Our Lady of Pellevoisin

Our Lady of Pellevoisin
Notre-Dame de Pellevoisin
Location	Pellevoisin, France
Date	14 February to 8 December 1876
Shrine	Sanctuary of the All-Merciful Mother of Pellevoisin

Our Lady of Pellevoisin is a series of Marian apparitions in Pellevoisin, in the province of Berry, in the department of Indre, France. It is west of Châteauroux in the Catholic Archdiocese of Bourges.

In 1876, a domestic servant, Estelle Faguette, claimed to receive a series of fifteen apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and recovered from a serious illness, tuberculosis. In 1983, Archbishop Paul Vignancour of Bourges formally declared the cure to be inexplicable in the light of medical science and that her cure could rightly be regarded as a miracle by Catholics.

Following authorization by the Archbishop of Bourges in 1877, Estelle's bedroom was transformed into an oratory. Pellevoisin rapidly became a place of pilgrimage, the shrine of Our Lady of Pellevoisin. The Catholic Church has never made a formal pronouncement on pilgrimages of the alleged apparitions, but Pope Leo XIII encouraged the pilgrimages by approving indulgences to pilgrims, and also approved related devotions to Our Lady.

A distinctive feature of the reported events of Pellevoisin is the request to use a Scapular of the Sacred Heart.

Estelle Faguette was born 12 September 1843 at Saint-Memmie near Châlons-sur-Marne and joined the Children of Mary at the age of 14. She entered an order of Augustinian nursing sisters, but left while still a novice, she tripped and fell on a staircase; although the sprain seemed trivial at first, two weeks later, her leg was immobilised and doctors considered amputation. On 15 September 1863, Estelle reluctantly accepted that she could not pursue the life of a nursing sister and returned to her parents’ home.