The Miraculous Medal Novena

This is the novena prayer as the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia prints it for its Perpetual Novena. Say it once on each of the nine days, forming your own petition at the place marked.

The Association ends each day with this prayer, addressed to Christ. It is also a good prayer on its own for anyone who wears the medal.

The feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal is November 27, the anniversary of the apparition of the medal in 1830. To end on the eve, begin on November 18:

• Day 1: November 18
• Day 2: November 19
• Day 3: November 20
• Day 4: November 21, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Day 5: November 22
• Day 6: November 23
• Day 7: November 24
• Day 8: November 25
• Day 9: November 26, the eve of the feast

The feast is proper to the Vincentian family (Leo XIII granted it to the Congregation of the Mission in 1894) and is widely kept, but it is not on the general calendar, so your parish may not mark it. The novena needs no one’s permission. It also leads straight into Advent and to December 8, the Immaculate Conception, the doctrine the medal proclaimed twenty-four years before it was defined.

Catherine Labouré was born in 1806 at Fain-les-Moutiers in Burgundy, the eighth of ten children of a farming family. She entered the Daughters of Charity, the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac, and in 1830, aged twenty-four, was a novice at their Mother House, 140 rue du Bac in Paris. The chapel’s own history tells what happened next. On the night of July 18, 1830, the eve of St. Vincent’s feast, she was woken at half past eleven by a child who told her, “The Blessed Virgin is waiting for you,” and led her to the chapel, where Mary came and spoke with her. On November 27, at half past five in the evening, during the sisters’ meditation, Mary appeared to her again.

This time she saw Mary standing on a half-globe, her feet crushing a serpent, with rays of light streaming from jewelled rings on her fingers. A voice said, “These rays are a symbol of the graces that I pour out on those who ask them of me.” An oval formed around the vision, with the words in gold, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.” Then: “Have a medal made according to this model. For those who wear it with confidence, there will be abundant graces.” The image turned, and she saw the back: the letter M under a cross, and two hearts. In December the vision came once more, and then no more.

Catherine told only her confessor, Father Aladel, who at first refused to hear of it. He came round, took the design to the Archbishop of Paris, Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen, who approved it, and the first medals were struck on June 30, 1832, while cholera was killing thousands in Paris. The Daughters of Charity gave out the first two thousand. By 1835 there were more than a million.

Catherine herself stayed hidden. She spent the rest of her life caring for elderly men at Reuilly, on the poor south-eastern edge of Paris, “keeping her secret to herself, while the medal miraculously spread throughout the world”, as the chapel puts it, and died on December 31, 1876. When her body was exhumed for her beatification in 1933 it was found intact, and it now lies in the chapel at the rue du Bac, beneath the altar of Our Lady of the Globe. Pius XII canonised her on July 27, 1947.

Note the condition in the promise: “for those who wear it with confidence”. The graces are tied to trust, not to the metal, which is exactly how the Church understands every sacramental.

Every part of the design says something, and the chapel at the rue du Bac explains it.

• Mary on the globe. “Her feet are planted on a half-sphere and crush the head of a serpent. This half-sphere is the globe.” It is the promise of Genesis: “He will bruise your head” (Genesis 3:15).
• The rays from her hands. The graces she obtains for those who ask. Grace is God’s, and she is the one who asks it for us: “Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy” (Hebrews 4:16).
• The words around the edge. “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The Immaculate Conception, prayed on a medal in 1830 and defined by the Church in 1854.
• The M and the cross. “The ‘M’ is Mary’s initial; the cross is the Cross of Christ.” The two are joined, as they were at Calvary: “Woman, behold, your son!” (John 19:26).
• The two hearts. “One encircled by the crown of thorns and the other pierced by a sword”: the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, of whom Simeon said, “a sword will pierce through your own soul” (Luke 2:35).
• The twelve stars. “They represent the twelve apostles and thus the Church”, and recall the woman of Revelation with “a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1).

The Miraculous Medal is a sacramental, like holy water, the scapular and the St. Benedict medal. The Catechism explains what that means: sacramentals “are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church” (CCC 1667). They “always include a prayer” (CCC 1668), and here the prayer is written on the medal itself.

What a sacramental does is precise: it does “not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1670). The medal works through faith and prayer, not through the metal.

That is why the Church draws the line it does: “To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition” (CCC 2111). A medal worn as a lucky charm, or a novena that promises its result “never fails” if the words are said the right number of times, has crossed that line. The Miraculous Medal worn as a reminder to pray, and the novena prayed with trust and open to God’s answer, have not.

Does it have to be blessed? No source we read makes a blessing a condition of wearing it, but having it blessed by a priest or deacon is the fitting thing to do, and the Association of the Miraculous Medal asks its members to wear a blessed medal. For the other sacramentals Catholics wear and use, see the Brown Scapular, the St. Benedict medal and holy water.

Everything began in an ordinary place: a convent chapel in Paris, a novice at her prayers. Mary’s own life was the same: most of it hidden, most of it spent “pondering” (Luke 2:19). Begin the novena in whatever ordinary place you pray, and name your intention simply. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

The words on the medal are a whole doctrine in six words. Gabriel greeted her, “Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). She was kept from sin by grace, for Christ’s sake, from the beginning. The same grace that preserved her is offered to us to heal what sin has done. Pray today for purity of heart. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

On the medal Mary stands on the globe and crushes the serpent’s head, the first promise of the Gospel: “I will put hostility between you and the woman … He will bruise your head” (Genesis 3:15). It is her Son who wins, and she stands in his victory. Bring today the temptation or habit you most want to be free of. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

Today is the Presentation of Mary. On the medal, rays stream from her hands, which she told Catherine were a symbol of the graces she obtains for those who ask. Ask, then. “Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Ask for the grace you need most, not only the favor you want most. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

On the back of the medal Mary’s initial stands under the cross, where she stood at Calvary. From the cross Jesus gave her to the beloved disciple, and to us: “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:27). Pray today for someone who is carrying a cross, and for the grace to stand beside them. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

Beneath the M are two hearts: the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced by a sword. Simeon had told her, “a sword will pierce through your own soul” (Luke 2:35). Love that is real can be wounded. Pray today for a sorrow that has pierced your own heart, and for anyone grieving. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

Twelve stars ring the medal: the twelve apostles, the Church. Mary is never alone, and neither is anyone who prays with her. Revelation sees “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). Pray today for the Church, for your parish, and for those who have left it. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

A medal is a sign that points past itself, the way Mary does at Cana: “Whatever he says to you, do it” (John 2:5). That is the whole of every Marian devotion. Ask today not only for what you want, but to know what her Son is asking of you, and for the grace to do it. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

Catherine Labouré spent the forty-six years after 1830 caring for old men in a poor quarter of Paris, keeping her secret, doing ordinary work. She had learned it from Mary: “Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). End the novena the same way, placing what you have asked in God’s hands. Tomorrow is the feast; give thanks, and if you wish, make the Act of Consecration below. Say the novena prayer and the invocation, then:

For the feast on November 27, or any day after the novena. This is the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal’s text.