Carissa Exercise 1

La Salette Shrine

It is apparent that modern pilgrimage sites, have not only been constructed to record hierophantic moments, through the use of memorialization. In addition, pilgrimage sites, are not only religious in nature, but they clearly delineate between the sacred and the profane. In today’s societies, pilgrimages can also be seen as ways of escaping the modern chaos of an industrialized world. I will further elaborate on he subject by discussing my own pilgrimage experience, like that at the Shrine of La Salette, which has allowed me to revisit the past and has forever linked this site and my memory.

I can strongly say that Western society (compared to that of the East) offers limited opportunities for further religious exploration. In American society today, one could perceive that the modern religious pilgrimage experience has now taken on a recreated identity as the secular road trip. When I think of the model pilgrimage experience, I am often reminded of the Hajj, which has often been described as a pilgrimage conceived as a journey for acquiring divine blessing (barka), the forgiveness of sins and protection of misfortune (Coster and Spicer, 156). Below, I will further discuss my own memories of my pilgrimage experiences at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

I first became acquainted with the Shrine of La Salette as a young girl. Every year, my family would make a trip out to the site for the annual Festival of Lights, where, over 3,000 lights were illuminated. It was at this moment that the site became more than just an area of lights; it became sacred in which it demanded my reverence. My next visit to the site occurred in fall of 2000, with my eighth grade class. We walked 15 miles to the shrine to commemorate the appearance of the Blessed Mother to two shepherd children on September 19th 1846 at La Salette, France. The journey not only enabled a renewed experience, but it also changed my perception of how I remembered the site. It was completely different from my first visit.

In many ways, the Shrine of La Salette (like that of the Taj Mahal) can be referred to as a religious site that underwent many transformations. It was developed into a sacred space through ritualisation. At the Shrine of La Salette in France, we clearly see the manifestation of the sacred with the apparition of the Blessed Mother. It is in my understanding, from looking at the history of the site at La Salette in Attleboro, that the creation of the space developed through the revelation of the sacred. It is known that one day in 1892, while James Solomon gathered herbs and roots in the woods on the property he conceived of an idea to build a great sanatorium on the spot where people would come to be healed of cancer. For the buildings dedication, the exterior was adorned with 1,800 lights that could be seen over four miles. It is apparent that the modern day Festival of Lights is a commemoration of this event. Here, like with my pilgrimage experience, we see an attempt to recreate the memory of the space. This is also evident following the destruction of Solomon’s Sanatorium by fire on November, 5th 1999, in which, the following year, the new Shrine Church of our Lady of La Salette was built on the very site.

In conclusion, one of the issues that I was presented with throughout this exercise is how do you accurately recreate the memory of space, such as a pilgrimage or important religious event. Can it even be achieved? I have no answer for this question; however, it is an issue that has become very ‘real,’ particularly when looking at sites such as the Taj Mahal or La Salette. What are you ultimately presenting to the viewer?

Below: is the link to the La Salette website

http://www.lasalette-shrine.org/index.html

I am very intrigued by your question--"what are you ultimately presenting to the viewer?" This leads me to more questions: are you presenting the modern ceremony with the modern viewers and participants? or a more ancient past? I also wonder how many of the modern participants are aware of the memory of this space and how many just 'ignorantly' enjoy the festivites? Do you have to be included in the memory of a space to fully appreciate its meaning? --Claudia

Posted at Mar 04/2008 02:31PM:
elisa: Carissa, your question about how to recreate the memory of space is a critical one, and an issue I have been wondering about myself lately. It seems to me that your memorial experience is not only on the physical space of La Sallette but on the pilgrimage itself. In a way architecture is conducive to the preservation of memory because (more or less) of its fixity. The tangiblity of a physical site does pose problems as to which and/or whose memories are "fixed" but it does not account for the memory of movement that occurs in rituals such as pilgrimage or procession. How can we "fix" the moving site?