The Manifestation of the Miraculous Medal / A Brief Account of Its History and of the Establishment of the Association

by Association of the Miraculous Medal

Father Aladel, C. M., her director, treated these relations of Sister Catherine with coldness and severity, and he even forbade her to believe in them. She made every effort to obey, but nothing could efface the consoling memory of these visitations. In December she again had an apparition of our Blessed Mother, the same as that of November 27, except that in this third manifestation the Blessed Virgin did not remain near the picture of St. Joseph, but passed before it and stood to the rear of the Tabernacle, a little above it. Again Sister Catherine was told to have a medal struck according to this model.

Third Apparition.

Manifestation of the Miraculous Medal to Sister Catherine.

THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL

Sister Catherine was most anxious to carry out the command of her heavenly Visitant, but she met with many difficulties, because her prudent director feared to be precipitate, and he wished to take every precaution in so important a matter. Finally, with the approval of Mgr. de Quelen, Archbishop of Paris, the first medals were struck on June 30, 1832. When it came to details of the medal, difficulty arose as to how our Blessed Mother should be represented, as she had not always appeared in the same attitude. After serious deliberation it was decided to adopt the existing model of Mary Immaculate with her hands extended.

The medal soon spread throughout France, and then throughout the world by reason of the miraculous cures both of soul and body that were wrought through it. In Paris and Lyons nearly eighty million of these medals had been struck by 1879.

At the request of the Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity, Leo XIII granted to the two Communities a feast with special Mass and Office in honor of Mary Immaculate under the title of the Miraculous Medal. This feast is yearly celebrated on November 27.

CONVERSION OF ALPHONSE RATISBONNE

One of the most noteworthy conversions brought about by means of the medal was that of Alphonse Ratisbonne a staunch believer in Judaism and much opposed to the Catholic church. On his way to the East he visited Rome, where he became acquainted with Baron deBussiere, himself a convert to the faith. The latter used every argument to bring Ratisbonne to the true faith, but his efforts were in vain.