1. Origins of the Pilgrimage
  2. The Oblates at l’Osier
  3. The years of Prosperity, 1834-1903 The Parish
  4. The Pilgrimage
  5. Parish Missions
  6. Novitiate
  7. Revolution of 1848 and Expulsions of 1880 and 1903
  8. Notre-Dame de l’Osier since 1903

Father Alexandre Dupuy (1798-1880) left the Congregation in 1830. Upon leaving Notre-Dame du Laus in the diocese of Gap where he was treasurer, he offered his services to Bishop Philibert de Bruillard, the bishop of Grenoble. Bishop Bruillard appointed him parish priest of Notre-Dame de l’Osier, also with a view to reviving that Marian shrine which had been very much deserted since the Revolution.

Origins of the Pilgrimage
In the hamlet known as “les Plantées” four kilometres from Vinay in Isère in the 17th century there lived Pierre Port-Combet. He was a Calvinist (Huguenot) and was married to a Catholic. Now, at that time, the Catholic religion was the state religion. It was forbidden under penalty of fine to work on Sundays and feast days of obligation. On March 25, 1649, the day of the Annunciation and a feast day of obligation, the farmer set himself to cutting branches of water-willow. Immediately, blood began to pour from the tree covering the bill-hook and the garments of the profaner.

Eight years later, in the month of March 1657, Pierre Port-Combet was working in one of his fields in a place known from that time on as “Happy Encounter.” Suddenly, he noticed a beautiful lady dressed in white. She was enveloped in a blue mantle and her head was covered with a black veil. Among other things, she said: “The Huguenot who cut the water-willows, where does he live? Does he not want to convert?” “I do not know.. He dwells far over there.” “Ah, wretch,” the lady replied, “ do you believe that I do not know that you are that Huguenot? Well, then, know that the time of your end is near. If you do not change your present condition, you will be one of the greatest coals that ever was in Hell. If you change your religion, I will protect you before God!” Peter converted a little before August 15 and died shortly thereafter.

From 1649 on, initially curiosity and then a genuine piety brought a flock of visitors and then pilgrims who grew in number after 1656. A piece of land was purchased around the miraculous water-willow. The Marquis of Estang, lord of Vinay, had a small oratory built there in December of 1656. Healings followed. The Augustinian priests of Vinay were given pastoral responsibility for the shrine in 1664 and resided there until the dissolution of their order during the Revolution.

The Oblates at l’Osier
Shortly after his arrival at the place, in 1834, Abbé Alexandre Dupuy purchased the former convent of the Augustinians adjacent to the shrine. He took possession of it on March 14 along with Father Toussaint Dassy who was recovering from an illness and had come there to recuperate.

A zealous apostle and capable preacher, Father Dassy had gained the respect of the parish priests of the area and gained the confidence of the bishop. With the consent of Abbé Dupuy, he obtained that the direction of the shrine should be conferred on the Oblates. Father Bruno Guigues, appointed superior of the future community, arrived on May 20, followed by Father Ambroise Vincens on September 7, 1834. This fifth oblate house was like a breath of fresh air for the Congregation. Since the Revolution of 1830, the Congregation had been marking time without being able to make the dreamed of foundation in Algeria, in Sardegna, in Savoy and even in America, according to the desires of Father Hippolyte Guibert.

Fathers Guigues and Vincens were respectively superiors, each serving a ten-year term. Abbé Dupuy had already begun to restore the convent and the church. In 1837, he sold his property of Notre-Dame de l’Osier to the Oblates and was incardinated by Bishop de Mazenod not long previously appointed bishop of Marseilles. Father Guigues saw to it that the work continued. Along with his confreres, he especially developed the works: the parish, the pilgrimage, the parish missions and the novitiate. The novitiate flourished right up until 1903.

