Today November 28

Today is the feast of St. Catherine Laboure (1806 - 1876), daily Massgoer, waitress, farm girl and Vincentian sister. But she is best known by far as the mystic responsible for the design and casting of the Miraculous Medal, the one with Mary's image surrounded by the words "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."

I was surprised by a number of things in her story. I was surprised that this daughter of fairly well-to-do farmers (who had 13 hired hands living and working on the farm besides the [large] family) could not read! (She learned to read in the novitiate, which she called the "seminary.") I wasn't surprised that she found even Paris, City of Lights, with all the noise, bustle, culture and people -- which would have seduced many a young person -- seemed like just so many "soap bubbles" to her and didn't sway her from her resolve to enter the convent in the least.

I was surprised to learn that she had visions of Jesus before her famous vision of Our Lady. She saw Jesus, appropriately enough, in front of the blessed tabernacle there on the altar in church. Kids, the tabernacle used to be in the main part of church, in the sanctuary, front and center and the whole reason why you genuflected before getting into your pew. And Catherine saw the vision of St. Vincent de Paul in front of the reliquary of his incorrupt heart.

And finally, I was surprised how real Our Lady seemed to Catherine -- how she not only saw her, but heard the rustle of her skirts, and touched her and rested her hands on Our Lady's knees. Mary's fingers had rings on each of them, which I thought was neat -- I like rings and I find them highly symbolic and often beautiful -- and in the revelation of November 27, 1830 (not the first, which was July 19th of the same year), she appeared with those glorious rings shedding light, symbolizing grace, flowing down to a globe on which she was standing. An interior voice indicated to Catherine a medal should be made in that image with the words previously mentioned encircling it. (The reverse side, with Our Lady's monogram and cross, was also revealed at that time.) It took a long time, a lot of convincing, and some resistant middlemen (although a willing bishop) before the medal was finally struck in 1832. Because of the initial words, "O Mary, conceived with sin . . ." it was first called the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, but because so many miracles of healing and conversion occurred through it (including the famous conversion of the Jewish Alphonse Ratisbonne), it was commonly called the Miraculous Medal.

In obedience, Catherine mentioned her revelations to no one but her confessor and thus her identity was a secret, even after the medals took off in popularity. All knew SOME Vincentian sister had seen the vision and embraced the Virgin who said, "Graces will abound for those who wear [the medal]", but no one knew who it was. Few suspected the nun who worked in the Hospice, cooking, cleaning, mending for and entertaining the old and dying men, and who later worked in the chicken yard and later was portress. When some suggested it was she, she just laughed. But before her death, she revealed it to Sister Dufes, and after her peaceful -- hardly more than a sigh -- death, all knew. Her confessor could tell the world, and many flocked to her grave there at the convent at the Rue de Bac in Paris. In 1933 at the ritual exhumation, she was found perfectly incorrupt, as you can -- miraculously -- still see today. St. Catherine Laboure, pray for us.