- What it shows
- Mary stands on a half-globe and crushes the head of a serpent. Rays fall from rings on her open hands. Around her runs the prayer “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” with the year 1830.
- Reading
- The globe, Catherine heard, “represents the entire world, including France, and every person.” The serpent beneath her foot is the enemy of Genesis 3:15. The prayer confesses her Immaculate Conception, twenty-four years before Pius IX defined it.
Pillar II · Apparitions · France, 1830
Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
In 1830 a young novice of the Daughters of Charity in Paris saw Our Lady in her convent chapel and was asked to have a medal made. Catherine Labouré kept her secret for forty-six years. The medal went around the world.
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At a glance
| Place | The chapel of the motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity, 140 rue du Bac, Paris, France |
|---|---|
| Dates | Three apparitions in 1830: the night of July 18–19, November 27, and once more in December |
| Seer | Catherine Labouré (24), a novice from a farming family in Burgundy. She spent the rest of her life in hidden service to elderly men at a hospice in Paris, and only her confessor knew she was the seer until shortly before her death on December 31, 1876. Beatified by Pius XI on May 28, 1933, and canonized by Pius XII on July 27, 1947. |
| Church judgment | The Archbishop of Paris, Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen, seeing “nothing in it at all contrary to faith,” allowed the medal to be struck; the first were made on June 30, 1832. In 1836 he ordered a canonical inquiry into its origin. Catherine, wishing to remain unknown, did not testify; her confessor, Fr. Jean-Marie Aladel, gave a deposition dated February 16, 1836. Later accounts report that the inquiry concluded in favor of the medal's supernatural origin and of the graces attributed to it. Leo XIII approved a feast of the Miraculous Medal on July 23, 1894. Recognized long before the 2024 norms. |
| Feast | November 27, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (not in the universal calendar; kept by the Vincentian family and where it has been adopted). St. Catherine Labouré, November 28. |
| Pilgrimage | The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Rue du Bac, where Catherine's body rests. St. John Paul II prayed there on May 31, 1980. |
| Weight | Approved private revelation: Catholics may accept it with prudent devotion but are not bound to believe it (CCC 67). |
What happened
On the night of July 18, 1830, the eve of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, Catherine was woken by a child who led her to the chapel. There she heard “like the rustle of a silk dress,” and Our Lady sat by the altar while Catherine knelt beside her. “There, a period of time passed, the sweetest of my life,” she wrote. Our Lady told her she had a mission to carry out, and invited her: “Come to the foot of this altar. Here, graces will be spread over all who ask for them with confidence and fervour.”
On November 27, during evening meditation, Catherine saw Our Lady standing on a half-globe, her feet crushing a serpent, rays of light streaming from her open hands. An oval frame formed around her with words in gold, and Catherine heard: “These rays are a symbol of the graces that I pour out on those who ask them of me.” Then the image turned to show the reverse, and she was asked: “Have a medal made according to this model. For those who wear it with confidence, there will be abundant graces.” In December the vision returned once more, and she was told: “You will not see me anymore.”
Catherine told no one but Fr. Aladel, who at first hesitated. With the archbishop's approval, the first medals were struck in 1832, as cholera was sweeping Paris. Reports of healings and conversions spread so quickly that the people of Paris began to call it the “miraculous” medal. The best known was the sudden conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a young Jewish banker from Strasbourg, in a Roman church in 1842. Catherine's identity was made known only after her death.
Words of Our Lady and of Catherine are quoted from the English pages of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, which draws on Catherine's own accounts.
What Our Lady asked
Come to the altar
The first message points not to the medal but to the tabernacle: graces are given at the foot of the altar to all who ask “with confidence and fervour.”
Ask
The rays from her hands are graces she pours out on those who ask for them. The medal is a reminder to ask, not a charm that works without faith.
Wear the medal with confidence
“For those who wear it with confidence, there will be abundant graces.” The promise is tied to trust in God, through his mother's intercession.
Pray the invocation
“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee” (the traditional English form; the chapel's English pages give “…who have recourse to you”). In French on the medal: O Marie conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous.
St. John Paul II, praying in the chapel 150 years later, began with the Hail Mary and that invocation, and went on: “This is the prayer that you inspired, O Mary, in Saint Catherine Labouré, in this very place, one hundred and fifty years ago” (prayer of May 31, 1980; our translation from the French).
The medal
Every part of the design comes from what Catherine saw. The chapel's own explanation is summarized here.
- What it shows
- A large letter M surmounted by a cross. Beneath, two hearts: one encircled by the crown of thorns, the other pierced by a sword. Twelve stars around the edge.
- Reading
- The M bound to the cross shows Mary's place in her Son's work of salvation, standing by the Cross (John 19:25–27). The hearts are the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, wounded together (Luke 2:35). The twelve stars recall the apostles and the Church.
The Miraculous Medal and the Book of Revelation
The medal is a small picture of the great sign of Revelation 12. It does not interpret Scripture; it echoes it.
- The woman and the serpent. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3:15). The Catechism calls this the Protoevangelium, the “first gospel,” announcing “a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers” (CCC 410). The NABRE note on this verse recalls that Jerome's Vulgate reads “she” (ipsa), which was taken to refer to Mary, and that “in Christian art Mary is sometimes depicted with her foot on the head of the serpent,” as she is on the medal. The victory itself belongs to her Son.
- The ancient serpent. Revelation names the dragon “the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan” (Revelation 12:9), joining the last book of the Bible to the first.
- A crown of twelve stars. “On her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). The twelve stars encircle the reverse of the medal.
- The woman and her children. The dragon wars against “the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus” (Revelation 12:17). The prayer on the medal is the cry of those children: pray for us who have recourse to thee.
- Woman, behold your son. The cross over the M recalls Calvary, where Jesus gave his mother to the disciple: “Woman, behold, your son” (John 19:26).
Read with careThe Miraculous Medal is a sacramental, not a talisman. Its graces come from God and are received through faith and prayer, as the promise itself says: “with confidence.” The record of the archdiocesan inquiry is not published online. Fr. Aladel's history confirms that it was held in 1836 and records his deposition; the favorable conclusion is reported by later accounts, and some of them date the inquiry's opening to 1835. The Church's clearest acts are the archbishop's permission for the medal, Leo XIII's feast, and the canonization of St. Catherine.
For reflection
Do I ask?
Our Lady showed Catherine rays of grace waiting to be given to those who ask. What grace have I stopped asking for, and could I bring it to the foot of the altar this week?
Sources
- Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Paris, The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal (official site), and La Médaille Miraculeuse, in French
- St. John Paul II, Prayer in the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal (May 31, 1980), in French
- Jean-Marie Aladel, C.M., The Miraculous Medal: Its Origin, History, Circulation, Results, on the archbishop's permission of 1832 and the canonical inquiry of 1836
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1911), “Miraculous Medal”, for the first striking (June 30, 1832) and Leo XIII's feast (July 23, 1894)
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 67, 410