{"id":11921,"date":"2017-11-27T13:02:46","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T13:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=11921"},"modified":"2024-02-11T07:24:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T12:24:36","slug":"archives-the-power-of-the-miraculous-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/archives-the-power-of-the-miraculous-medal\/","title":{"rendered":"Archives: The Power Of The Miraculous Medal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"TV Lourdes - Pri\u00e8re mondiale \u00e0 Notre-Dame de Lourdes \/ Worldwide prayer to our Lady of Lourdes\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zz2lqOMiBeo\" width=\"690\" height=\"398\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">In 1830, Catherine Labour\u00e9\u00a0was blessed with the apparitions of Mary Immaculate to which we owe the Miraculous Medal, the feast of which is this Saturday.\u00a0 The first apparition came on the eve of the feast of St. Vincent DePaul, July 19.\u00a0The mother superior had given each of the novices a piece of cloth from the holy founder\u2019s surplice.\u00a0Because of her extreme love, Catherine split her piece down the middle, swallowing half and placing the rest in her prayer book.\u00a0She earnestly prayed to St. Vincent that she might, with her own eyes, see the Mother of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">And so it happened, as she recounted in her own words: &#8220;About half-past eleven, I heard someone call my name.\u00a0I looked in the direction of the voice and I drew the curtain.\u00a0I saw a child of four or five years old dressed in white who said to me:\u00a0&#8216;Come to the Chapel.\u00a0 The Blessed Virgin is waiting for you.&#8217; Immediately the thought came to me that I will be heard.\u00a0The child replied, &#8216;Be calm, it is half-past eleven, everyone is asleep.\u00a0Come, I am waiting for you.&#8217; I hurriedly dressed and went to the side of the child.\u00a0I followed him wherever he went.\u00a0The lights were lit everywhere.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">&#8220;When we reached the chapel, the door opened as soon as the child touched it with the tip of his finger. The candles were burning as at Midnight Mass. However, I did not see the Blessed Virgin. The child led me to the sanctuary and I knelt down there. Towards midnight, the child said: &#8216;Here is the Blessed Virgin.&#8217;\u00a0\u00a0I heard a noise like a rustle of a silk dress&#8230;a very beautiful lady, in a blaze of glory, sat down in Father\u2019s Director\u2019s chair.\u00a0The child repeated in a strong voice:\u00a0 &#8216;Here is the Blessed Virgin.&#8217; Then I flung myself at her feet on the steps of the altar and put my hands on her knees.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">The Blessed Virgin put her arms around Catherine and said:\u00a0&#8220;God wishes to charge you with a mission.\u00a0You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the graces to bear it. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you.\u00a0Misfortunes will fall upon France; the entire world will be overcome by evils of all kinds&#8230;but&#8230;\u00a0come to the foot of this altar; there, graces will be poured on all those who ask for them with confidence, and fervor. They will be poured out on the great and the humble&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Catherine\u2019s mission was not revealed<\/span> to her until November 27, 1830,\u00a0 when the Blessed Virgin appeared to her and this time gave her the design of the medal she wished to have made and the prayer she would have her children say to her: &#8220;O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!&#8221;\u00a0Catherine was instructed by Our Lady\u00a0 to go to her spiritual director, Father Aladel,\u00a0about the apparitions.\u00a0He didn&#8217;t believe Catherine, although she approached him about the medal three times.\u00a0When Catherine shared her dismay with the Virgin Mary, Our Lady said to her:\u00a0&#8220;He is my servant, and he should be frightened of displeasing me.&#8221;\u00a0Catherine shared that with Father Aladel, saying simply, &#8220;The Virgin is angry.&#8221; These words deeply affected him and tormented him. Eventually (though not without an intense struggle) the medal was struck &#8212; and since the 1830s more than a billion have been distributed!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Many know these details.\u00a0What we have not heard are the parts of the mission that met roadblocks &#8212; obstacles that perhaps link to other apparitions.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The Blessed Mother\u2019s second request<\/span>\u00a0was to open and enlarge the chapel for pilgrimages. As recounted by the great Mariologist Ren\u00e9\u00a0Laurentin, in his book\u00a0<em>Catherine Labour<\/em><em>\u00e9: Visionary of the Miraculous Medal<\/em>, the seer &#8220;was still tormented by wanting an altar, with the Virgin holding the globe, which would commemorate the apparition and open up the chapel to its destiny as a place of pilgrimage.&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">While the chapel was enlarged &#8212; beginning in 1849, nineteen years after the apparitions &#8212; Catherine was dissatisfied with a statue because it did not portray the Blessed Mother as she had seen her &#8212; holding the ball of the world in her hands.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Meanwhile, the chapel had been enlarged &#8212; but was not opened to the public.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Twenty-eight years passed and Our Lady decided to go somewhere else!\u00a0That place was to the south in France at Lourdes &#8212; where in 1858 Mary appeared in a way that reminded many of the Miraculous Medal. On that medal were the words, &#8220;Mary, conceived without sin&#8221; and at Lourdes the Blessed Mother came as the &#8220;Immaculate Conception&#8221;! Miracles, conversions, and cures, abounded.