MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF MYANS
Feast Day - April 9, 1249
Savoy, France
Our Lady of Myans in Savoy, is located on a little hill
between Modane and Chambery near the Mont Cenis tunnel. It can be easily
recognized, as there is a huge statue of the Blessed Virgin standing atop the shrine’s
belfry. The shrine has been a pilgrimage center since at least the thirteenth
century, and its small ‘Black Virgin’ was an object of the devotion of Saint Francis de Sales.
This church became famous for a miracle that occurred there
on the evening of November 24, 1248. A tremendous earthquake shook the region
causing Mont Granier, the tallest mountain of the Chartreuse Massif, to
disintegrate into huge boulders which came crashing down into the valley. Some
of these boulders were the size of a house, and 16 villages were crushed and
5,000 lives lost. The church of Myans, however, was spared, though gigantic
boulders were stopped abruptly at the very door of the church. Some of these
boulders can still be seen around the church grounds.
A marvelous answer to prayer occurred in 1534 in favour of
Jean Grandis of Savoy, who was on a vessel bound from Genoa to Leghorn. When
the ship was threatened during a tempest and seemed likely to sink, Jean
Grandis called upon Our Lady of Myans, Queen of Savoy. Battered by the waves,
the ship foundered and sank. Jean Grandis was the only survivor. As a gesture
of thanksgiving, he travelled barefoot to the shrine and there placed his ex-voto.
It is said to be one of the oldest to survive.
Another miracle attributed to Our Lady of Myans was in favour
of the brother of Saint Francis de Sales, Count Louis de Sales, who in 1603 was
travelling to the Chateau of Cusy to marry Claudine Philiberte de Pingon. Since
there was no bridge in sight, the Count attempted to cross the River Cheran at
a place that he thought was shallow and sage. However, the Count was swept away
by flood water. Invoking the name of Our Lady of Myans and promising to make a
pilgrimage, he was suddenly thrust onto an obstruction that saved his life. The
wedding ceremony was conducted on April 2. The next day Saint Francis de Sales
offered a Mass of thanksgiving in the little crypt chapel before the miraculous
image of Our Lady of Myans.
The church was half destroyed during the French Revolution,
but the statue was saved and later enshrined again in the restored building,
where it was crowned in 1905.
The sanctuary is particularly resorted to by pilgrimages of
men, and the image was taken to Rome by a Savoyard pilgrimage for the
definition of the dogma of the Assumption in the year 1950.
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