MODERN MIRACLES OF THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL

 

A few years ago, I decided firmly to embrace wearing Our Lady’s Miraculous Medal every day. I’d gotten a large oval one as a birthday gift from my friend Danny Risdon and felt a calling to keep it on me. 

This meant that my other necklaces were put to one side. I’ve always had something of a small obsession with neck jewelry. I broke school rules by my strands of many beads and I wore a choker with feathers as a twenty something. Okay, sometimes now I wear both a fashion necklace and Miraculous Medal, but I always keep the latter dangling right over my heart. 

 

Such was my lack of faith in Our Lady’s incomparable intercessory powers I didn’t think some of what has happened to me could come to pass. The first prevented my mugging. I was in a smart area, going about my business, when a petite woman approached me, seemingly all smiles and friendly. But then she viciously lunged in, grabbed my Miraculous Medal, but as soon as it touched her fingers, she had to drop it like a red-hot poker. I made my escape, knowing that the panic I felt was nothing to being robbed. Oh, thank you, Our Lady! 

 

A couple I know run an ethnic restaurant that I go to often, and once a young married couple came up to me, saying excuse me, but they’d like to ask as to my medal. They pointed and said, “Oh we recognize that as Mary”. Then they explained that they were thinking of becoming Catholic from devout Presbyterian. We got chatting. A year on, they swam the Tibor and we have become the best of friends. 

 

The most science-defying miracle for me was when a friend’s wife was dying young and had a dire complication that not all the money or medical expertise in the world could overcome. They were non-Christians and in desperation asked me if I had any clue. I told them to rush a blessed Miraculous Medal to her, they did so, and she recovered completely.

 

In tandem, there have been many, many occasions when lapsed Catholics have asked me as to why I wear it, sometimes they are random strangers who strike up a conversation when I’m buying tomatoes, or sometimes friends of friends. I look them straight in the eye and say I’d never be without it. This is a far cry from my past when I found it a penance to give up tawdry necklaces because they clashed with it. Ah, to my shame I had a hypocritical tendency to ask others to wear it, when I didn’t myself. Our Lady’s loveliness and patience is so evident in bringing a vain girl like me into her service. 

 

It is very timely that we gather all the “little” and big miracles, we only have 5 years until we’ll be celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the glorious time Our Lady gave the Miraculous Medal to humanity! Our Lady gave this gift to a 24-year-old novice. Catherine Labouré had joined the Sisters of Charity in the inner city of Paris and her usual job was in the laundry, her bare hands scrubbing linen in a tub. Once, late at night she was awoken by a tiny boy and led to the chapel which was saturated in bright light. She was met with an appearance of Our Lady who was beautiful beyond compare. This alone was an answered prophecy for the young nun who had lost her own mother at a young age and had been promised by St. Vincent de Paul that she’d see the Mother of God. 

 

Our Lady drew her close and told her that she was going to be given a “special mission” which would be revealed on the 27^th of November 1830. On this day, when Catherine was in the chapel, Our Lady appeared with rays of light coming from her hands and through a series of visions, gave Catherine a precise portrait of a medal she wanted to be struck, with the most edifying promise, “those who wear it when it is properly blessed will be the recipients of great graces.”

 

Catherine confided in her spiritual director who thought the young nun was gullibly imagining it all. Her next visit with him left him wondering had he disappointed the Mother of God. Catherine told him that in a subsequent apparition Our Lady had spoken of her grave disappointment. This spurred the priest to ask the opinion of the Archbishop, who also thought the laundress had a vivid imagination. But he was taken with the design of the medal and became convinced she was genuine. So, he had the medal stamped, and it went through several repoussé until it met with Our Lady’s absolute approval. Seemingly in a flash, the medal became internationally beloved and hailed as “miraculous” just by sheer reputation alone for being the conductor of extraordinary grace. 

 

None of the other nuns who were with Catherine knew she had played any part. All the while Our Lady appeared to her, she kept her post at the sink and scrubbed linen with a washboard and soap. While the medal was gaining such popularity, she was moved to work at a hospice, where she took on the humble tasks; even cleaning out the stables. 

 

Catherine had meekly expunged stains like she’d never been favored with visits from the Queen of Heaven. Like Our Lady is pursued by us souls stained with sin, Catherine was presented with stained cloth and mucky hay and went about her duties as though she’d never relayed messages that had led to conversions, cures and disasters averted. Catherine never shirked the dirtiest garments, and Our Lady will help the filthiest sinner with cleansing grace. 

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I wrote this column for the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales's magazine, The Mass of Ages, for the Winter 2025 edition. 

The first picture is from Wikipedia Commons, author Xhienne. 

The second is of the incorrupt body of St. Catherine Labouré is in the public domain.