Visit to Notre-Dame du Laus

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28, 2025 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the month of July at La Salette Shrine in the Alps. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. Please keep his trip in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. His dispatches are often rich with history as he has a love of this subject. 

On Monday, July 14, I took the day to go to the Shrine of Notre Dame du Laus to stop in at the Adoratio conference there. My mother and I had attended Adoratio in 2024 in Toulon, and so it was nice to see attendees again, including Fr. Florian, and to meet people I had only known online, including Stefan from Germany (shown in the picture above far left), who was so munificent as to have printed and send many Children's Rosary books for distribution. I took the bus to Gap from Corps, and Florence, who was kind enough to host us for dinner last year when we were in France, generously took me from the Gap bus station to the Shrine. 

After I arrived, Fr. Florian invited me to dine with the other priests, after which I met up with the French group leaders (photo at the top of the post) and then walked around a bit, seeing the Basilica and the house of the visionary, Benoîte.

Perhaps some of you are aware of the apparitions at Notre Dame du Laus and know the story, but others of you may have never heard of it, so as with La Salette, I will give some context.

It was May 1664. In London, Charles II had just ascended to the throne of England some years before, heralding the beginning of the Stuart Restoration. In Paris, Louis XIV was beginning his long absolutist reign of France as the Sun King.  In Amsterdam, the Dutch were enjoying a golden age of cultural and economic well-being after their successful war for independence from Spain, characterized by great triumphs of Dutch literature and art, such as The Jewish Bride by Rembrandt. On Manhattan island, the future King James II of England was three months away from capturing the city of New Amsterdam from the Netherlands. In Leipzig, the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz had received his Master's degree in philosophy three months before. At Oxford, Robert Hooke had just discovered biological cells using his famous microscope. Meanwhile, at Cambridge, a young man named Isaac Newton was just completing his third year of studies. And in the rural countryside of southeastern France, the Virgin Mary appeared to a simple shepherd girl named Benoîte Rencurel. 

At that point in time, the Catholic Church in the Hautes-Alps region of France had been wracked by a wave of Jansenist theology. This theological position, originally proposed by the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, took a dark view of man's nature. With notable Calvinist overtones, Jansenism placed nearly exclusive emphasis on the necessity of God's grace to save and downplayed or rejected the role of human free will. Men were either predestined to receive irresistible grace from God or they were not, but on their own, they could not resist sin, according to Jansenist theology. Their views also led them to look suspiciously on the frequent reception of communion and participation in pilgrimages. 

It was at this time that Benoîte, 17 years old, first saw the Virgin Mary. She worked as a shepherd to support herself after the death of her father when she was only 7 years old. 

The shepherdess was pasturing her sheep in a little village called "des Fours," and she was praying the Rosary. She saw a "beautiful Lady" standing near her. Not knowing who this might be, she asked the Lady who she was and what it was she wanted. However, the Lady did not respond. For three months, this continued each day, with the silent apparitions and the unanswered questions. 

Once rumor of this had spread, a local judge, François Grimaud, questioned the girl about what she had seen. Struck by the simple and unassuming responses he received, he became convinced she was telling the truth. Eventually the Lady revealed Herself as the Mother of God, and when, in September, the Lady asked Benoîte to organize a pilgrimage with the young people from her parish to the mountain the next day, Grimaud helped the parish priest to facilitate such a pilgrimage. 

On September 29, the Lady asked Benoîte to find a small chapel in Laus, from which would emanate pleasing odors, and pray there. At that point, Benoîte did not live in Laus, and so there she went. She found in Laus an oratory dedicated to "Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre" in ruins from which emanated the promised odor. 

Our Lady appeared to her on that spot and told her that a great church would be built in that place for the conversion of sinners. Within a few years, a Church was built around the old oratory in that very place.  The apparitions would continue there for over half a century, until Benoîte's death in 1718. The Church still stands today, inside of which priests are available to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When I arrived, there was a Mass underway, celebrated by one of the priests of the Missionaries of the Holy Eucharist, Fr. Florian Racine's order. Inside of the chapel, there is the Holy Oil of Laus, which feeds a candle that burns continuously. Our Lady told Benoîte that this oil, if one applies it and prays for Our Lady's intercession with faith, will cause healing. I obtained some of it from little bottles they give away by the welcome desk. 

