In the City of Light, a Marian gem shines

By Gretchen R. Crowe, OSV News

PARIS (OSV News) — Paris is known as the City of Light, and those lights are shining extra brightly these days as men and women from around the world are competing in the 33rd Summer Olympics. In addition to the city’s 12.4 million residents, 15.3 million visitors are expected to descend upon France’s capital over the course of the 16 days of competition.

Such crowds present a unique opportunity for pilgrim sites in the city — chief among them the famous Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre, which has offered perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament since 1885.

“We want to welcome the many visitors who will come to discover le Sacré Coeur at the top of the Montmartre hill,” their website proclaims. From 3 to 7 p.m. every afternoon throughout the Olympics, the basilica is offering its “2024 Summer Games” course, which includes ways to discover the basilica, small challenges related to sport, and opportunities to build fraternity, ignite hearts and “win the medal that will be offered to you.”

In addition to offering a wide variety of multilingual Masses, the basilica is also passing out rosaries and excerpts from Scripture. A chapel at the back of the basilica, where pilgrims can light a candle, has been dedicated to prayer for peace and for athletes.

But 4-and-a-half kilometers to the south, on the Left Bank’s Rue de Bac, sits a lesser-known but no less important Catholic pilgrimage site — the stunning “chappelle” of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, where Mary appeared to Daughter of Charity St. Catherine Labouré three times from July to December 1830.

It was during one of these apparitions that Mary communicated her desire to have struck what is now known as the Miraculous Medal, worn by millions of Catholics around the world.

The small chapel, which welcomes approximately 2-3 million visitors each year, is a literal hidden gem in the busy city, accessed through a large wooden door and down an alleyway. The beautiful sanctuary, rich in blues and gold, and filled with art reflecting Mary’s apparitions, also houses the relics of St. Catherine (her body is incorrupt) and of St. Louise de Marillac, co-founder of Daughters of Charity with St. Vincent de Paul, whose heart is also present at the chapel. Multiple Masses in French are celebrated each day, confessions are heard both in the mornings and afternoons, and usually a rosary is recited in the afternoon.

It is at the foot of the altar in this sacred place where Mary told St. Catherine that “graces (will) be poured out on all those who ask for them with confidence,” Daughter of Charity Sister Judith Mauser told OSV News earlier this year.

OSV News spoke with Sister Judith — who lives at the order’s motherhouse in Paris next to the shrine, serves as the translator of the worldwide community and welcomes pilgrims to the chapel — about why visitors to Paris should put the Miraculous Medal Shrine on their itineraries.

“We can go to the foot of any altar and find Jesus present there,” she said. “But there is a special presence that remains (at the shrine).”

Visitors find in the shrine “a place of great peace and reconciliation” because of the presence of the sacraments, including many confessions heard there daily, Sister Judith said.

They also “feel a closer relationship with the Lord,” she said, where they can “understand that the troubles which they may be experiencing in their life are nonetheless in the hands of the Lord and of his Blessed Mother.”

“With that confidence,” she said, “they can go forth in a more calm way, back to face those difficulties that still perhaps remain.”

But, without a doubt, the most compelling reason to visit the shrine is because Mary herself visited it first.

While praying with her other sisters, St. Catherine “saw Mary there, first holding a globe topped with a cross, which represented the whole world — France in particular, but every individual in it — offered up to God, held in Mary’s protective hands,” Sister Judith described. “And then the globe kind of disappearing, and rays of light streaming from Mary’s jeweled fingers, coming through God as graces that are showered on those who ask for them. A few jewels did not give off any light, because those were the graces that people forgot to ask for.”

St. Catherine then saw, around the image, the invocation now inscribed on every Miraculous Medal: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee, Sister Judith said. She also saw the other elements on the medal: the hearts of Jesus and Mary and a cross and M intertwined, “showing how closely Mary is related to salvation history, how much she participates in it,” Sister Judith said.

The 12 stars on the back of the medal represent the Twelve Apostles, the church and the faithful on mission, she added.

The medal was made, after much perseverance, in 1832, and the fruits were quickly apparent.

“People were protected from great danger, healed from deadly diseases, and converted to the faith,” Sister Judith said. “And so people gave it the name, the Miraculous Medal.”

The medal, Sister Judith cautioned, is not an amulet or a talisman, or “some magic protection against all suffering.” Rather, “the medal is a reminder … to turn to Mary” — and in an object that is simple, accessible, and that contains a prayer that is easy to memorize.

“In obtaining, in wearing or carrying with you a medal, you’re really making an act of faith that God wants our good, that Mary is there to intercede on our behalf, that we believe in the mystery of salvation and in the Immaculate Conception, and that by wearing, by praying this invocation, we then strengthen that within us and can better deal with times of difficulty,” Sister Judith said.

Stories continue to circulate today of people who wear the Miraculous Medal being protected from danger, or “of couples who were told that it was impossible to have a child and come to present that child to the Blessed Virgin,” or of unexpected healings and conversions.

And all of this comes from Mary’s simple invitation to St. Catherine Labouré, and to all of us, “to turn to her with confidence that we might grow closer to her son in a relationship in which we are also bound to each other, as we intercede not only for our own needs, but also for those of others,” Sister Judith said.

“That opportunity to participate in the invitation which Mary put forward, to do so with others, as well as individually, and to be united in the truly universal international gathering, which is always the reality of the chapel, are really some major reasons that someone who either knows the Miraculous Medal or is curious, might want to come here,” she said.

The Paris Olympics wrap up Aug. 11. With the exception of a three-week closure every January for cleaning, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal is open year-round.

Gretchen R. Crowe is editor-in-chief of OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) @GretchenOSV.