OUR LADY OF MONTLIGEON : GLOBAL SHRINE OF PRAYER FOR THE DEAD A place of peace and listening where consolation is to be found A place where you can have prayers said for your dead ones A place where you can hear the Church’s message of Hope in Eternal Life

After a bereavement, it is often necessary to be able to confide in someone, to be able to weep… One of the vocations of the Shrine of Our Lady of Montligeon is to be a place of peace, of encounter, of listening for people in mourning. Here, each person can lay down his burden, tell of his sadness and find peace again. Our Lady of Montligeon, therefore, shows the face of a consoling Church, like a Mother who is attentive and close to the suffering of all her children, especially during their most sorrowful moments…

Often, to prevent the dead from being too quickly forgotten, too quickly erased from the memory of the living, there is a desire to remain in touch with them. Prayer allows this … To pray for someone close to us who has died, is to witness to them that our “love is stronger than death”, it is to experience that, in Christ, nothing is wasted, nor remains sterile. These prayers, as well as willing sacrifices, form a sort of lever, which allows God to act. Here, every year, thousands of names and faces of deceased persons are confided to our prayers. Our Lady of Montligeon is a place where the dead are confided to the prayers of all Christians.

The death of another person also often obliges us to question ourselves about our own end. We have all, one day, to answer these questions : What is the meaning of my life here on earth ? What will happen to me after death ? The mission of the Shrine of Our Lady of Montligeon is to announce the message of the Church concerning the eternal destiny of every man. This message is a powerful one of Hope.

Firstly, because man, created in the likeness of God, bears within him a seed of divine eternity. Next, because God has offered His Son to all men to be the Way, the Truth and the Life. With Christ, man knows where he came from, who he is and where he is going. Discovering our own destiny through Christ, we know that after the death of Good Friday, there is the Easter morning, that is a new life, in God. Beyond death, there exists, therefore, another world filled with angels and with all the dead who are “already saved”. In this invisible world, there are also those who are “potentially saved”, who have been called for a long time “the souls in Purgatory”. Under the influence of the infinite Love and Mercy of God, they are completing their “purification”. Finally, because permanent links exist between these two worlds, the visible and the invisible. The living can pray for the dead, and, vice-versa, the dead can intercede for the living. This is the whole mystery of the Communion of Saints.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Montligeon is, therefore, a place where Christians come to proclaim together their Hope in Eternal Life. An eternal Life which begins now, here on earth.