The years of Prosperity, 1834-1903
The Parish

Abbé Dupuy remained parish priest right up until his departure for Marseilles in 1837. He was replaced by Father Guigues, then to our day, by one of the Oblates who wore as well the hat of director of the pilgrimage. The parish in question was very small and was made up of faithful that Father Marcelin Beuf characterized as “practicing very little their faith.” The parish prospered under Father Jean Fayette. In 1869, he had schools and various associations, except for young people. In 1886, when the municipality wanted to organize a dance, the twenty-three female vocalists from the parish refused to participate.
The most outstanding priests in this charge were Marcelin Beuf, four times parish priest from 1853 to 1890 (he was parish priest for twenty-two years in all), and Joseph Sestier who remained as parish priest there for thirty-eight years (1890-1902; 1912-1941). Mention must also be made of Brother Antoine Chaleyssin (1877-1964) who spent seventy years of his life at l’Osier at the service of the community, the parishioners and the pilgrims, serving in the capacity of cook, in charge of the wine cellar, driver, sacristan, cantor, organist, etc.

The Pilgrimage

At the time of the Oblates’ arrival pilgrims used to come in small numbers and would find the church closed. During his first visit which he made in the summer of 1835, the Founder was struck by the lack of fervour of the parishioners and the pilgrims. “Hardly,” he wrote in his acts of visitation, “does anyone ask for confession on Saturday and there are only a few more on Sundays.”

Notre-Dame de l’Osier (GA).

On the patronal feast of September 8, as in the past, the shrine witnessed a great affluence of visitors, attracted, according to the codex of September 8 of 1834 and 1835, less by devotion to Mary than by the liveliness of the dancing, the hubbub of the merchants or again the good food at the inns. On September 3, 1835, the Founder wrote to Father Guigues: “Remember that Providence has put you at the service of this shrine so as to give better guidance to people’s devotion. I pray that their devotion to the Holy Virgin will bring them to conversion through your ministry.” (Oblate Writings I, vol. 8, no. 541, p. 191)

In 1836, Bishop de Mazenod noted with joy the progress in the pilgrim’s devotion. Every Saturday one of the priests gave an instruction to teach the faithful how to make their pilgrimage holy. The presence of the priests, getting to know them through parish missions, the solemnity with which the month of May and the feasts of the Blessed Virgin were celebrated contributed little by little to attracting pilgrims and creating an atmosphere of prayer around the shrine. From 1837 on, the priests saw to it that the great feast of September 8 was preceded by an eight day retreat.

Here are a few numbers that are revealing. On the feast of September 8, 1834: 20 communions, 600 in 1838 and 1000 in 1845. The number of pilgrims grew to about 15,000 a year with 25,000 in 1873, the year the statue of the Virgin was crowned. The numbers began to decline after the expulsions of 1880 and especially those of 1903.

In order to make the pilgrim site better known, the Oblates wrote a few monographs on Notre-Dame de l’Osier, from Father Dassy in 1838 up until Father Louis Delarue in 1966. (see Sources and Bibliography )

Parish Missions
By entrusting the pilgrimage to the Oblates, Bishop Philibert de Bruillard also made them responsible for the diocesan parish missions. The first parish mission was preached at Saint-Georges d’Espéranche in December of 1834 by Fathers Dassy and Vincens. Through the years, the requests for parish missions and retreats grew. In his letters to Father Guigues from 1834 to 1843, Bishop de Mazenod often urged the missionaries to remain strictly faithful to the customs of the Congregation in this field of ministry.

Right up until the end of the century, Missions dedicated dozens of its pages each year to relating the events and the beneficial results of parish missions and retreats preached by the priests of Notre-Dame de l’Osier. From 1860 to 1870, the six or seven preachers in the house preached each year some twenty missions and as many retreats. From 1873 to 1879, the preached one hundred missions and mention 468 other kinds of ministry (retreats, novenas, sermons for special occasions, etc.) In Missions (11 (1873) p. 288-289), we read: “In this regard, we can say that the house of l’Osier has preserved up until now the style of our first years. Our priests are, without question, the most sought after missionaries in the dioceses of Grenoble and Valence.” In the reports made to the General Chapters, there are listed 70 missions, 256 retreats between 1886 and 1892, then, from 1892 to 1898, 70 missions, 32 follow-up missions, 294 retreats, 2 Lenten series, about fifty individual sermons. In Missions (44 (1906) p. 323), we read: “At the end of the century, this house ranked among the foremost of the houses of mission preachers then existing in France.”

