OUR LADY OF SOISSONS

ABBEY OF OUR LADY OF SOISSONS, FRANCE (1128) 

Feast Day: March 26

A plague afflicted the city of Soissons in the year 1128. For six days the victims went simultaneously to the shrine of Our Lady to implore her aid. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to them, accompanied by a hosts of angels. Those who witnessed the apparition and believed were miraculously healed immediately. The local Bishop asked all who were healed to make a novena of thanksgiving and to kiss the slipper of the Holy Virgin kept in the church. 

A rural servant of one of the knights of Soissons, named Boso, came to the church for the festival that concludes the novena. While his companions gave gifts and talked of the slipper of Our Lady, he gave nothing and scoffed at the idea, muttering, “You are very foolish to believe this to be the Virgin’s slipper. It would have rotted long ago.” At these words Boso’s blasphemous mouth was drawn toward his ear with such sharp pain that his eyes seemed to slip out of his head. A tumor appeared and covered his face, making it unfit for human use. Roaring and writhing, he threw himself before the altar of Mary, begging for help, as he had offended the Mother of God, and he knew there was no one else who could heal him.

The abbess, a woman named Mathilda, took the slipper and made the sign of the cross over the victim. Immediately he began to heal. The punished scoffer repented and gave himself up to the service of the Church of Soissons. Many were healed at the shrine.

The Abbey was once the largest in France, famous for its rich collection of relics, including the “Lady Slipper,” but all that remains today of the abbey is a ruined wall with two arches, as the rest was razed during the French Revolution.