BLESSED VIRGIN OF THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL

Day 199: November 27

BLESSED VIRGIN OF THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL,

RUE DU BAC, PARIS, FRANCE

Catherine had great devotion to St Vincent. On June 18, 1830, the eve of the feast of Saint Vincent, the young novice Catherine prayed to the saint. Her heart was overflowing with love and asked the intercession of the saint to help her fulfill her great desire to see the Blessed Virgin. At 11:30 at night, she heard her name called.

A mysterious child stood at the foot of the bed and invited her to get up: "The Holy Virgin is waiting for you," he told her. Catherine dressed up and followed the child, who spread rays of light wherever he passed.

When they reached the chapel, Catherine stopped near the priest's chair, located in the choir. She then heard "something like the rustling of a silken robe." "Behold the Holy Virgin," said her little guide. Catherine hesitated to believe. But the child repeated in a louder voice: "Behold the Holy Virgin." Catherine ran to kneel before Our Lady, who was seated on the priest's chair. "So, I jumped to get closer to her, and I knelt on the steps of the altar, with my hands resting on Mary's knees. The moment I spent like this was the sweetest of my entire life. It would be impossible for me to say what I felt. The Blessed Virgin then told me how I should behave with my confessor and many other things."

Catherine received the announcement of a mission and the request to found the Confraternity of the Daughters of Mary. This was done by Father Aladel on February 2, 1840.

"On November 27, 1830, Saturday preceding the first Sunday of Advent, at half past five in the evening, a few minutes after the reading of the meditation point, in the great silence, I seemed to hear a noise on the side of the tribune, near the picture of St Joseph, like the rustle of a silk robe. I looked that way and saw the Blessed Virgin at the height of the picture of St Joseph, standing on a white globe. She was dressed in white, of medium height, and her face was so beautiful that it would be impossible for me to describe it. She had a white-dawn dress, made as they say "virgin-style", with smooth sleeves. Her head was covered by a white veil, which fell on both sides to her feet.

Under the veil I glimpsed her hair parted in the middle and above it a lace of about three millimeters in height, without creases, that is, resting lightly on the hair. The face was clearly visible, the eyes now raised to the sky and now lowered. Her feet rested on a globe, that is, half a globe, because I could only see half of it. In her hands she held another globe, representing the world, at heart level with a maternal and natural manner. Her eyes were turned to the sky and her figure was so beautiful that I could not describe her.

Then, suddenly, her fingers were filled with rings with precious stones, each more beautiful than the other, some larger, others smaller, emitting rays, each more beautiful than the other... These rays shone on all sides and filled the lower part with splendor, so that I could no longer see her feet...

While I was contemplating her, the Blessed Virgin lowered her eyes and looked at me. A voice then said to me: "This globe represents the whole world, especially France, and every person in particular... The rays are the symbol of the graces that I grant to those who ask me for them...".

I understood how sweet it is to pray to the Blessed Virgin, how generous she is towards the people who pray to her... and how much joy he feels in granting his graces. At that moment, I don't know if I still existed or not... I only know that I was happy!

... Then an oval frame was formed around the Blessed Virgin , in which these words were written in gold letters: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you" Then a voice came to me and said to me: "Have a medal made on this model; the people who wear it around their necks will receive great graces; graces will be more abundant for people who will bear it with confidence."

… Suddenly it seemed to me that the picture was turning and I saw the back of the Medal. Anxious to know what was to be engraved on this side of the Medal, after many prayers, one day, during meditation, I thought I heard a voice saying to me: "the M and the two Hearts say enough!"

Then everything disappeared like something that goes out and I was left full of good feelings, of joy, of consolation."

On the model of the medal that Mary herself commissioned by Catherine was written the inscription that was only defined as a dogma in 1854: Immaculate Conception: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you" written in golden letters.

In December 1830, during meditation, Catherine heard a rustling again, this time behind the altar. The same picture of the medal appears near the tabernacle, but a little further back.

"These rays are the symbol of the graces that the Holy Virgin obtains for those who ask for them... You will never see me again."

It was the end of the apparitions. Catherine reported Our Lady's requests to her confessor, Father Aladel. The priest reacted negatively and forbade Catherine from thinking about these things. The shock was profound. On January 30, 1831, her religious formation ended. Catherine took the habit. The next day, she went to the hospice in Enghien, founded by the Orléans family, located at 12 Rue de Picpus in Reuilly, in the eastern part of Paris, in a poor neighborhood, where she served the poor for 46 years, unnoticed.

A few months after the apparitions, Sister Catherine was sent to the hospice in Enghien (Paris, 12th) to care for the elderly. The young nun set to work. But an inner voice insisted: the medal must be made. Catherine spoke about it again to her confessor, Father Aladel.

In February 1832, a terrible cholera epidemic broke out in Paris, resulting in more than 20,000 deaths!

Finally, Aladel, convinced of the sanctity of his penitent and of the reality of the heavenly communications, and fearing displeasure to the Virgin whose complaints about the delay were addressed to him, decided to approach the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. De Quelen, for permission to mint the Medal. Permission was enthusiastically granted, but the minting was delayed until June 1832 due to the cholera epidemic that was plaguing Paris.

On June 30, 1832, goldsmith Aurélien Vachette delivered the first 1,500 medals. On the back, where Catherine quoted the Virgin saying: "The M and the two hearts are enough,” Vachette added the 12 stars of Revelation 12:1 that surround the whole. Despite these innovations, Sister Catherine approved the new medal of the Immaculate Conception.

