Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

https://www.roman-catholic-saints.com/our-lady-of-the-miraculous-medal.html 

November 27: Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (1830)

It was almost midnight, when Sister Laboure was awakened by someone calling her. 
She saw at the foot of her bed a beautiful child, beckoning her to follow; arriving at the chapel, she beheld Our Lady, who spoke to her for 2 hours.

On November 27, while the community was assembled for prayer, Mary came for a second visit. 
Her head was covered with a soft white veil, she stood on a ball on which was a serpent with crushed head. 

In her hands Our Lady held a small ball, the globe, with a tiny cross at its top, & offered it to God as she prayed. 

Upon her fingers were many rings, filled with precious stones of varied beauty & brilliancy. 
As rays of light shot forth from those stones, Our Lady lowered her eyes & spoke to Catherine Laboure:

“This ball which you see is the world; I am praying for it & for everyone in the world. 
The rays are the graces which I give to everyone who asks for them. 

But there are no rays for some of these stones; many people don't receive graces because they do not ask for them.”

Then Mary’s arms were lowered & she became brighter & lovelier; a group of words encircled her head:

“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

And a voice said:

“Have a medal made according to this picture. 
All who wear it when it is blessed will receive many graces especially if they wear it suspended about their necks.”

The vision of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal turned & showed the letter “M” surmounted by a cross with a crossbar beneath it; under the initial of the name Mary were the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary: the first encircled by a crown of thorns; the second transfixed by a sword. 
Encircling the entire picture were 12 stars with a golden frame. 

In December 1831, the third apparition repeated the request for the making of the medal of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. 
Sister Catherine told her superior & her confessor about Mary’s request. 

When Father Aladel told the archbishop, his Excellency said, “Have a medal made at once & send me some of the first made.” 

In June, 1832, the first 2,000 medals appeared. 
So many miracles were wrought by the use of the medal, that it was called “The Miraculous Medal.”

Six years later another desire of Our Blessed Mother’s was answered when an altar was constructed on the very spot where she appeared, in the Chapel of the Apparitions.

Sister Catherine Laboure died in 1876, December 31, & all felt she had gone directly to Heaven.
On July 27, 1947, she was canonized by Pope Pius XII. 

When her casket was opened shortly before, her body looked as lovely as it did when she died 56 years before.

The Miraculous Medal is a badge stating that the wearer has on ideal: the Blessed Virgin, & one ambition: to retain purity of soul throughout life by keeping that soul in the state of grace always. 

If you wear Mary’s Miraculous Medal & live for what it represents, you should be one of the happiest people in the world.

“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal 

*from the Woman in Orbit

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1830: The Miraculous Medal & Paris in Flames 

Our Lady appeared to the young novice Catherine Labouré in the Daughters of Charity chapel on Rue de Bac in Paris. The year 1830 was a dangerous one for France.  

Paris was in turmoil, as the July Revolution had unseated one monarch & set adrift unemployed, angry workers manning more than 4000 barricades throughout the city.

Catherine‘s 3 apparitions led to the popular devotion of the Miraculous Medal. 

 In the second of these, Mary appeared atop a globe with rays of light radiating from her hands. 
Framing Mary in the shape of an oval were the words, “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” 

In Catherine‘s vision, the reverse side showed the letter ‘M’ surmounted by a cross, below 2 Hearts. 
The Sacred Heart was crowned with thorns; the Immaculate Heart was encircled with roses & pierced by a sword.

 

Catherine reported that Our Lady had instructed her to have a medal created from the vision, promising abounding graces to all who'd wear it confidently. 

Two years later, a massive cholera epidemic struck, which claimed the lives of 20,000 Parisians. 
The Sisters distributed the ‘miraculous’ medal; soon healings were reported as well as protection from the disease. 

Mary’s medal also set in motion some amazing events.
Eight years after the epidemic, the Rue de Bac Chapel once again became the site of apparitions. 

The Blessed Mother appeared again, this time to Sister Justine Busqueyburu, entrusting her with the Green Scapular of her Immaculate Heart for the conversion of sinners, in particular those who have no faith.

 

Two years after this, an atheistic French banker from a prominent Jewish family, Alphonse Ratisbonne, famously converted to Catholicism. 

Ratisbonne visited Rome on holiday where by his own account he was wearing the Miraculous Medal as a kind of joke when he visited the famous baroque church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte on January 20, 1842. 

It was there that Mary appeared to Ratisbonne, converting him on the spot.

“He was quite unable to explain how he had passed from the right side of the church to opposite lateral altar… All he knew was, that he'd found himself suddenly on his knees, & prostrate close to this altar. 

At first he had been enabled to see clearly the Queen of Heaven, in all the splendor of her immaculate beauty; but he couldn't sustain the radiance of that divine light. 

Thrice he'd tried to gaze once more on the Mother of Mercy; thrice he been unable to raise his eyes beyond her blessed hands, from which there flowed, in luminous rays, a torrent of graces.”

 

Alphonse Ratisbonne became a Jesuit priest & later founded the religious congregation of Fathers & Sisters of Zion in Jerusalem. Catherine Labouré  died more than 30 years later, still a cloistered nun in her Paris convent. Her remains were found to be incorrupt in 1933; she was canonized in 1947 by Pope Pius XII.