The shepherdess Melanie Calvat (1831-1940) was the daughter of a stonemason in La Salette, France. On September 19, 1846, Melanie, then 14 years old, andMaxime Giraud, age 11, were approaching a mountain stream near when they saw a ball of light downhill from them, looking "as though the sun had fallen there. A beautiful lady, all light and flowers," appeared out of the brilliant light and sat down on a stone in apparent great sorrow. The woman then levitated before Melanie and Maxime and addressed them with a prophetic message to the world, warning of a terrible future in which spirituality would decline and the clergy would degenerate. Then the Antichrist would come, followed by God's wrath:

"France, Italy, Spain and England will be at war. Blood will flow on the streets, Frenchmen will fight Frenchmen and Italian against Italian and in the end will come a war that will be terrible.

"For a period of time God will not remember Italy or France for they will have forgotten the Gospel. The evil ones will display all their malice and there will be murders even in houses. At the first blow of the sword of God which will fall, like lightning on humanity, the mountains and all nature will tremble because the disorder and the misdeeds of man will rise to the vault of heaven.

"Paris will be destroyed by fire and Marseilles will be inundated by the sea, other great cities will be destroyed by fire and razed to the ground. The just will have to suffer much: their prayers, penitence, and tears will rise to heaven; all the people of God will pray for pardon and sing misericords, and they will come to Me for My intercession and My help... There will be reconciliation between God and man and peace. They will serve, adore, and glorify Jesus Christ: love will blossom everywhere. The new rulers will be the right arm of the holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious, poor, fervent, and a perfect imitator of the virtue of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and men will make great progress in the faith because there will be union between the workers for Jesus Christ and all who live in the fear of God.

"But this peace will not last for long; twenty-five years of plenty will be almost forgotten and the sins of men will be the cause of all the punishment which will once again be meted out to Earth.

"A forerunner of Antichrist will marshall an army drawn from all nations, united under his banner. He will lead them in a bloody war against those still faithful to the living God. He will shed much blood in eradicating the cult of the living God and by taking His place. Then there will be seen many types of punishment on Earth besides the diseases and hunger which will be universal. Wars will follow wars and the final one will be led by one of the ten kings of Antichrist who will have only one will and will be the only ones to rule in the world.
"Before this event the world will have apparent peace and people will think of nothing but pleasure and the bad ones will commit sins of all kinds. But the sons of the Holy Church, the Sons of Faith, My perfect imitators, will grow in the love of God and in all virtue, under the guide of the Holy Spirit. I will fight on their side until they arrive at the fullness of time.

"For the evil done by men even Nature will cry out and earthquakes will occur in protest even against those who have committed crimes on Earth. The Earth will tremble and you yourself will also tremble of you, who are dedicated to the service of Christ, yet inside only admire yourselves. Tremble! The Lord is on the point of giving you into the hands of your enemies, inasmuch as the holy places are contaminated by corruption. Many convents are no longer the houses of God, but pastures of "Asmodeus," that is of the devil, impurity, and their followers.

"Thus the time will be reached in which the Antichrist will be born of a Jewish nun, a false virgin who will have intimate relations with the ancient serpent, the master of luxury. His father will be a bishop. As soon as he is born he will have teeth and pronounce blasphemies; in a word he will be a born devil. He will emit fearful cries, work miracles and wallow in luxury and impurity. He will have brothers who are demons incarnate as he will be, but sons of evil, and at the age of twelve years they will distinguish themselves in brilliant victories. Almost all of them will be the head of an armed force, supported by the infernal legions.

"The seasons will change their characteristics, the Earth will be lit with a fiendish red light; the water and the fire will cause terrible seismic movements which will engulf mountains and cities.

"Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist. The demons allied to Antichrist will operate on Earth and in the sky and Humanity will become worse. But God will not give up his truly faithful servants who are men of good will. The Gospel will be preached everywhere to all the people and the nations will know the truth.

"I make an urgent appeal to the whole universe; I call the true disciples of God who lives and reigns in the sky! I use my voice as the perfect imitator of the Word Incarnate, Christ, the only Savior of men. I warn my sons, those truly devoted to me, who are faithful to Me because they lead me to My Son, whom I carried in My arms and Who lives always in My Spirit. Lastly, I appeal to the apostles of the last days, the disciples faithful to Jesus Christ who wait for the rule Melanie will receive for them, who lead a life despising the world and themselves and who live in sight of a world in poverty and humility, in silence and in self-effacement, in continual prayer and in mortification, in love and in union with God in concealment and in suffering.

"The time has come that you should show yourselves to lighten the world. Go and show yourselves, my beloved sons. I am with you and in you. While your faith is the light which will help you in these days of disappointment, your zeal will give you fame in the glory of Christ.

"Fight, Sons of light, you small number who see, because the time of times, the final end, is near.

"The Church will be in the dark, the world will be convulsed, but in this confusion Enoch and Elijah will appear full in the spirit of God. They will preach, and in their words will be the power of God, and men of good will believe in God, and many spirits will be consoled, in virtue of the Holy Spirit they will make great progress and condemn the diabolical errors of Antichrist.

"Woe to the inhabitants of the Earth. There will be sanquinary war, hunger, pestilence and epidemics, terrible rains of insects, thunder which will shake entire cities, earthquakes which will make entire regions uninhabitable. Voices will be heard in the air, and men will strike their heads against the wall, wishing for death, but this will bring them, for their part, terrible torture. Blood will flow everywhere. Who could ever report victory unless God shortened the time of trial?

"Enoch and Elijah will be put to death; pagan Rome will be destroyed and fire will fall from heaven destroying three cities. The sun will be blackened and only the Faith will survive.

"The time is at hand. The abyss is opening: the king of darkness is watching, the beast is watching with his subjects who will proclaim him "savior of the world." He will rise into the air superbly to reach the sky, but the breath of Archangel Michael will kill him. He will fall back and the earth will shake without ceasing for three days. It will then open its womb full of fire and the best and his followers will be allowed into the eternal abyss of inferno. Then water and fire will purify the earth to destroy all human pride and everything will be renewed.

"If humanity is converted, stones and rocks will become fertile and produce grain, and the fields will give abundant harvest."