Novitiate
In 1841, the Founder decided to transfer the novitiate to Notre-Dame de l’Osier where the young would be more likely to find some healthy air and the atmosphere of recollection and prayer necessary for religious life than they woud in Marseilles. Abbé Melchior Burfin was the first to receive the habit there on February 17, 1841 at the hands of Father Ambroise Vincens who had been appointed novice master. Already as of 1842, they built a second story on the house to accommodate the novices whose number increased each year after the departure of the first Oblates for England and Canada. This novitiate remained open right up until the expulsions at the end of 1902. In 62 years of existence, 1350 postulants took the habit there for an average of more than 20 per year.

In 1892, the 50th anniversary of the novitiate was celebrated in solemn manner. Missions dedicated 66 pages to telling of this event, the history of the institution and the publication of the speeches and sermons which were pronounced by Fathers Louis Soullier, assistant general, Celestin Augier, provincial for Midi, Melchior Burfin, first novice and Bishop Mathieu Balaïn, o.m.i., bishop of Nice who presided over this family feast. Each one in his own way stressed the edification that the novices generally contributed to the community by their regular life, the grandeur and the solemnity they contributed to the pilgrimages by their singing the joy they spread everywhere in their long walks through Vercors or to the Abbey of Saint-Antoine, the Traits monastery of Chambarand or, yet again, to Murinais, where the generous benefactress of the shrine whose name was Francine Murinais, reserved for them a princely welcome in her castle.

Fifteen priests were successively masters of novices, a few of them had a profound impact, such as Fathers Ambroise Vincens (1841-1848), Florent Vandenberghe (1853-1862), Édouard Gandar (1872-1883) and Alphonse Durif (1884-1894).

Some scholastic brothers from Marseilles, then from Autun after 1862, often came to spend their summer vacation at Notre-Dame de l’Osier. Others made their philosophical studies there, especially in 1848 (revolution), in 1870 (Franco-Prussian war), in 1881-1882 (expulsions), etc. Still others spent their vacations there up until the closure of the scholasticate of Notre-Dame de Lumières after the 1939-1945 war. In 1883-1884, that house also received the juniors expelled from Notre-Dame de Lumières and Notre-Dame de Bon Secours.

Revolution of 1848 and Expulsions of 1880 and 1903
Several serious trials tested the community, but did not succeed in destroying it. The revolution of February 1848 occasioned only one danger alarm in the community. Some hot-heads from Vinay arrived, exuding threats of malevolence. Father Cyr Chauvet, the treasurer, succeeded in pacifying them by talking to them and offering them all a drink of wine. Most of the missions and the other ministry during Lent were countermanded and several novices from Savoy who had been recruited the previous year by Father Jean-Claude Léonard, left the novitiate.

On March 29 of 1880, government decrees against the religious communities were published. A delay of three months was granted them to receive government recognition. If they did not receive this recognition they would be dissolved. The priests were cast out of l’Osier manu militari [by armed force] on November 4. The militia and the vice-prefect who led them overlooked the wing which housed the novitiate. Consequently, the life of the twenty novices and the scholastic brothers went on as before. However, they avoided participating in the religious ceremonies held in the church. The priests who had been expelled found lodging with some neighbours, but little by little returned to the house and the local authorities, a rather tolerant lot, allowed them to live in community and to continue their priestly ministry.

The expulsions of 1903 had more long-lasting and more harmful consequences. One of the July 1, 1901 laws obliged new religious bodies to request authorization for legal existence. In March of 1903, the Chamber of Deputies voted for a blanket rejection of requests. The Oblates of l’Osier were forced to leave before April 8. The priests scattered except for Father Prosper Monnet, the provincial, Father Joseph Balmès, the parish priest, Father François Masson and Brother Justin Delange. The expulsion took place June 16. On October 3, the priests had to appear before Saint-Marcellin tribunal for having resisted the militia. They were condemned to a few days in prison and a few hundred francs fine.

At the first auctioning of the Oblates property, no buyers presented themselves. Two successive auctions had to be held so that the goods could be parcelled out among several purchasers.