In 1673, Jesus crucified appeared to Benoîte. From then on, until 1684, every Friday from 4:00 until 9:00 am Saturday, Benoite witnessed the Passion of Jesus Christ. 

As Our Lady had told Benoîte in 1664, the message of Laus would be above all, a call to repentance and to confession. And so, schooled under Our Lady's direction for many years, Benoîte's life mission was to help great sinners to repent and to find them suitable confessors. In the later years of the apparitions, Benoîte endured hostility from Jansenist clerics in the region who disliked the continuous confessions and frequent communions and pilgrimages at Laus. 

In 1718, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, December 28, Benoîte died, and the apparitions at Laus ended.

During the French Revolution, the priests stationed at the Shrine were expelled by the Revolutionary government. It was bought again by Bienvenu de Miollis, the Bishop of Digne, in 1805. This was the bishop, incidentally, who inspired the character of Monseigneur Myriel in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. The cause for his beatification was opened in 2023.

In June of 2005, Bishop Jean-Michel Di Falco, bishop of Gap, began the process of approving the apparition site, appointing a committee of historians, theologians, and psychologists to sift through the documents and evidence and determine whether ecclesiastical approval could be given. The committee unanimously determined there was no obstacle to approval, and, on May 4, 2008, at the Basilica of Notre Dame du Laus, Bishop Jean-Michel Di Falco, in the presence of the apostolic nuncio to France, declared that the apparitions had been officially approved by the Catholic Church.

After having lunch with Fr. Florian and taking a picture with the group leaders, I walked down with Stefan to the house of Benoîte. 

The whole village is a very beautiful and peaceful place with many apparition sites since the apparitions continued over 54 years. 

I said some prayers, took some pictures, and then it was time to take the bus back to Corps. 

A Children's Rosary Group Makes a Visit to Radio Maria Ireland

 

The Children's Rosary from St. Patrick's Church in Celbridge, Ireland gathered in the photo below. They took a mini bus to the Radio Maria Station in Ireland (photo above) where they led the Rosary at 12:30 pm on Saturday June 28, 2025. This was also the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Members of the Children's Rosary have been helping to lead the Rosary at 12:30 pm on Saturday afternoons. It has been a lovely way for listeners to hear members of the Children's Rosary each week from different parts of the country. This is the first time one of the groups has traveled to lead the prayers on site at the station. Usually they call into the station. The children had a lovely visit. Sixteen children attended, six parents, two group leaders and two Radio Maria staff. Anne Carney, one of the group leaders, share "the Radio Maria staff were so welcoming and arranged a little party for the children and parents also. We had a wonderful time". 

The Children's Rosary from West Chicago visits the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin

The Children's Rosary at St. Mary's Church in West Chicago, USA recently sent some pictures from their Children's Rosary group. The picture above was taken in May on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. 

The group leader shared, "Some great news we wanted to share is that we are blessed to have Father Andrew Buchanan from St. Mary’s in West Chicago accompany our group and help us in the children’s consecration. Attached are pictures of our group on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and a pilgrimage we made with the group’s families to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin." 

This Children's Rosary group will be using our book Child Consecration (https://consagraciondeninos.com) to make a 33 Day personal Consecration journey beginning September 4. 

Visit to Gap, France

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28, 2025 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the month of July at La Salette Shrine in the Alps. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. Please keep his trip in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. His dispatches are often rich with history as he has a love of this subject. 

On Friday, July 11, I had a day off from volunteer work, and I decided to go on the excursion organized for the volunteers to Gap. We arrived first at a park just outside the city called, "Parc National des Écrins." I spent some time in front of the Château de Charance, a majestic old building facing terraced gardens, which overlook an expansive view of the surrounding area. The Château was built in the tenth century as used as a military fortification against the Medieval counts of Provence. In the fourteenth century, it was bought by a French bishop and remained in the possession of various bishops until the French Revolution, being alternately destroyed and restored several times. During the French revolution, it was appropriated as a national asset by the revolutionary government. It had various owners throughout the nineteenth century before being acquired by the local government and opened to the public in 1973. 

The garden in front of it is an English-style garden, first designed and laid out in the nineteenth century. The English-style garden differs from the French or Italian-style gardens, which were inspired by the Baroque era and the Renaissance respectively. Less ordered, the English garden perhaps is more reminiscent of the Romantic time, freer and wilder, with less fixed lines and schemes. 

