He Knew We Needed a Mother

When Christ Jesus descended from Heaven into earth, He entered into the darkness of human sin. Taking on frail flesh, He saw our brokenness.

He knew we needed a mother.

He who as a little child ran into the arms of His mother for comfort, knew that His broken creation needed the arms of a mother to hold them when they were lost in darkness and afraid.

He who stretch out His pierced hands towards His mother standing below the cross knew we needed the embrace of a mother when we were wounded by this fallen world.

And when His mother died, He waited for her at the gates of Heaven. One can imagine Him looking on His mother, who through all His earthly trials loved Him so much, drawing from His back a crown and saying to her, "I am going to give the world the greatest gift I can, that the love you gave to me may now be given to the whole world." Placing it on her head, He declares before all the angels and the saints, "Behold, your mother! Behold, your queen." 

Christ knew we would need a mother. But over the centuries, too many of His creatures thought themselves orphans. Too many failed to realize that they had such a loving mother. And so, while Mary longed to pour out graces on her children, many never noticed her, never knew she was there and so never knew her motherly love. And as the centuries wore on, the darkness grew darker. Our Lady longed to pour down her prayers on her children, but they never asked. How to solve this problem?

Enter a 24 year old girl. She was nothing special. It is true, she was in the convent, but she was far from mother superior. In fact, she hadn’t even taken vows. She was a mere novice and her name was Zoe Laboure (soon to take the religious name of Catherine Laboure.)

Asleep one night, she woke up and heard her name being called. That was strange enough, but turning over, she saw a bright light next her bed. Stranger still, she opened her curtain and found a five year old child standing next to her, beaming with light. It was her guardian angel. This guardian angel had a message:

“Come to the chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you.”

When a talking ball of light speaks to you, one tends to obey and so Catherine followed the child out of the dormitory, down the hallway and to the chapel. As they walked down the dormitory corridor, the child shed light wherever he went. With a mere touch of his hand, the chapel door swung open to reveal the altar, like the hallway, illuminated with light. The child knelt down and began praying. St. Catherine followed suit.

Then the clock began tolling. At the stroke of midnight, the child cried out, “The Blessed Virgin is coming! Here she is!” St. Catherine heard the rustling of silk dress to the left of the altar and then she saw her: a beautiful lady seated herself at the left hand side of the altar. Catherine ran to the feet of the Lady, knelt down before her and laid her hands on the knees of her heavenly Mother.

The great Mother of God did not appear to no purpose though. She came to entrust Catherine with a mission. In short, dark times were coming and the human race would need the prayers of a mother. Evils would overwhelm France, royalty would be overthrown, and the whole world would be disturbed by all sorts of calamities. There would be victims in religious communities, the clergy would be attacked and the archbishop of Paris would die, but the Vincentian communities would be spared. These calamities would strike in about forty years. Catherine’s mission was simple: she was to faithfully repeat everything Our Lady told her to her spiritual director.

Forty years later in 1871, the Paris Commune happened. It was the first attempt in the world at a communist state which would later claim the lives of so many Christians. Hundreds of priests and nuns were martyred and Archbishop George Darbey was killed. Indeed, the world did need its mother.

With that, Our Lady vanished like a shadow and the child called out, “She is gone!”

Months passed. Catherine reported what Our Lady said to her spiritual director, but didn’t get much of a response from him. Then on November 27^th, 1830, four months after that first apparition, St. Catherine was making her evening meditation in the chapel. Suddenly, the same Lady, dressed in a golden gown appeared next to a picture of St. Joseph. She was standing on top of half a globe and in her hand held another globe. The Lady spoke: “This globe which you see represents the world, especially France, and each person in particular.”

Then St. Catherine saw Our Lady’s fingers covered with rings and precious stones, and from those rings, rays of dazzling light darted out from them. The jewels and the rays varied in size and some emitted no light. Our Lady spoke again: “Behold the symbol of the graces which I will bestow upon all those who ask for them.” The key phrase here was, “on all those who ask for them.” Those fingers which emitted no light were the graces God wanted to offer to souls that no one asked for.

The vision changed. An oval frame surrounded the Blessed Mother, her fingers still radiating light, and around the edge of the frame the words surrounded her: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!” The Lady spoke again: “Get a medal struck after this model; those who wear it when it is blessed will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around their neck. Graces will be abundant for those who have confidence.”

