From Seven Days With Mary:
While busy establishing the New World, at places like Guadalupe, Mexico (which we celebrate later this week), Our Blessed Mother had not neglected the Old.
She appeared to royalty, priests, and even healed an Italian bishop who became Pope Pius II.
Throughout Europe hidden or forgotten shrines continued to be found on hills or in woodlands or in meadows. These were not fairytales. These were not the results of overly devout imaginations. Throughout Europe the Virgin had struggled to contain very real outbreaks of bubonic fever (constantly warning villages that they would suffer unless they repented) and she had revealed yet more miraculous statues hidden in old oaks or obscure caverns.
Germany. England. Austria.
By the 19th century it was in France that the Virgin began to focus her major appearances.
This was to offset the horrible results of the French Revolution.
The Revolution had caused terrible damage to the Roman Church and had led to the deaths of thousands of nuns and priests, not to mention destruction of many famous shrines, but Heaven did not leave Christians alone and once more Christ sent His mother (as today, during equally dire times, He send her to Medjugorje).
Such was best seen in 1830 when the Virgin stepped up her apparitions and began to appear in a more majestic and direct fashion. She now came not just as the gentle matron but as the woman who saves her children by stepping on the head of the serpent.
This was the essence of the famous Miraculous Medal apparitions, which presented Mary as the Immaculate Conception. A few short decades later, Mary called herself the Immaculate Conception during her apparitions to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 at Lourdes, France, stating, “Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou” (I am the Immaculate Conception) in the local dialect, affirming the Catholic dogma proclaimed just four years prior.
The Miraculous Medal apparitions had started on July 18, 1830, when Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, then a novice, in a beautiful chapel on Rue du Bac in the heart of Paris.
Mary had summoned Catherine with an angel late at night and appeared in the convent’s chapel. She came as a tangible presence, sitting on a chair at the altar, her clothes audibly rustling.
“Looking upon the Blessed Virgin, I flung myself toward her and, falling upon my knees on the altar steps, I rested my hands in her lap,” recalled Catherine. “There a moment passed, the sweetest of my life. I could not say what I felt. The Blessed Virgin told me how I must conduct myself with my director, and added several things that I must not tell. As to what I should do in time of trouble, she pointed her left hand to the foot of the altar, and told me to come there to open up my heart, assuring me that I would receive all the consolation needed.”
Mary explained during the apparition that there was a special and crucial mission. The Virgin said France and the world were entering evil times but that she would be there to dispense graces.
The following November the Virgin appeared at the same spot for creation of the Miraculous Medal. This we celebrated last week. She wore stacks of rings filled with yellow stones from which rays as molten gold seemed to flow. “The rays were so beautiful that I could not describe them,” related Catherine. Rays of light flowed from all but three of the gems. “The Blessed Virgin was inundated with splendor,” said Catherine, who described what she saw as “unutterable.” Encircled with oval lines were the words, “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” said the front of the medal, while the back had representations of both the Sacred and Immaculate hearts, an “M” interwoven with the Cross.
Jesus is behind everything–behind all of Mary’s authentic appearances.
To sit in this unassuming and yet splendid chapel is to feel some of the same graces as when Catherine witnessed the Virgin.
Even the chair Mary had sat in is still on the altar.
Catherine described her as a woman of unearthly beauty: again it was not superficial beauty. It was the beauty of being and goodness.
The young nun said Mary was of medium height and clothed with white array in a style called “a la Vierge.”
She wore a high neck and plain sleeves, with a flowing veil that reached the floor. What a ravishing sight! What graceful beauty! Under the veil her hair was dressed in bands with a fillet ornamented with lace.
She came in a way that would appeal to Paris just as she came to places like Guadalupe in a style that would be compatible with those who lived in the Mexican hinterlands.
“Her face was of such beauty that I could not describe it,” said Catherine afterwards. “All at once I saw rings on the fingers, three rings to each finger, the largest one emitting rays at the finger, one of medium size in the middle, the smallest one at the tip. Each ring was covered with precious stones emitting rays.”
The larger gems emitted strong rays, the smaller gems, smaller rays. The rays pouring from all sides of her filled the room and reflected from her feet in whirlwinds.
“At this moment, while I was contemplating the Blessed Virgin, the Blessed Virgin fixed her eyes on me,” said Catherine. “A voice said: ‘This is the symbol of the graces I shed upon those who ask me for them.’”
With that the Virgin placed herself within an oval form, and golden letters made the famous inscription: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The oval-shaped frame formed around her.
Mary had also appeared to Catherine holding a small globe with a Cross on top, praying as she offered it to Jesus, and it was Catherine’s distinct impression that the Virgin, in this posture, was praying for the whole world.
When Mary pressed the globe to her chest, an incredible sight ensued: light from diamonds and other precious stones radiated from her maternal hands, showing the beauty of ineffable tenderness.
Here was Mary, still the mother, still so very gentle, but now in direct conflict with Lucifer, whose demons had been unloosed from the pit. She was there to show that she would protect her children. She was there to defeat the devil. It didn’t take a loud clash. It didn’t always take swords. The devil was clearly paralyzed by her humility and goodness.
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If Satan has his legion of fallen angels, we must always remember that Mary comes as Queen of the Heavenly Angels who are stronger and more numerous.
It’s crucial to remember this in our own time. I myself feel the graces I did while visiting the Paris chapel. It was a reminder that when God wants to move, there is no obstacle — and no one — who can get in His way.
He can use His angels. He can use the saints. He can even use us — if we’re in line with His will, but above all they come in a way that the universe most owes: Him.
If He chose — if it was in His timing — God could strike our enemies as He struck the enemies of the Israelites.
As we walk through this world of spiritual warfare, we must never forget that what is impossible for man is wholly possible for God. The Virgin said that the medal should be given to the whole world — that tremendous graces would come to those who wore it, and who asked for those graces. One day, said Catherine, she heard the Virgin say: “These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems from which rays do not fall are the graces for which souls do not ask.”
Ask and we receive. March with Heaven and we march in victory.
O Mary conceived without sin!
–Michael Brown
[resources: Seven Days With Mary]
[Footnote from the mail:
- Day and time of Hour of Grace – December 8th Feast of the Immaculate Conception – to be started at 12 noon and will continue until 1 PM (one full hour of prayer)
- During this hour the person making the ‘Hour of Grace’ either at home or in the Church must put away all distractions (do not answer the telephone or answer any doors or do anything but totally concentrate on your union with God during this Special Hour of Grace)
- Begin the Hour of Grace by praying three times the 51st Psalm with outstretched arms.
- The rest of the Hour of Grace may be spent in silent communication with God meditating upon the Passion of Jesus saying the Holy Rosary, praising God in your own way or by using favorite prayers, singing hymns, meditating upon other Psalms, etc.