Anecdotes of the Virgin Mary

«The Miraculous Medal of the Rue du Bac»

Paris (France) (1830)

In 1830, a young Daughter of Charity named Catherine Labouré claimed to have received several apparitions of the Virgin in the chapel of the Rue du Bac, in Paris. The most famous took place on the night of 27 November: she saw the Virgin standing upon a globe, with rays of light streaming from her open hands toward the earth.

Around the image there appeared, written out, an invocation that would be engraved on millions of medals and in the hearts of the faithful.

According to the account, the Lady asked that a medal be struck bearing that image, promising abundant graces to those who would wear it with confidence. The medal was made from that testimony and spread with astonishing speed throughout Paris, especially in the years of the cholera epidemic, when the people began to call it «miraculous» because of the conversions and favours attributed to it.

Catherine lived the rest of her life in humility and silence, not revealing until shortly before her death that she had been the seer. The little medal, born of her hidden testimony, remains one of the most widespread Marian sacramentals in the world.