By: Sr. Elizabeth Ann Sjoberg, DC
Many wear the Miraculous Medal. Numerous miracles, healings, and conversions are attributed to it. But much fewer people know the fascinating story behind this Marian Apparition and the Saint who received it.
- St. Catherine Labouré is the only Saint to have touched an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On July 18, 1830, St. Catherine followed an angel appearing as a child to the Chapel, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared, seated on a chair. St. Catherine recounts kneeling with her hands in the Virgin Mary’s lap, “There, a period of time passed, the sweetest of my life.”
- After telling her confessor, St. Catherine Laboure kept her identity as the Visionary secret for 46 years. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine when she was a 24-year-old Seminary Sister (novice) at the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity in Paris, France. Despite the numerous healings and miracles associated with the Miraculous Medal, no one knew who was the visionary Sister was. St. Catherine worked with the poor and elderly for another 46 years before sharing her experience with her local superior and subsequently writing down her account of the apparitions.
- The Blessed Virgin Mary predicted calamities and strife, along with hope. The Virgin Mary told St. Catherine, “The times are evil. Sorrows will come upon France; the throne will be overturned. The whole world will be upset by miseries of every kind.” St. Catherine recounts that the Mother of God shed tears and that her face twisted in pain. Then the Blessed Virgin pointed to the altar where the tabernacle was and said, “Come to the foot of this altar. Here, graces will be spread over all who ask for them with confidence and fervor.”
- The Miraculous Medal was not its original name. The Blessed Virgin Mary instructed St. Catherine to have a medal made with the inscription “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” Mary promised that those who wore the medal and prayed for her intercession would receive special graces. It was originally called “The Medal of the Immaculate Conception”, however there were so many accounts of miracles by those who wore it that the people themselves began to call it the Miraculous Medal. At the time of St. Catherine’s death in 1876, more than a billion medals had already been made.
- The Miraculous Medal is connected to Our Lady of Lourdes. The Marian Apparitions to St. Catherine occurred in 1830 with the message “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” 24 years before Pope Pius IX declared the Immaculate Conception as a Dogma of the Catholic Church. Then in 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous. When St. Bernadette asked who she was, Mary said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette would later say, “The Lady of the Grotto has appeared to me as displayed in the Miraculous Medal.”
The Miraculous Medal, the only medal designed by Mary herself, is not a good luck charm or a superstition. But rather, the Medal is a reminder of Mary’s powerful intercession for our time and circumstances. May each of us heed her call to “come to the foot of the altar” and ask for God’s graces with confidence.
To learn more or share your story of favors received through wearing the Miraculous Medal and Mary’s intercession, go to https://miraculousmedal.org/
Sr. Elizabeth Sjoberg is a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. She is the Vocation Director for the Daughters of Charity Province of St. Louise and cohosts the podcast “In the Company of Charity” on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.