The Apparition itself provides an answer to this question.  Mary's intervention, her words and the symbols she used are laden with meaning.  The choice of the witnesses, the circumstances of time and place support and heighten the significance of the event.

Mary’s intervention pertains to the specific mission she received from her Son at the foot of the cross, a mission she exercises fully since her Assumption. She had been assigned to “pray without ceasing to her Son” for us. But she has also appointed to mediate with us and lead us to her Son Jesus. The Church has discerned the authenticity and the efficacity of La Salette to direct our lives to the One from whom comes our reconciliation. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Mt 7: 15). Today, they are without number! Melanie herself was not always free from this pseudoprophetism. We must avoid confusing this with Mary’s intervention, whose sole purpose is to lead us to Jesus through conversion, both personal and communal.

Learning the signs

Nothing enters our minds without passing through the senses. We need signs. They are “words” intelligible to everyone. They are the first steps leading to a pedagogy of faith. The signs chosen by Mary at La Salette are, from point of view, very evocative.

  THE LIGHT that surrounded was not meant to astound us, but in the tradition of the church it has become a sign of the resurrection. Mary, risen in glory dwells in the glory of her Son. While she spoke to the children, the light envelope them also.

   AT LA SALETTE MARY WEEPS. “Her mother’s love is concerned for the brothers and sisters of her Son, who are still on the journey and struggling with trials and dangers” (Lumen Gentium 62). Mary weeps on her Son Jesus who unrecognized and rejected by people. She weeps over us, “poor sinners”. She weeps over the misfortunes that overwhelm us and goad us into rebellion instead of leading us on to conversion. She weeps over the little heed we pay to her intersession. “I am obliged to entreat him without ceasing. But you take no heed of that.”

To love is to grant someone the power to make us suffer. The tears of Mary are signs of her powerlessness I the face of our freedom, when we refused the salvation that is offered to us. They are likewise the signs of her love, that last resource of a mother who is now reduced to tears in an attempt to reach unfeeling hearts. In this way she reveals the tenderness of God. “Who then is God who weeps over our pain like a mother? Who then is God, so cruelly wounded when we wound others? Who then is God to love us so?”