The Catholic Standard and Times

What the Miraculous Medal
means to me

By Michelle Laque Johnson
CS&T Editor

It was a time in my life when I was not as serious about my faith as I am now. My mother called me to tell me that she had been badly treated by her parish priest and I was very upset about it.

After I hung up the phone, I had to hustle to get to a routine gynocological appointment with a doctor I had never seen before. As I drove to her office, I remember thinking, “If that’s the way our priest is going to act, perhaps I should consider trying out another church.” (As I said, I wasn’t as serious about my faith as I am now. I wasn’t thinking about the Eucharist and the fact that faith shouldn’t be based on how much you like your parish priest, no matter how great he is.)

When I got to the doctor’s office, I was asked to don a hospital gown. Just prior to the examination, I met with my doctor in her office.

We went through a series of prepared questions, and then she visibly hesitated.

“Well,” she said awkwardly. “I guess I won’t ask you if you need any information about contraceptives since you’re obviously a Catholic.”

I just stared at her. I was sitting there in a hospital gown. Did I have the word “Catholic” tattoed across my forehead? How in the world had she deduced that?

“How...?” I began.

She gestured at my chest. “Well, your ...”

I looked down. It was so much a part of me, I had forgotten I had it on. When asked to change into the hospital gown, I had not even considered taking it off.

It was, of course, my Miraculous Medal.

In that instant I realized how Catholic I really am. No Church loves or honors the Blessed Mother like the Catholic Church. I could no more dismiss or dishonor my heavenly mother than I could my earthly mother.

“I am a Catholic,” I said to myself in that moment. “My Catholicism is part of who I am.”

Once again, the Blessed Mother prevented me from making a huge mistake — as she so often has in my life, My love of the Blessed Mother was instilled in me from my earliest childhood by my own mother, who dressed me only in blue until I was three years old, in honor of Our Lady.

In fact, as a grade -school student, I didn’t know it was okay in my house to express preference for a color other than blue.

My mother taught me the rosary and the novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal when I was very young. Part of that novena is the Memorare.

Do you know the prayer? (See below if you don’t.)

When I went off to college, I don’t think my mother was too worried. I was wearing my Miraculous Medal, and she asked me to do just one thing for her: Say the Memorare before going out on a date. (Was this woman smart or what?)

And, while many of my classmates had bad experiences, I was always protected — even when I found myself in situations that weren’t very smart.

When I look back over my life, it was clearly the Blessed Mother who so often rescued me from error. It was the Blessed Mother who led me into a real relationship with her Son.

I wear my Miraculous Medal as a visible sign of my devotion to her. The medal honors the Immaculate Conception — the fact that Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin. If you’re not wearing a Miraculous Medal, or if you’ve gotten out of the habit of wearing it, I would like to take the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Miraculous Medal to encourage you to purchase one, to get it blessed, and to start wearing it.
Money is not an object. You can get one from our own Miraculous Medal Shrine in the Germantown section of Philadelphia for as little as 25 cents.

The Shrine also offers a wonderful little magazine which includes testimonials’ of the miracles Our Lady has worked in the lives of people just like you and me who wear the medal. Testimonials like these are the reason the medal is known as the “miraculous medal.”

On this anniversary, I would also like to encourage you to say a perpetual novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. (We reprint it on page 2.)

Reflection on the words of that novena has helped me live a better life. Here’s one line from the novena on which I have frequently meditated: “Obtain for us also a spirit of prayer and of self-denial, that we may recover by penance what we have lost by sin and at length attain to that blessed abode where you are the Queen of angels and of men. Amen.”

The focus of this particular issue was inspired after I prayed these words: “Grant ... that ... we may glorify this mystery by word and work. Amen.”

How, I wondered, do you glorify the mystery of the Immaculate Conception? And in that instant, the thought came to me. “You’re the editor of a Catholic newspaper. If anyone can glorify this mystery, it’s you!” (Good point, my Lady.)

If you are confused about your faith; if you would like to go deeper, but aren’t sure how; if you have a problem in your life that you can’t seem to solve; go to Our Lady.

Say her novena. Wear her medal. She will reward such devotion. As the Memorare states: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided.”

And Our Lady has promised that: “Those who wear it will receive great graces; abundant graces will be given to those who have confidence.”

Of all the creatures made by God, Mary is the one He chose to be His mother. That gives her infinite dignity. Only the purest of vessels was fit to hold the most high God in her womb.

That is why God made Our Lady pure and spotless from the moment of her conception. That is why Our Lady was able to say to Bernadette, when she appeared to her in Lourdes, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Glorify this mystery. Wear the Miraculous Medal proudly.

Honor your Mother, and, have no fear, she will take care of you.