On this day in 1830, Jesus' mother, Mary, appeared to one of our sisters in the chapel at our Motherhouse in Paris.
In the course of the long conversation between the two, Mary showed Sister Catherine an image, which you see above.
On November 27, 1830,
the Blessed Virgin appeared to Catherine again in the chapel. This time,
it was at 5:30 pm, during meditation. First, Catherine saw something like
two living paintings, one fading into the other… In the second image,
beautiful rays of light stream from the Blessed Virgin’s open hands, covered
with jewelled rings. At that same moment St. Catherine heard a voice
saying, “These rays are a symbol of the
graces that I pour out on those who ask them of me.” Then
an oval formed around the apparition, and Catherine saw in a semi-circle this
invocation: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to
you,” emblazoned in gold letters. She then heard a voice saying, “Have a medal made according to this
model. For those who wear it with confidence, there will be abundant graces.” Finally,
the image turned, and Catherine saw the reverse side of the medal: the letter M
surmounted with a little cross and two hearts, one crowned with thorns and the
other pierced with a sword, below.
The writer of the website goes on to comment:
"Her feet are planted on a half-sphere and
crush the head of a serpent. This half-sphere is the globe. For Jews and
Christians, the serpent personifies Satan and the forces of evil. The Virgin
Mary is herself engaged in a spiritual battle, the battle against evil, and the
battlefield is our world. She calls us to enter with her into God’s way
of thinking, which is not the way of the world. This is the true grace of
conversion that Christians should ask of Mary so that they can in turn pass it
on to the world.
"Her hands are open and her fingers are adorned
with rings, decorated with precious stones. These jewels emit rays of light,
becoming increasingly bigger as they beam toward earth. The radiance of these
beams, like the beauty of the apparition described by Catherine, calls forth,
justifies and strengthens our trust in Mary’s faithfulness (the rings) towards
her Creator and towards her children, in the efficacy of her intervention (the
rays of grace that fall on the earth), and in the final victory (the light),
since she, as the first disciple, is the first saved.
"On the back of the medal, a letter
and drawings introduce us to the secret of Mary. The letter “M” is
surmounted by a cross. The “M” is Mary’s initial; the cross is
the Cross of Christ. The two interwoven signs show the inseparable
relationship that connects Christ to his Holy Mother. Mary is associated
with the mission of human salvation through her Son Jesus and, through her
compassion, participates in the very act of the redeeming sacrifice of
Christ. There are two hearts at the bottom, one encircled
by the crown of thorns and the other pierced by a sword. The heart crowned with
thorns is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It recalls the cruel episode of
Christ’s Passion before He was put to death, as recounted in the Gospels.
It represents His passionate love for humanity. The heart pierced by a sword is
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, his Mother. It recalls Simeon’s prophecy
the day Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple, as recounted in the
Gospel. It represents the love of Christ that dwells within Mary and her
love for us: for the sake of our Salvation she accepted the sacrifice of her
own Son. Depicting these two hearts close together indicates that Mary’s life
is one of intimacy with Jesus.
"Twelve stars are engraved around the medal’s edge. They represent the
twelve apostles and thus the Church. To belong to the Church is to love Christ and
to participate in his passion for the salvation of the world. Each baptized
person is invited to become a part of the mission of Christ by uniting his
heart to the hearts of Jesus and Mary.
The medal appeals to our conscience so that each one of us might chose, as did
Christ and Mary, the path of love even unto the total gift of self."
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