St. Catherine Laboure, and the origin of the Miraculous Medal

Eighty years before Mother was born, the Miraculous Medal had its origin. The blessed Virgin Mary appeared on the 18th of July and on the 27th of November, in the year 1830, to a young Daughter of Charity, St. Catherine Laboure, on the Rue du Bac in Paris.  Saint Catherine heard a voice telling her "Have a medal struck according to this model. Those who wear it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around their necks. Graces will be abundant for those who wear it with faith." Our Lady's parting message to the visionary was that a medal be cast and distributed with a depiction of her Immaculate Conception on the front, and a tableau of Calvary on the back. Within ten years of the apparition-generally regarded as the beginning of the modern era of Marian phenomena-the Medal became so widespread and popular, and occasioned such numerous healings and conversions, that people began calling it the "Miraculous Medal," a nickname which continues to the present day.

French missionaries spread the Medal and its miraculous reputation worldwide in the mid-19th century. In 1842, the conversion of the rabidly anti-Catholic agnostic Alphonse Ratisbonne through the use of a Miraculous Medal, gained international celebrity.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Conventual Franciscan Friar and later Martyr of Charity at Auschwitz, St. Maximilian Kolbe, championed the mass distribution of Miraculous Medals. St. Maximilian called the Medal: "our weapon with which to strike hearts," and "a bullet with which a faithful soldier hits the enemy, that is evil, and thus rescues souls."

If St. Maximilian Kolbe can be considered the foremost advocate of the Miraculous Medal in the first half of the 20th century, Mother Teresa could be called the foremost champion of the Medal in the second half of the 20th century. Mother Teresa used the Medal as an effective tool for spreading the Gospel of Love.

This text was written by Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv. in honor of the beatification of Mother Teresa, October 19, 2003.

With ecclesiastical approval, Archdiocese of New York