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Writes Father Laurentin: &#8220;When Catherine heard people talking about the Lourdes apparition, she said, &#8216;It&#8217;s the same one!&#8217; &#8216;What is most extraordinary.&#8217; wrote Sister Duf\u00e9s, her superior, &#8216;is that, without having read any of the published works, Sister Catherine was more conversant with what had taken place there than those who had actually made this pilgrimage.&#8217;\u00a0&#8220;According to Sister Tranchemer, her companion, Catherine said, &#8216;You know, these miracles could have happened in our chapel.'&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">She said the same to another sister. What occurred later at Lourdes could have occurred at Rue du Bac.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">&#8220;According to Sister Pineau, Sister Duf\u00e9s found &#8216;in Catherine&#8217;s belongings a piece of paper; on it were written these words in the sister&#8217;s own hand: &#8216;My kind Mother, here no one wants to do what you want: manifest yourself somewhere else!'&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Said a Sister Cosnard:\u00a0&#8220;On different occasions, Sister Catherine went to great lengths to persuade me that the pilgrimage of Notre Dame des Victories and the Lourdes pilgrimage had been granted by the Blessed Virgin in order to compensate for those that the superiors had not seen it necessary to authorize via our chapel. &#8216;However,&#8217; she said to me several times and with a remarkable tone to her voice, &#8216;pilgrimages will come there just the same.'&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">A third request made by Our Lady to Catherine was to build a monumental Cross in Paris.\u00a0It would be called the Cross of Victory and the object of much veneration.\u00a0People would come from all over the world for devotion and pilgrimages.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Again, Catherine tried in vain to fulfill the Immaculate Virgin\u2019s request. And again, the request was denied.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">To this day, the Cross was never built.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Crosses were, however, built elsewhere, including one in 1933 on a mountain in Bosnia-Hercegovina overlooking a hamlet called Medjugorje.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>[Further note: on November 27, 1989, at a meeting of the prayer group at the Blue Cross in Medjugorje, the Blessed Mother allegedly said, \u201cToday is the feast day of the miraculous medal, and I want that you pray, in a special way, for the salvation of those people who are carrying this miraculous medal.\u00a0I want you to spread the devotion and the carrying of this medal, so that more souls may be saved, and that you pray in a special way.\u201d]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><em>[resources:\u00a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.206tours.com\/cms\/spiritdaily\/\">Spirit Daily pilgrimage, Lourdes, Fatima<\/a><\/span>, <\/em>and<em> more; <\/em>and<em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookstore.spiritdaily.com\/products\/br-a-holy-life-st-bernadette-by-patrica-a-mceachern?_pos=4&amp;_sid=679e3ed69&amp;_ss=r\"> <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">A Holy Life<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookstore.spiritdaily.com\/products\/br-a-holy-life-st-bernadette-by-patrica-a-mceachern?_pos=4&amp;_sid=679e3ed69&amp;_ss=r\"> <b> <tt> <tt> <span style=\"color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial;\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/bookstore.spiritdaily.com\/cdn\/shop\/products\/B004IWQGTA.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SX500_large.jpg?v=1676212088\" \/><\/span><\/tt><\/tt><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-story-p\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\"><em> <strong>[Return to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritdaily.com\/\">www.spiritdaily.com]<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-story-p\"><a href=\"file:\/\/\/C:\/Users\/Michael%20H.%20Brown\/Documents\/My%20Webs\/indexhold.htm\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.spiritdaily.com\/angellily.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-story-p\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times;\"><em>Pray always for purity and love<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-story-p\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"font-size: large;\">+++<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"ap-story-p\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times;\"> <em> Please <a href=\"mailto:spiritdaily@cfl.rr.com\">report<\/a> any inappropriate ads or content<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"gsp_post_data\" \r\n\t            data-post_type=\"post\" \r\n\t            data-cat=\"apparitions,archives\" \r\n\t            data-modified=\"120\"\r\n\t            data-created=\"1511787766\"\r\n\t            data-title=\"Archives: The Power Of The Miraculous Medal\" \r\n\t            data-home=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff In 1830, Catherine Labour\u00e9\u00a0was blessed with the apparitions of Mary Immaculate to which we owe the Miraculous Medal, the.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,108],"tags":[1357,1358,370,888],"class_list":{"0":"post-11921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-apparitions","7":"category-archives","8":"tag-catherine-laboure","9":"tag-laurentin","10":"tag-lourdes","11":"tag-miraculous-medal","12":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}