Notre-Dame de l’Osier since 1903
The Oblates returned quietly to l’Osier in 1908. They found there a rundown building which they had to buy back and repair. Activities were relaunched, but slowed again during the wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.

Shortly after their arrival at l’Osier in the 19th century, the Oblates had thought of constructing a new church with a capacity of seating at least 2000 people. The cornerstone of the future church in neo-gothic style was laid on May 17, 1858. Ten years later, Bishop Achilles Ginoulhiac, the bishop of Grenoble from 1853 to 1870, had the pleasure of inaugurating this church. On September 9, 1873, a large number of pilgrims took part in the festivities surrounding the crowning of the Blessed Virgin. By his apostolic letter of March 17, 1924, Pope Pius XI bestowed on the church the title of minor basilica.

In 1856, the Oblates had erected, as well, in memory of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the tower of the chapel of Bon-Rencontre. In 1941, this tower was restored after a fire which had partially destroyed it the year before.

In the first half of the 20th century, the pilgrims continued to come in rather large numbers. There was an estimated 10,000 at the feast of the fiftieth anniversary of the crowning of the Blessed Virgin in 1923. In a note in Missions (80 (1953), p. 618), we learn that in the shrines directed by the Oblates of Midi “pilgrimages are more in vogue than ever among our faithful.” That hardly lasted, but pilgrims and tourists still come, especially in August 15 and September 8.

Parish missions and retreats continued with good results right up until Vatican Council II. In 1947, the houses of Lyon, l’Osier and Bordeaux refused ministry each year for lack of personnel. (Missions, 74 (1947), p. 41) This boom in ministry came to an abrupt end. Christmas night of 1948, the house was destroyed by fire. The priests were compelled to seek refuge in the house that formerly belonged to Canon Dupuy. This house subsequently became a simple Oblate residence and the personnel living there, far reduced in number, ceased preaching in the parishes of the surrounding dioceses. Missions (86 (1959) p. 3) explained the relinquishing of this ministry which had been the most distinctive trait of the Oblates at l’Osier. It said it was due to the lack of room in the residence and the fact of being too far removed from the larger centres which made it difficult to work in teams.

The Oblate Sisters of Mary Immaculate, founded in l’Osier in 1842 by Father Ambroise Vincens – they eventually amalgamated with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux in 1868 – had built between the basilica and the tower of Happy Encounters a large convent meant to serve as a mother house and school, a centre for receiving pilgrims and for hosting retreats. This building, which was bought by the Oblates in 1940, served from 1940 to 1970 as a centre for receiving pilgrims. Since that time, it has become a retirement home for the aged (100 beds), administered by lay people. In 1991, an addition was built as temporary lodging for (24 beds) for pilgrims and retreatants.

For the last twenty years, there has only been two priests who minister to the pilgrims and do ministry in a few of the surrounding parishes. On the other hand, in the cemetery, awaiting the resurrection, we find the remains of twenty-nine priests and brothers among whom lies Father Jean-Baptiste Honorat, founder of the mission in Canada.

On the occasion of their May 1993 session, the provincial council of France-Midi made the decision to withdraw the Oblates from Notre-Dame de l’Osier within a few years.

Along with Le Calvaire in Marseilles, it would be another important place in the history of the Oblates of France that the present circumstances and the aging of personnel would compel them to relinquish. For a century and a half, this house provided the scope many Oblates needed to live fully the ends of the Congregation: evangelizing the poor, a Marian apostolate, religious life in community without neglecting the missionary spirit. Indeed, among the first six missionaries sent to Canada, two belonged to this house: Fathers Lucien Lagier and Jean-Marie Baudrand. Less than three years later, it was the turn of Father Guigues, the superior of l’Osier for ten years, to go as extraordinary visitor and superior for the Oblate missions of America. Others soon followed: Peter Aubert, François Bermond, Jacques Santoni, the master of novices who became the first provincial of Canada in 1851, not to mention Father Ambroise Vincens who, in the course of his canonical visit in 1863, drowned at Maniwaki.

Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i.