Finally, the oval seemed to turn around and saw an M surmounted by a cross with a cross bar beneath it. Below the M were the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Jesus’ heart crowned with thorns and Mary’s heart pierced with a sword.

“Get a medal struck after this model; those who wear it when it is blessed will receive great graces.”

Our Lady would confirm these images again in December and repeat her call to St. Catherine to have them minted.

What are these images and what is Our Lady trying to say through them? The front of the medal depicts Genesis 3:15:

            I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

They will strike at your head,

while you strike at their heel.

This passage is known as the Protoevangelium, or the First Gospel. It was spoken by God to the serpent after he tempted Eve to sin and caused the great fall of humanity. Since then, the devil has been warring against the human race, trying to draw us away from the Creator who replaced him with mere flesh and blood. The effects of his wiles have stayed with the human race as generation after generation inherits the sin of Adam.

But notice where the serpent is on the medal: he is below the feet of Our Lady. Before banishing Adam and Eve from the garden, God foretold that there would be a woman who would crush the head of the serpent, whose offspring would be the enemy of the offspring of Satan. Who is the great enemy of Satan? It is Jesus. Who is this woman who crushes the head of the serpent? It is Mary. She is the first of our race conceived without original sin. In this long spiritual battle, she is the first of our race completely free from Satan’s grasp. Thus when we are wounded, when we are beaten down by Satan, it is her powerful prayers that we turn to for help. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The back of the medal depicts the scene in John 19, where Christ declares to the Beloved Disciple, “Behold your Mother!” The M stands for Mary and the location of the M below the cross stands for Mary standing at the foot of the cross. It was in that moment that we were redeemed by Christ’s blood. It was in that moment, that Jesus gave us His mother as our mother. “Woman, behold your son!” “Son, behold your mother!” The hearts below the M show the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that loved us so much that He would go to the cross to die for us, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that loved Jesus so much that her heart was “pierced as with a sword” when Jesus’ own heart was pierced for sinners. It is these hearts that from Heaven are pouring down love for us sinners.

How then does that love get poured out? You will notice there is a bar through the M below the cross. This represents the altar. Mary told St. Catherine that in times of darkness, to come to the foot of the altar where she would receive every grace she needed. Mary calls us to Calvary with her, to receive her Sons love as He pours Himself out in the Mass and gives Himself to us in Holy Communion. And who makes possible this sacrifice? The Church, represented by the twelve stars surrounding the image, representing the twelve apostles God chose to make His gospel known to the farthest ends of the earth.

In a tiny medal, we have contained the story of our fall and redemption and God’s love poured out for us through it all.

               

Again, Catherine reported all to her spiritual director, Fr. Jean Marie Aladel, but he was skeptical. He commanded her never to even think about these apparitions again. When Our Lady reprimanded Catherine for not having the medals minted, Catherine explained that Fr. Aladel didn’t believe her. Our Lady promised to take care of that. Sure enough, Fr. Aladel had a change of heart. In 1832, 2000 medals were minted. That year, a cholera epidemic broke out in France and the Daughters of Charity began handing out medals to its victims. Our Lady promised graces to those who wore it around their neck and she didn't disappoint. Miracle after miracle began happening; cures and conversions were being reported by those who wore the medal. What was originally known as the medal of Our Lady of Grace was soon known as the Miraculous Medal.

The miracles continue to this day. I won’t describe them here but if you want to know about miracles associated with the Miraculous Medal, those are no secret. The most famous story is about the conversion of an anti-Catholic Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne: http://www.marypages.com/ratisbonneEng.htm He converted to the Faith when Our Lady herself appeared to him while he was wearing the medal. A more modern and less well known miracle is recounted here by Fr. Hardon: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/mirmedal.htm A young boy came out of a coma as Fr. Hardon put the medal around his neck.

It wasn’t enough for God to give us a savior; He knew we needed a mother to. He gave us His mother. Are you in need? Kiss the medal. Do you know other people who need the prayers of a mother? Give them the medal. We are lost, we are broken, and often we need to run our mother’s arms like little children. And this is good news of the Miraculous Medal: we always have a mother in Heaven, and she never leaves us.