THE GREEN SCAPULAR

Day 261: January 28

The Green Scapular, Sr Giustina Bisqueyburu, Paris

Ten years after the apparitions to St Catherine Labouré to whom the Blessed Virgin gave the precious Miraculous Medal. Our Lady appeared to another Daughter of Charity, Sister Giustina Bisqueyburu for another great gift: the Green Scapular in honor of Her Immaculate Heart.

The daughter of a merchant and a noblewoman, Giustina was born in Mauléon (Lower Pyrénées) on November 11, 1817 for the feast of St Martin. She was raised with love by her maternal aunt who, together with her husband, for the strong emotional bond that had united them, left her their entire patrimony at death.

At the age of 22 she asked permission to leave for the hospital in Pau, where she made her postulancy under the guidance of Fr Aladel, Director of the Daughters of Charity, who was already following the spiritual path of St Catherine Labouré.

At the end of the novitiate she was sent to Blangy (Seine-Lower) with the charge of the school (1840). In 1841, sent to Versailles, she made her vows and immediately showed her exceptional aptitudes in the care of the sick. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, she volunteered for Constantinople with other nuns. Military hospitals alternated in France and then in Algiers. All of this put her to the test, but her humility and complete trust in God were rewarded. Sent to Rome, she received the esteem of the Holy Father Pius IX several times. A missionary who knew her well, said speaking of her: "What martyrdom! It must have had a firm vocation to have been able to withstand such a storm."

In 1868 she left Rome to take over the direction of the Hôtel-Dieu in Carcassonne. It was her last stop. She stayed there for thirty-five years, giving us as in all other places, the example of many virtues and working immense good.

Just as God had already used a daughter of St Francis de Sales, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, to manifest the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the world, so He wanted to use a daughter of St Vincent to reveal the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to offer it to the veneration of the faithful, and to make her holy image an instrument of salvation for the infidels and poor sinners. A first manifestation of the Heart of Mary is on the reverse of the Miraculous Medal of St Catherine Labouré (1830), on which it appears, pierced by a sword, on the side of the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns and surmounted by a cross.

Sister Giustina had arrived in Paris on November 27, 1839, too late to participate in the great retreat that had ended a few days earlier. She therefore had to wait for her retirement in January 1840 to "enter into vocation", as it was called then. It was in the retreat room, where a beautiful statue of Our Lady, rich in history, stood that the nun had the first manifestation of the Heavenly Mother, on January 28, 1840. Here is the nun's description: "She wore a long white robe, and a blue mantle without a veil. She had her hair scattered over her shoulders and held in her right hand her Immaculate Heart, surmounted by symbolic flames."

The apparition was repeated several times during the months of the novitiate, without Our Lady expressing herself in any way, so much so that the visionary interpreted these heavenly favors as a personal gift, with the simple purpose of increasing in her devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On September 8, however, the Blessed Virgin completed her message of mercy and expressed her will. Sister Giustina had already been in Blagny's house for some time. Mary's attitude was that of the other manifestations with the Immaculate Heart in her right hand. In her left hand, however, she held a scapular, or rather a "medallion" of green cloth, with a ribbon of the same color. The front face of the medallion depicted the Madonna, while on the back face stood her Heart, pierced by a sword, radiant with light as if it were made of crystal and surrounded by the significant words: "Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death!"

It was a single piece of green cloth of rectangular shape and smaller size. A distinct voice made the visionary understand Our Lady's desire: to make and spread the scapular and the short prayer, to obtain the healing of the sick and the conversion of sinners, especially at the point of death. In subsequent manifestations similar to this, the hands of the Blessed Virgin were filled with shining rays, which rained down on the ground, as in the apparitions of the Miraculous Medal, a symbol of the graces that Mary obtains from God for us. When Sr Giustina decided to speak of these things and of Our Lady's desire to Fr Aladel, she of course, found him very cautious or even skeptical.

Some time passed, but then finally, after an initial approval, perhaps only oral, made by the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Affre, the scapular began to be made and used privately, obtaining unexpected conversions.

In 1846, Fr Aladel explained to the visionary some difficulties that had arisen and begged her to ask for a solution from Our Lady herself. In particular, it was desired to know whether the scapular should be blessed with a special faculty and formula, whether it should be "imposed" liturgically, and whether persons who wore it piously should make special daily practices and prayers. The Blessed Virgin, on September 8, 1846, replied with a new apparition to Sister Giustina, suggesting the following:

"This Scapular is not, like the others, the insignia of a confraternity, but simply a double pious image placed on a single piece of cloth and suspended from a cord, as a medal would be, NO SPECIAL FORMULA IS NEEDED TO BLESS IT; NOR IS IT A QUESTION OF IMPOSING IT. It is enough that it be blessed by any priest, and carried by the infidel or sinner who wishes to submit to its beneficent influence. You can still put it, UNBEKNOWNST to him, among his clothes, or in his bed, or in his room. As for the PRAYERS TO BE RECITED, there is only one to be said each day, the one that forms the oval inscription, by which the Sacred Heart is surrounded on the Scapular: "IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, PRAY FOR US, NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH." If the person in whose favor this Scapular is applied does not say it, the person who employed the Scapular should say it in his place. This Scapular can be used in France as elsewhere. THE GREATEST GRACES ARE ATTACHED TO ITS USE; BUT THESE GRACES ARE MORE OR LESS CONSIDERABLE, ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF TRUST THAT ACCOMPANIES IT. All this is signified in the last apparition by the more or less large rays that come out of the hands of the Blessed Virgin."

The miracles of conversion multiplied. The best known had taken place in 1859, with the conversion on his deathbed and the confession of his misdeed, of the murderer of Monsignor Affre, Archbishop of Paris. The story of this conversion was told by Sister Dufés, one of the two Daughters of Charity who assisted the dying man to the end. The murderer died saying: "It is to Mary, refuge of sinners, that I owe my conversion!"

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"He fills time and space with His Eternal, Endless Song of Love: Come, my beautiful, my Immaculate! Show me your face, which is full of beauty; let me hear your voice, full of sweetness.""

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 155)