O Mary, conceived without sin

IAbout this prayer

These words were first seen, not heard. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) tells the account of Sister Catherine Labouré, a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared in 1830 at the mother-house of her community in Paris: first on 18 July and then on 27 November. The encyclopedia counts a third appearance soon after; her own community speaks of the two apparitions of 18 July and 27 November. On 27 November, Sister Catherine recorded, Our Lady stood as if upon a globe, with rays of light streaming from her hands, which were symbols of the graces given to all who ask for them. Around her, in golden letters, an oval frame bore the words: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” On the reverse were the letter M beneath a cross, and the Hearts of Jesus and of Mary. She was asked to have a medal struck after this model.

This is private revelation, and should be called so. Such revelations, the Catechism teaches, do not belong to the deposit of faith and add nothing to Christ’s Revelation; some, recognized by the Church’s authority, help the faithful to live by it more fully in a certain period of history (CCC 67). This one the Church has recognized. After careful investigation, Sister Catherine’s spiritual director obtained the approval of the Archbishop of Paris, and the first medals were struck on 30 June 1832; in 1894, after the Congregation of Rites had examined the facts, Pope Leo XIII granted a feast of the Manifestation of the Immaculate Virgin under the title of the Miraculous Medal (Catholic Encyclopedia). Sister Catherine was canonized by Pope Pius XII on 27 July 1947; since 1933 her body has rested in the chapel of her community’s mother house in the rue du Bac.

The prayer is an act of faith in the Immaculate Conception, which Pope Pius IX proclaimed as dogma in 1854, twenty-four years after the apparition (CCC 491). “Conceived without sin” does not mean that Mary had no need of a Saviour. The Baltimore Catechism says it plainly: “The Blessed Virgin Mary, through the merits of her Divine Son, was preserved free from the guilt of original sin, and this privilege is called her Immaculate Conception” (No. 2, Q. 50). She was redeemed by her Son, in a more exalted way than anyone else: kept from sin from the first instant of her life rather than freed from it afterwards (CCC 492).

The medal is a sacramental, not a charm. The Baltimore Catechism puts the difference plainly: the sacraments give grace of themselves, while sacramentals stir up in us the good dispositions by which we may obtain grace (No. 2, Q. 293). The power is God’s. By the prayer of the Church, a sacramental readies the heart to receive grace and to cooperate with it (CCC 1670); the medal is worn over the heart, and the prayer it carries is yours to say. The Raccolta of 1910 printed this invocation with its grant for those who wear the medal blessed by a duly authorized priest; that grant belongs to its time, since Pope Paul VI reformed the Church’s indulgences in 1967. His norms of that year gave a partial indulgence to the faithful who devoutly use a medal, or another object of piety, properly blessed by any priest (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, n. 17).

IIWhen to pray it

• Whenever you put the medal on, or fasten it on a child.
• In temptation, quickly: it is short enough to say under your breath.
• On 27 November, the day of the apparition, and on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
• For someone who has drifted from the faith, many times a day.