After having lunch, we drove into the old town of Gap, at the center of which is the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Arnoux, or more colloquially, the Gap Cathedral. It is a very pretty building, which is quite easily visible from a far distance away given its high steeple.

There had been various churches built on that site since the fifth century, but they were destroyed and new ones built throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. 

In the mid-nineteenth century, the local bishop decided to build a new Church on the site of a previous one, which had become old and dilapidated. That is the current structure which still stands. It was built in a NeoGothic style, with Romanesque and even Byzantine influence. 

Gothic architecture arose during the High Middle Ages as a successor to Romanesque architecture. It is characterized by pointed arches and very tall stained glass windows, both of which are facilitated by flying buttresses, large support structures which project out the sides of the Church and help to sustain the enormous weight of the pointed arches. Before the High Middle Ages, engineers and architects didn't know how to support the weight of a pointed arch sufficiently to construct one that was very high, so Romanesque architecture consists more of rounded arches, which are much lower in height. 

The front of the Cathedral does have rounded arches above the doors, indicating a Romanesque component, and the front of the Church (and the interior too) is comprised of differently colored stones, a decidedly Byzantine feature. 

As I stood outside the Church, attempting to film a short video, I noticed someone waving at me. It turned out to be someone my mother and I had met at the Adoratio Conference in Toulon last summer. She was happy to see me and told me that she was still interested in starting a Children's Rosary but had been held back in the past year by some health issues. 

In the interior of the Church, there are some very nicely done paintings and elegant stonework. I went inside to pray, and percolating at the back of my mind was the idea that I should seek out the pastor and try to give him some Children's Rosary materials. Seeing no one about, however, I figured I would need to head to the presbytery. But since I wanted to pray first, I settled down in the pews; not ten minutes later, some people walk in with a tall priest, clad in a long black cassock. After the group finished going over preparations for a baptism the next day, I addressed myself to the priest, who I found out was the pastor. He is from the Community of Saint Martin, which took over administration of the Church in 2021. 

The order was founded in 1976 by a Fr. Jean-François Guérin, a priest who, incidentally enough, was at one point chaplain at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris that I visited and discussed in an earlier post. The order incorporates many traditional elements of the Roman rite, such as the Divine Office sung in Latin. 

The pastor told me that they had many families at the Basilica. He was very interested in the Children's Rosary and accepted the proffered materials. 

After that, I walked around a bit, took some pictures from the back of the Church and from the rest of the lovely downtown before making my way back to the group to return to La Salette. 

Mass Above the Clouds

 

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the month of July at La Salette Shrine in the Alps. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. 

On Wednesday morning, some of the volunteers decided to climb up to the summit of Mt. Gargas, which reaches 2,208 meters high, next to La Salette Shrine for Mass at dawn. We left the Shrine at 4:30 am. It was my first time reaching the very top of the mountain, and the view on the way up was quite splendid. One can see from the pictures that we were above cloud level, and it was cold with a strong wind. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a T-shirt, a sweater, and a winter coat, and I was still quite cold. 

La Salette Shrine was visible far below, and I really felt like this was probably the closest thing people had to being in a plane before the twentieth century. We had Mass, which was quite nice, although the pall and corporal very nearly blew away more than once. 

Not all of the volunteers went on this hike, but I daresay those who did consider themselves quite blessed for the experience.

A Familiar Face

 

Asher began a year-long journey to help spread the Children's Rosary on June 28. The month of July he is spending as a volunteer at La Salette Shrine in France. Today he was praying in the chapel when Janet Vogel entered. He recognized her. We met Janet last summer in France at the Adoratio Conference in Toulon. She has since begun a Children's Rosary prayer group in Switzerland. Both Asher and Janet will be attending the Adoratio Conference which begins July 13 at Notre-Dame du Laus. Asher will only be able to attend on July 14 but he looks forward to seeing other Children's Rosary group leaders who will be attending. 

Children's Rosary Participates in Corpus Christi Procession in Germany

 

We received these lovely pictures today from the Children's Rosary group in Fulda, Germany. They participated in the Corpus Christi Procession on Thursday June 19 from the Church "Rabanus-Maurus-Kirche".