Our Lady of Laus

The girl and the valley

Laus lies in the French Alps, not far from the town of Gap, about 900 metres above the sea. The name comes from an old word for a lake. In 1666 the hamlet had about twenty households.

Benoîte Rencurel was born on 16 September 1647 in Saint-Étienne d'Avançon, now Saint-Étienne-le-Laus. Her father died when she was seven, and left the family in debt. There was no school, and she never learned to read or write. At about twelve she began to keep sheep for two employers. She was known for the Rosary, which she prayed in the fields.

May 1664: St Maurice and the Beautiful Lady

In May 1664, after hearing a homily from her parish priest, Benoîte longed to meet the Mother of God. The shrine's history says that St Maurice then appeared to her near a ruined chapel dedicated to him, and told her that her wish would be granted. He sent her to a valley above the village, the Vallon des Fours, where plaster was made from gypsum.

There she saw a Beautiful Lady holding a child, on a rock. Benoîte, a shepherd girl with little to give, offered to share her bread. The Lady only smiled. For about four months the Lady came daily. At first she was silent. Then she began to teach the girl, as a mother teaches. People could see Benoîte speaking, but could not hear the Lady.

One of Benoîte's employers doubted her and came to listen. She overheard a warning that her soul was in danger, and that she must do penance. Moved, she went back to the sacraments. It was the first of many conversions.

29 August 1664: "I am Dame Mary"

Benoîte finally asked her name. The shrine gives her answer: "I am Dame Mary, the Mother of my very dear Son." She added that she wished to be honoured in the parish, but not in that place. Then, for a month, the visits stopped.

29 September 1664: Pindreau, and the road to Laus

At Pindreau, across the valley, a bright light drew Benoîte to a ruin, and there was the Lady. The girl cried out to ask why she had been left so long. Mary told her to go to Laus, where she would find a small chapel by its sweet scent, and that there she would speak with her very often.

The next day Benoîte found it, the humble chapel of Bon-Rencontre, Our Lady of the Good Encounter, poor and neglected. Mary stood on the altar. Then she spoke the words that define the place: "I have asked my Son for this place for the conversion of sinners, and He has granted it to me."

She asked for a larger church, and for a house for priests, so that people could come for confession. She said that the oil of the lamp burning before the Blessed Sacrament would heal those who applied it with faith in her intercession.

1665: the vicar general asks for a sign

News spread through the winter, and by spring 1665 pilgrims were coming. On 14 September 1665 the diocese's vicar general, Antoine Lambert, arrived. He did not believe, and meant to close the chapel. He questioned Benoîte, who answered calmly. Then he told her to ask for a sign. During his stay a local woman, Catherine Vial, was cured after a novena of a leg illness that had crippled her. Lambert changed his mind. On 18 September 1665 the diocese authorised the pilgrimage, the building of a church, and resident priests.

The church and the mission

On 7 October 1666 the first stone was laid, by the priest Pierre Gaillard according to one account. The church went up by 1669, built around the old chapel, which remains inside it to this day. Pilgrims came in great numbers. In 1672 Benoîte took a small house close by. She became a Dominican tertiary, wore a veil, and was called Sister Benoîte.

Her work was simple and hard. Those who knew her said she could read hearts, and she used this gift to help pilgrims make a good confession. Sinners came, priests heard them, and many went home changed. Gaillard wrote of confessors who sent penitents away very happy.

The suffering Christ

From autumn 1669 she reported visions of Christ crucified at a wayside cross near Avançon, five in all up to 1684. The place is now the Chapel of the Precious Blood. Accounts add that from July 1673 she bore the marks of the Passion, and suffered what they call a mystical crucifixion, week after week for some years, from Thursday evening to Saturday morning. These are the claims of her witnesses. They are told here as such.

Twenty years of opposition

Later priests at Laus treated her very differently. Several accounts speak of chaplains influenced by Jansenism, a severe movement of that age condemned by Rome, who distrusted her and the crowds. She was pressed to leave and to enter a convent. Some accounts say she was kept close to her house for about fifteen years and allowed to Mass only on Sundays. Others say she followed Mass through a small window of the church gallery. Dates and details vary. The pattern does not: about twenty years of slander and hardship, which she bore without bitterness.

In 1692 troops of the Duke of Savoy invaded the region. Benoîte and the priests fled to Marseille, and on returning they found the area devastated.

Peace came only near the end. In 1712, with a new bishop and new priests from Sainte-Garde, she was treated with honour again.

Her death

Benoîte received Communion on Christmas Day 1718 and died soon after. Most accounts give 28 December, a few give 25 December. She was 71. She lies buried before the main altar of the basilica, beneath a stone.

Benoîte could not write, so others wrote for her. Four men who knew her left about 1,800 pages of testimony: François Grimaud, a judge in the Avançon valley; Jean Peytieu; Pierre Gaillard, vicar general of Gap and her confessor; and François Aubin, a hermit and her confidant.

Aubin gathered the papers and handed them to the Fathers of Sainte-Garde. They were hidden during the French Revolution, and in 1824 an Oblate priest found them. An authentic copy was made in 1850 at the request of Bishop Depéry of Gap. Father De Labriolle published them in 1977. Their age and their witnesses are the strength of Laus, for we hear from people who stood beside her.