Day 7: Conversions and Graces

The seventh day of the Miraculous Medal Novena turns to the historical record of conversions and graces that gave the medal its name. The Catholic faithful in every generation since 1830 have testified to the medal's effectiveness: in conversions of unbelievers, in the return of fallen-away Catholics to the practice of the faith, in healings, in the resolution of family conflicts, and in the granting of innumerable other particular graces. Today we contemplate this record and ask the Mother of God to add our own intentions to the long list of graces granted through her medal.

Today's invocation

O Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus and our Mother... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The most famous conversion attributed to the Miraculous Medal is that of Alphonse Ratisbonne (1814-1884), a French Jewish lawyer of agnostic disposition who in January 1842, at the urging of a Catholic friend, agreed to wear the medal and to pray the Memorare daily for ten days. On the tenth day, while waiting in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome, Ratisbonne experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary as depicted on the medal. He was instantly converted to the Catholic faith, was baptized within days, and eventually entered religious life. With his older brother Theodor (who had converted some years earlier), he founded the Fathers of Sion and the Sisters of Sion, religious communities dedicated to praying for the salvation of the Jewish people. Ratisbonne's conversion was investigated formally by the Holy See and confirmed as a miracle attributable to the medal.¹

The conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne is one of the most thoroughly documented Marian conversions of the modern era, but it is far from unique. The archives of the Daughters of Charity at the Rue du Bac and the archives of the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal preserve testimonies of conversions, healings, and answered prayers from every Catholic country across two centuries. The medal has been a particular grace for missionaries (who have used it as a sacramental in their work of evangelization), for hospital chaplains (who have placed it on the dying as a final Marian intercession), and for ordinary Catholic faithful in moments of family crisis.

Today's intention

Today, place your principal intention on the long list of graces requested through the Miraculous Medal. Mother of Mercy, who has obtained for so many the conversions, healings, and graces requested through your medal, hear my petition today. Be specific about the grace you are asking.

If you are praying this novena for the conversion of a particular family member or friend, today is an appropriate day to follow Alphonse Ratisbonne's example. Place a Miraculous Medal in some place where the person you are praying for will encounter it (sewn into a coat, placed on a shelf in their bedroom, given as a gift on a saint's feast day). The Catholic tradition has long observed that the medal's effectiveness in conversion is sometimes most powerful in this indirect way.

Reflection

The Catholic devotional tradition has been careful to distinguish the medal as sacramental from the medal as superstitious charm. The Miraculous Medal is a Catholic sacramental: a sacred sign that signifies (and through the Church's blessing transmits) certain spiritual effects, but that depends entirely for its effectiveness on the faith and prayer of the Catholic who uses it. To wear the medal as a magical talisman, without faith and without prayer, is not Catholic devotion; it is a kind of superstition that the Catholic Church has consistently condemned.

The Catholic who wears the Miraculous Medal with faith, prays the prayer engraved on it, and lives in the discipline of the Catholic sacramental life, has placed himself under the maternal protection of the Mother of God in the way the medal was given to Saint Catherine Labouré to communicate. The graces flow not from the metal but from the Mother of Mercy who is invoked.

Closing prayers

Pray three Hail Marys in honor of the Immaculate Conception.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Footnotes

1. The conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne is documented in the official records of the Holy See and in the Vita of Father Marie-Theodor Ratisbonne (his older brother). The Sant'Andrea delle Fratte conversion site in Rome preserves a side chapel commemorating the event. ↩