Theotokos · Mater Dei
A Catholic treasury of Our Lady
A full account for the parish
Our Lady of Laus
Saint-Étienne-le-Laus, Hautes-Alpes · France
- Reported events
- May 1664 – 1718
- Witness
- Ven. Benoîte Rencurel
- Feast / local observance
- 4 May (anniversary of recognition)
Overview
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.
Church discernment
Diocesan judgement · see scope
Recognized as authentic and of supernatural origin by Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Léandri of Gap and Embrun, 4 May 2008 — the first apparition recognized in France in the twenty-first century. Benoîte Rencurel declared Venerable in 2009.
The full account · 5 min read
The long patience of a good encounter
This retelling follows the sanctuary’s account of Benoîte’s life and the diocesan history. Extraordinary signs are attributed to that tradition; the spiritual emphasis is the documented vocation of Laus as a place of reconciliation.
A young woman in the Alpine valleys
Benoîte Rencurel grew up in the modest circumstances of Saint-Étienne-d’Avançon, now Saint-Étienne-le-Laus. Her father died while she was young, and work helped sustain the household. Tending animals was part of her ordinary life. The sanctuary’s history places the beginning of her Marian encounters in May 1664 at the Vallon des Fours, when she was seventeen. Nothing in that beginning resembles the public importance her life would later acquire.
The early encounters are remembered as patient and gradual. A Lady appeared, sometimes with a child, while Benoîte brought her flock to the valley. The account does not begin with a lengthy programme or a demand for a famous sanctuary. It begins with repeated presence. Mary’s identity is disclosed within that unfolding relationship, and Benoîte herself must grow in attention, trust, and the ability to receive a vocation she did not design.
The little chapel of the Good Encounter
Later in 1664, the story moves toward the hamlet of Laus. The Lady directs Benoîte to seek a chapel, and the shrine tradition remembers a beautiful fragrance accompanying the discovery of Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre. The small, existing chapel becomes the place associated with the desire for a church where many people might find conversion. The name already offers a key: a good encounter changes how a person stands before God.
A chapel can be humble in appearance and immense in promise. In this account, the important transformation is not merely architectural. People are to find priests, speak their sins, receive forgiveness, and learn to live differently. Mary’s maternal care takes a recognizably Catholic form by drawing people into the sacramental life of the Church. The forgiveness they seek is Christ’s; no visionary can grant it by personal spiritual influence.
A sanctuary built around reconciliation
Pilgrims began to come, and ecclesiastical authorities examined the developing devotion. The sanctuary records the inquiry of 1665 and permission for its pastoral work. A larger church was built between 1666 and 1669, incorporating the original chapel. That visible growth accompanied the less visible labour of reconciliation: journeys made, confessions heard, habits reconsidered, and relationships that might be repaired after a return home.
Benoîte became closely associated with receiving pilgrims and encouraging them toward repentance. Accounts of her spiritual gifts describe an unusual insight into the needs of those who came. Such reports should not be turned into entertainment about someone’s hidden sins. In the sanctuary’s own understanding, the point is mercy. A person’s most painful truth is not exposed for curiosity, but brought before the God who can forgive and restore.
Fifty-four years are more than a moment
The extraordinary length of the Laus tradition distinguishes it from apparitions remembered as a single visit. Encounters and spiritual experiences are associated with Benoîte’s life from 1664 until 1718. A lifetime gives room for suffering, opposition, misunderstanding, and perseverance. The story cannot honestly be reduced to an uninterrupted sequence of consolations. A vocation is lived among other people, with the limitations and difficulties that human community brings.
That duration also offers a spiritual lesson without requiring us to reconstruct experiences the records do not describe. Conversion is often slower than excitement. A person may return repeatedly to the same sacrament, the same prayer, or the same demanding duty of charity. Laus gives dignity to that repetition. The good encounter is not always the moment in which everything feels transformed; sometimes it is the decision to return faithfully after disappointment.
Fragrance, oil, and the purpose of a sign
The shrine’s history includes reports of sweet fragrances and healings, and a devotional use of oil associated with the sanctuary lamp. These details belong to the account and help explain the affection many pilgrims have for Laus. They must also be kept in their proper place. Anointing with shrine oil is not a replacement for medical care or for the Church’s sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
Nor is a sensation of fragrance a measure of someone’s holiness or an assurance that an extraordinary encounter has occurred. Within Christian faith, a sign serves a relationship with God; it does not become a technique for controlling him. The enduring work of Laus can be encountered even without any unusual experience: prayer before Christ, an honest confession, the welcome of another person, and the freedom to begin again.
An old pilgrimage, a recent recognition
Benoîte died on 28 December 1718. Pilgrimage continued, and the sanctuary remained part of the life of the local Church. Yet longstanding permission for devotion and a formal judgement about the apparitions are distinct. Following renewed historical and theological examination and consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco Léandri issued the recognition of supernatural origin on 4 May 2008.
Benoîte’s declaration as Venerable in 2009 concerns the heroic character of her Christian virtues; it is not the same act as the recognition of the apparitions. Both invite attention to a life rather than an isolated sensation. At Laus, the most faithful way to receive the story may be very simple: stop concealing what needs healing, approach Christ’s mercy, and extend to another person the patience one has oneself been given.
Reading the Church’s judgement
In summary, the decree of 4 May 2008 recognized the supernatural origin of the apparitions associated with Benoîte Rencurel. This is an editorial account of the judgement, not a verbatim English translation of the decree. It followed a diocesan process reviewing the seventeenth-century manuscripts, three centuries of devotion, and the life of the visionary. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was consulted, and Benoîte’s cause advanced to the decree of heroic virtues in 2009.
Laus therefore carries the label “Diocesan recognition / public devotion permitted.” Catholics remain free in conscience with regard to the apparitions themselves; the Church invites them to the sacrament of mercy that Laus exists to offer.
For prayer and reflection
Refuge of sinners · Confession · Conversion
Beneath thy shelter we take refuge, Holy Mother of God; despise not thou our prayers in our necessities, and deliver us always from all dangers, Virgin glorious and blessed.
Sub tuum præsidium · general Marian prayer, not an apparition message. The Raccolta (1857), no. 76 · Ambrose St. John translation
Sources and further reading
- [1] Official shrine · Notre-Dame du Laus · history of the encounters and sanctuary (French)https://www.sanctuaire-notredamedulaus.com/le-message/histoire
- [2] Diocese · Diocese of Gap and Embrun · Notre-Dame du Laushttps://www.diocesedegap.fr/notre-dame-du-laus/
- [3] Church source · Catholic Church in France · Benoîte Rencurel and the message of Laushttps://eglise.catholique.fr/approfondir-sa-foi/temoigner/figures-de-saintete/365081-message-notre-dame-laus-benoite-rencurel/