Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

Memorial, November 27

The feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal commemorates the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a young novice of the Daughters of Charity, Catherine Labouré, in the chapel of the motherhouse in the Rue du Bac in Paris in 1830. These apparitions, which are among the most thoroughly investigated and most widely accepted private revelations in the history of the Church, gave rise to the Miraculous Medal, which has been distributed by the hundreds of millions throughout the world and which has been the occasion of innumerable conversions and miraculous cures.

Catherine Labouré was born in 1806 in Burgundy and entered the Daughters of Charity in 1830. On the night of July 18, 1830, she was awakened by a child of light who led her to the chapel, where she spent two hours in conversation with the Blessed Virgin Mary, who spoke to her of the suffering that was about to come upon France and the world. On November 27, 1830, Mary appeared to her again and showed her the image that was to be struck on the medal: Mary standing on a globe, crushing a serpent, with rays of light streaming from her hands, surrounded by the words O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Mary then showed her the reverse of the medal, with the letter M surmounted by a cross, and beneath it the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. She asked that the medal be struck and distributed, promising that those who wore it with confidence would receive great graces. The medal was struck in 1832, and its distribution coincided with remarkable conversions, among the most famous being that of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jewish man who had a vision of Mary while wearing the medal in 1842 and was immediately converted.

Catherine kept the secret of the apparitions for forty-six years, revealing herself as the visionary only shortly before her death in 1876. She was canonised in 1947. The feast is celebrated on November 27th.