A sacramental is a sacred sign that signifies effects obtained through the Church’s intercession. Sacramentals can be material things [blessed objects, such as scapulars, rosaries, crucifixes, medals, holy water, etc] or actions [the sign of the cross, genuflection, prayers, etc]. A sacramental is a sacred object or religious action, which the Catholic Church, in imitation of the sacraments, uses for the purpose of obtaining spiritual favours, especially through her prayer. A sacramental is anything, set apart or blessed by the Church to attract good thoughts and to help devotion and thus secure grace and take away venial sin or the temporal punishment due to sin.
The sacramentals were instituted by Christ Himself, the sacramental were founded by Christ’s Church. Their value lies in the fact that they have been set aside by the Church for sacred purposes, by the power of the Church’s official prayer and by the merits of Christ, preserved and distributed by His Church. The sacramentals also try to express the supreme beauty and goodness of Almighty God.
Apparitions are unusual and yet they are dramatic reminders of what is going on all the time. A well-known part of the apparition of 1830 is the Virgin of the Globe. Mary appeared to Saint Catherine Labouré holding in her hands a globe surmounted by a cross. Catherine affirmed that Our Lady held the world in her hands.
About midnight on July 18, 1830, a “child” awakened Saint Catherine Labouré, a novice with the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul Convent at Rue de Bac, Paris, telling her to go to the Convent’s Chapel where Mary awaited her. There Mary told her: “God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Come to the foot of the altar. Graces will be shed on all, great and little, especially upon those who seek them. Another community of sisters will join the Rue du Bac community. The community will become large; you will have the protection of God and Saint Vincent; I will always have my eyes upon you.”
Later that year, on 27 November, Saint Catherine saw another vision of Mary. She describes her like this: Her height was medium and her countenance, indescribably beautiful. She was dressed in a robe the colour of dawn, high-necked, with plain sleeves. Her head was covered with a white veil, which floated over her shoulders down to her feet. Her feet rested upon a globe, rays of light streaming from her fingers, enframed in an oval frame inscribed with the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”.
The whole vision “turned” showing the back of the oval inscribed with the letter “M” entwined with a Cross, and two hearts of Jesus and Mary, the former surrounded with thorns, the latter pierced with a sword. 12 stars circled this oval frame, symbolizing the 12 Tribes of Israel and the 12 Apostles, and showing Mary as the Mother of Israel, as per the Apocalypse [ch. 12]. Mary told her to strike a medal in this form, and that all who wore it after having it blessed would receive graces.
Around her feet a twisted serpent, the devil, struggles for mastery. It is a conflict between good and evil. Satan’s is a world of darkness and disgrace, Mary’s a world of light and grace. The light and grace of Christ flowing from her hands. Her hands, which were on a level with her waist, held in an easy manner another globe, a figure of the world surmounted by a Cross. Her eyes were raised to Heaven, and her countenance beamed with light as she offered the globe to Our Lord. She asked that an altar be erected on the place of the apparitions and that a statue be made showing her thus offering the world to God.
Saint Catherine’s spiritual director told Catherine’s story to the Bishop of Paris, who not only allowed the medal to be struck, but received some of them himself. One of these he had with him when ministering to Napoleon’s dying heretical chaplain. The dying man had obstinately refused to reconcile with the Church, but as the Bishop was leaving after trying one last time to get him to see the error of his ways, the man suddenly broke down and repented.
The Bishop attributed this to the Virgin’s intercession through the medal.
Another miraculous conversion involved that of a wealthy Jewish banker-lawyer named Alphonse Ratisbonne. He was actually dared to wear one of the medals and to pray the Memorare. This he did, and as he visited a Church to arrange a funeral for a friend, he had a vision of Our Lady as she appears on the Medal. He instantly converted, and became a priest.
The Medal of the Immaculate Conception now known as the Miraculous Medal, has become one of the most commonly worn sacramentals in the Roman Catholic Church. The medal was made according to Our Lady’s design. It was freely circulated and in a short time was worn by millions. In its wake followed innumerable wonders- health was restored, sickness banished, bad habits broken, special graces given, dangers averted, blessings bestowed until the little Medal of Immaculate Conception became known by the name it bears today, The Miraculous Medal.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe adopted the Miraculous medal as the badge of the “Pious Union of the Militia of the Immaculate Conception” in 1917, which he founded in Rome while still a young religious of the Conventional Friars Minor.
For 47 years Saint Catherine lived an ordinary, anonymous, laborious life as a Daughter of Charity and no one except her confessor, knew that it was she who had received from our Lady the request to have the Medal made and distributed. In their various apostolates the Daughters of Charity and the Vincentian Fathers have since then publicised and promoted the Medal and its message to the world.
Saint Catherine Labouré’s body remains incorrupt to this day and can be seen at her convent at Rue du Bac.
On July 27, 1947 Blessed Catherine Labouré known as the Saint of Silence, was canonised by Pope Pius XII.
The benefits and favours obtained through the intercession of she who lived in the shadows, hidden with Jesus and Mary, were to be added to the treasures of graces and mercies spread by the Miraculous Medal throughout the world.
The Medal is no “good luck” charm but a promise and a reminder that no matter what challenges life throws at us, we have to give life another chance. Every road has a bend, take another route and seek the protection and encouragement offered to us by the Mother of God.
Mother Mary will help lighten our darkness for she brought forth Him who is the “Light of the World”.
“When Our Lady is honoured as Queen of the Universe, then there will be peace”.
Saint Catherine Labouré.