between 1666 and 1669.

In 1670 Jean Javelly questioned her at Embrun. Observers noted she "neither ate nor drank for twelve days." For 15 years she bore the stigmata from Thursday evening to Saturday morning. From 1692 Jansenist priests branded her a "dangereuse illuminée," a dangerous visionary. The restrictions on her were lifted in 1712. She died on 28 December 1718.

The record rests on the Laus Manuscripts, about 1,800 pages by four chroniclers, among them the judge François Grimaud and the chaplains Jean Peytieu and Pierre Gaillard. Most wrote from inside the shrine. Only one person ever saw the lady. The healings were not medically controlled. No hoax finding has ever been made, and the Jansenists objected mainly to the frequent confession and Communion at the shrine.

4 May 2008. Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Leandri of Gap and Embrun, advised by two theologians and an investigating judge, recognised the apparitions. "I recognise the supernatural origin of the apparitions and the events and words experienced and narrated by Benedicta Rencurel." It was the first Marian apparition approved in the 21st century, and the first in France since Lourdes. The Basilica of Notre-Dame du Laus still draws about 120,000 visitors a year.