Beautiful, hand finished centre.

Made in USA

Engraved "Sterling" on reverse.

Size: 2 x 1.5cm (including loops but not jump rings).

Treated to prevent tarnishing.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Our Lady of La Salette  is a Marian apparition reported by two children, Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat at La Salette-Fallavaux, France, in 1846.

On 19 September 1851, Pope Pius IX formally approved the public devotion and prayers to Our Lady of La Salette, referring to its messages of apparition as "secrets". On 24 August 1852, Pope Pius IX once again mentioned the construction of the altar to La Salette. The same papal bull granted the foundation of the Association of Our Lady of La Salette, formalised on 7 September.

On 21 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII formally granted a Canonical Coronation to the image at the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette. A Russian style tiara was granted to the image, instead of the solar-type tiara used in its traditional depictions of Virgin Mary during her apparitions.

On the evening of Saturday, September 19, 1846, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat returned from the mountain where they had been minding cows and reported seeing "a beautiful lady" on Mount Sous-Les Baisses, weeping bitterly. They described her as sitting with her elbows resting on her knees and her face buried in her hands. She was clothed in a white robe studded with pearls; and a gold colored apron; white shoes and roses about her feet and high head-dress. She wore a crucifix suspended by a small chain from her neck.

According to their account, she continued to weep even as she spoke to them, first in French, then in their own dialect. After giving a Secret to each child, the apparition climbed a hill and vanished. The following day the children's account of the apparition was put into writing and signed by the visionaries and those who had heard the story.

According to the children's account, the Virgin invited people to respect the repose of the seventh day, and the name of God. She threatened punishment, in particular a scarcity of potatoes, which would rot. The context of these punishments places the warning just prior to the winter of 1846–1847, which was in Europe, and especially in Ireland and in France, a period of famine in the months which followed the apparition. This was one of the factors of the apparition's popular appeal. After five years of investigation, the bishop of Grenoble, Philibert de Bruillard announced in 1851 that the apparition was likely to be a true revelation and authorised the commencement of the cult of Our Lady of La Salette. This determination was later confirmed by his successor, Bishop Ginoulhiac, in 1855.