Miraculous Medal

The Miraculous Medal was revealed to St. Catherine Labouré, a French nun, in 1830. She stated that in July of that year, she felt called to the chapel, where she experienced that Our Lady was charging her with a mission. She came to understand that mission on Nov. 30 of that year, when she received a vision of what would become the Miraculous Medal.

She saw Our Lady in an oval frame, standing atop the globe, crushing the serpent (Genesis 3:15), with multiple rays emanating from rings on her fingers. The frame bore the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The frame then rotated to reveal 12 stars (see Revelation 12:1), an “M” at the center of the frame surmounted by a cross, with a paired image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns and the Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced by a sword.

Our Lady asked that the medal be struck and distributed, its wearers promised “great graces.” When St. Catherine Labouré asked why some of the rings on Mary’s fingers showed no rays, the response was that they represented graces for which people failed to ask. God will not refuse those who ask him, but man must ask.

St. Catherine Labouré was a member of the Daughters of Charity, the female branch of the Vincentian charism. Propagation of the Miraculous Medal in the United States has been promoted by the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia, from which you can request a Miraculous Medal. You can also join with praying the Rosary online, if you find that advantageous.

Brown Scapular

Some 600 years before the Miraculous Medal, Our Lady also revealed another sacramental to St. Simon Stock: the Brown Scapular. The scapular, two pieces of brown cloth joined by cords and worn over the shoulder, is a miniature religious habit of the Carmelites. Our Lady promised that those who wear the Brown Scapular continuously and die wearing it would be provided the graces necessary to be saved from hell and that Our Lady would deliver them from Purgatory the first Saturday after their deaths.

One should not think of the Scapular as some kind of amulet or magic charm. It is not. Those who wear the Brown Scapular do so as a sign of their religious commitment. Their lives should match the sign. It’s somewhat like Ash Wednesday ashes: unless we really intend to repent, they’re so much dirt on our faces. But, if we are willing to work with God’s grace, they are sacramentals spurring us to conversion.

• To benefit from Our Lady’s promises of the Brown Scapular, it is necessary to be “enrolled” in the Scapular. You are assuming a religious commitment, in some sense sharing the Carmelite call. You do not “put this on yourself,” but need to be enrolled, which any priest can do. Those who are enrolled should wear the Brown Scapular continuously, living a charitable and chaste life, and undertake one of several penitential good works, which include
• daily recitation of Our Lady’s Little Office or the Liturgy of the Hours;
• abstinence from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in addition to the Church’s official days of fast or abstinence;
• with priestly permission, recite five decades of the Rosary; or
• with priestly authorization, substitute another good work.

You can obtain a Brown Scapular here.

Immaculate Conception

Our Lady has made clear her preference for the title of the “Immaculate Conception,” something she affirmed at Lourdes and Gietrzywałd as well as in her revelation to St. Catherine Labouré before Pope Pius XI’s formal promulgation of that dogma. Our focus in Christian art is, therefore, on the image of the Immaculate Conception, painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), part of the Spanish “Golden Age.” The somewhat large painting (3 feet by 4 feet) dates from around 1618 and is held by London’s National Gallery.

Like the Miraculous Medal of the then-future, Mary is portrayed standing atop the globe, crowned with 12 stars. The setting is heavenly, marked by the clouds. Her virginal beauty is accentuated but not overtly physicalized. Her posture and prayerful hands indicate that the Immaculate Conception is not so much her boast as proof that “the Almighty has done great things for me: Holy is his name!” (Luke 1:49).

The circular temple on the bottom right alludes to the temple of the Roman vestal virgins, affirming Mary’s virginity.

In a world that fails to value virginity and, therefore, is increasingly challenged to understand the uniqueness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, devotion to the Immaculate Conception is especially important. There is a movement — seemingly also with influence within the Church — that fails to appreciate the moral significance of purity, chastity and virginity. Such a combination in a world that reduces sexual ethics to “consent,” “autonomy” and “privacy” can prove fatal.

Catholics devoted to Our Lady, arrayed in her spiritual armor, can bear powerful witness to the modern world. Especially on this feast celebrating Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, shall we go forth?