Marie de Nazareth
To Jesus, through Mary
Yves Nicolazic was a just and upright man, honest and hardworking. A man of peace, his wisdom was often solicited to appease conflicts in Keranna, his home town. ... At the time of the apparitions, he was about 30 years old, had been married to Guillemette Le Roux for almost 10 years, and he and his wife were sad to not have children.
One of his fields was called the Bocenno. ... This place seemed to have been blessed by God, as harvests were always plentiful there... Something else that he couldn’t explain was that his oxen always refused to work there. Once, Nicolazic broke two plows there in one day! So the work had to be done by hand…
One summer evening in 1623, Nicolazic was praying to his "good mother" Saint Anne, when a strange torch suddenly appeared and lit up his room. The same occurrence repeated itself a few weeks later. This shows how Saint Anne chose to come to a family home first, in a discreet way, to honor what Saint Pope John Paul II called the "domestic church," and to invite all of us to rediscover that the home is the first place of conversion and evangelization.
These were not yet apparitions per se, but a prelude to Saint Anne’s apparitions. The saint was preparing the soul of Nicolazic for her visits.
The first apparition took place at the fountain in August 1623 and the following months. ... Pressed by his parish priest, Nicolazic asked her name to the majestic lady.
During the night of July 25, 1624, she revealed it:
"Yvon Nicolazic, do not be afraid:
I am Anne, the Mother of Mary;
tell your pastor that, in the plot of land called the Bocenno, even before there was any village, there used to be a chapel, the first one to be dedicated to me in the land of the Britons.
This chapel has lain in ruins for 924½ years now.
I would like it to be rebuilt as soon as possible, and that you personally take care of it. God wants me to be honored there."
On March 7, 1625, Yvon Nicolazic discovered the statue of Saint Anne, buried in the ground amid the rubble of the first chapel since the 6th century.
Anne didn’t expressly speak of penance or conversion in her apparitions, but her strong influence was felt when a local bandit, Pierre de Kériolet, changed his ways and returned to God.
Excerpts from: Sainte Anne