The Catholic Defender: The Virgin Mary visits Vinay, France 1649, Our Lady of the Willow
- Jan 16
- 2 min read
Pierre Port-Comber, a farmer, abandoned the Catholic Faith for this new heretical group. Pierre Port-Combet, a farmer who had abandoned the Catholic faith for Calvinism.
Mr. Combet grew to reject anything Catholic would purposely work on Sundays and Feast Days as an outward protest.
Pierre was married to a devout Catholic, Jeanne, who bore six children trying to raise them Catholic but Pierre did not respect his vows he made before God and his wife.
He brought heresy within his household against his wife's objection.
Like St. Monica, she began to intercede for her husband at Mass and the Rosary.
Despite Jeanne's devotion, Pierre would work on Sundays and Holy Days to inflame the Catholic majority.
Disregarding his wife's warnings, Port-Combet went to prune a willow (osier) tree. As he struck the tree with his knife, it began to bleed profusely, splashing blood onto his hands and clothing.
On March 25, 1649, the Feast of the Annunciation Pierre staged himself to work near a road he knew neighbors would travel to make a spectacle. The hamlet of Les Plantées, then part of the parish of Vinay.
He began to attempt to cut into a willow tree with his knife when he found blood spilling out splashing on him.
Thinking he cut himself he wiped off the blood and proceeded to stab the tree and again the tree bleed bright red blood.
Jeanne came by the scene noticing Pierre was covered in blood.
Thinking he was hurt she quickly ran to him looking for evidence of a wound.
Pierre attempted to explain the strange occurrence so his wife took the knife and cut into the tree with zero blood, not even tree sap noticed.
Pierre watching his wife retook the knife and again stabbed into the willow tree and again the bleeding occurs.
When his wife tried to cut the tree, it did not bleed; however, every time Port-Combet struck it, the blood flowed again.
Eight years after the bleeding willow event, the Virgin Mary appeared to Port-Combet. September 19, 1657
Mary, dressed in white and blue, appeared in one of his fields. She identified him as a heretic and warned that his end was near, urging him to convert to Catholicism to save his soul.
The Virgin Mary appeared to Port-Combet, warning him to convert or face damnation, saying, "Realize that your end is at hand. If you do not return to the True Faith, you will be cast into Hell".
Following the vision, Port-Combet converted to Catholicism on his deathbed just a few weeks later. receiving the Eucharist before he died.
The hamlet was renamed "Notre-Dame-de-l'Osier" (Our Lady of the Willow) and became a pilgrimage site.
Basilica: A large church, now a minor basilica, was built on the site in the 19th century. A piece of the original miraculous willow tree is kept in a decorative box beneath the basilica's altar.
The site was granted a papal crowning of its statue by Pope Pius IX in 1856 and 1873, and it attained basilica status in 1924.
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