The Archbishop received the first Medals and immediately experienced their effectiveness with the conversion of the former Bishop of Mechelen, Bishop Pradt, who, having become a schismatic, was in danger of dying outside the Church. It was the Medal's first miracle!

In June, the Daughters of Charity began distributing the first medals, minted by Father Aladel. Healings multiplied, as did protections and conversions. It was an extraordinary event. The people of Paris called the medal "miraculous". By the autumn of 1834, there were already more than 500,000 medals. By 1835, there were already more than a million worldwide. By 1839, the medal had been distributed in over ten million copies. By the time of Sister Catherine's death in 1876, there had already been more than a billion medals!

Its diffusion was truly prodigious, not only in France but throughout Europe. From the very first years, millions upon millions of medals were minted, and the graces obtained were so astonishing that the Medal was soon called Miraculous. Wear it with faith and love, imitating the purity of the Immaculate Conception, and it will be truly miraculous for you too!

After her death, her body was buried in the crypt beneath the Church of the Convent on Rue du Bac, Paris. In 1933, when it was exhumed, it was found incorrupt . Her remains are currently displayed in the same chapel where Catherine received the apparitions of Our Lady, not far from the urn containing the heart of Saint Vincent de Paul.

The words and images printed on the obverse of the medal express a message with three intimately linked aspects. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you. Mary's identity is revealed to us here explicitly: the Virgin Mary is immaculate from the moment of conception. From this privilege, which derives from the merits of the Passion of her Son Jesus Christ, flows her power of intercession, which she exercises for those who pray to her. And this is why the Virgin invites all men to turn to her in the difficulties of life. Her feet are placed on half the globe and crush the serpent's head. The half-sphere is the terrestrial globe, the world. The serpent, as among the Jews and Christians, symbolizes Satan and the forces of evil.

The Virgin Mary herself is engaged in the spiritual battle, in the struggle against evil, of which our world is the battlefield. Mary calls us to enter into the logic of God, which is not the logic of this world. This is the authentic grace, that of conversion, which the Christian must ask of Mary in order to transmit it to the world.

Her hands are open and her fingers are adorned with rings covered with precious stones, from which rays emanate, falling to the earth, spreading downward.

The splendor of these rays, like the beauty and light of the apparition, described by Catherine, recall, justify and nourish our trust in Mary's faithfulness (the rings) towards her Creator and towards her children, in the effectiveness of her intervention (the rays of grace, which fall on the earth) and in the final victory (the light), since she herself, the first disciple, is the first fruits of the saved.

The medal bears a letter and images on its reverse, which introduces us to Mary's secret. The letter "M" is surmounted by a cross. The "M" is Mary's initial, the cross is Christ's. The two intertwined signs show the indissoluble relationship that binds Christ to his most holy Mother. Mary is associated with the mission of Salvation of humanity on the part of her son Jesus and participates, through his compassion (cum passio = to suffer together), in the very act of Christ's redemptive sacrifice.

At the bottom, two hearts, one surrounded by a crown of thorns, the other pierced by a sword. The heart crowned with thorns is the heart of Jesus. It recalls the cruel episode of the Passion of Christ, before his death, recounted in the Gospels. The heart symbolizes his Passion of love for men.

The heart pierced by a sword is the heart of Mary, his Mother. It refers to Simeon's prophecy, recounted in the Gospels, on the day of Jesus' presentation in the temple of Jerusalem by Mary and Joseph. It symbolizes the love of Christ, which is in Mary and recalls his love for us, for our salvation and the acceptance of the sacrifice of his Son.

The juxtaposition of the two hearts expresses that Mary's life is a life of intimate union with Jesus. Twelve stars are depicted around them. They correspond to the twelve apostles and represent the Church. Every baptized person is invited to join in Christ's mission, uniting their heart to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

The medal is a call to the conscience of each one, so that he or she may choose, like Christ and Mary, the path of love, to the point of total self-giving.

Officially approved by the Church, the Miraculous Medal has spread everywhere and no one can count the "great graces" obtained. Among the best known, the conversion of the Jew Alfonso Ratisbonne, on January 20, 1842, in Rome, in the church of St Andrew of Fratte: a conversion that aroused in the young Maximilian Kolbe one of the strongest impulses to found the Militia of the Immaculate 75 years later.

A marble bust of the saint today commemorates the First Mass that he wanted to celebrate there on April 29, 1918. The MetFelini Lidio, who died at about 85 years old, who during the war in Abyssinia was saved by the Miraculous Medal that had stopped an explosive bullet. This bullet hit, denting, the aluminum medal that Lidio kept in the breast pocket of his jacket, causing him only minor injuries. The doctor colonel told him that he had been miraculously healed and the episode was reported by the Corriere della Sera (Evening News) of the time.

The truth of faith expressed by the words engraved on the Miraculous Medal: "O Mary conceived without sin..." anticipated the solemn definition of the Church made by Pius IX on 8 December 1854, later confirmed by Our Lady in Lourdes in 1858 with the words spoken to Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception."

This truth highlights at least three of the privileges with which the Madonna is rich: the immaculate conception, her universal mediation, her queenship. Thus Mary is fully part of the "Mystery of Christ and the Church."

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Let us use the bigger form of the miraculous medal, holding it always in our hands as in a perpetual embrace. It will be a sign in your hand as a remembrance and imploration of all the laws of love. We give it especially when miracles are needed for the good of another in body and spirit. The Virgin of the miraculous medal will really be for us Our Lady of miracles."

(Book of the Soul, quoted in: Ludovico Caputo, Vocationist Marian Devotions, Edizioni Vocazioniste, Napoli, 2010, pp. 32-33)