Our Lady of Laus

At Laus, the story does not end after one remarkable evening. It follows Benoîte Rencurel, a young shepherdess of the French Alps, through a lifetime shaped by prayer and the care of pilgrims. In 1664 she began reporting encounters with a beautiful Lady while tending her flock. The sanctuary’s account describes a gradual relationship, leading her to the small chapel of Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre—Our Lady of the Good Encounter.

The request associated with that chapel was deeply practical: a place was needed where sinners could return to God. A larger church rose around the little chapel, priests heard confessions, and Benoîte welcomed those who came. Reports of fragrance, healing, and other extraordinary experiences belong to the shrine’s memory, but its central work became reconciliation. The encounters associated with her life extended over fifty-four years, until her death in 1718.

Laus offers a quieter kind of beauty than a single public sign: the patience of grace with a person, and a person’s patience with others. Its message is not that Mary replaces the forgiveness of Christ, but that she leads people toward it. Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Léandri formally recognized the supernatural origin of the apparitions in 2008, after centuries of established pilgrimage. Benoîte was declared Venerable in 2009. The sanctuary still invites a good encounter—one in which a burden can be spoken honestly and a life can begin to turn toward God again.