In March 1832 a cholera pandemic broke out in Paris devastating the city. One hundred thousand people died in France and twenty thousand were victim in the capital from this terrible sickness. The treatment was unknown and it had originated in the Ganges Delta (India). The descriptions from those times are terrifying: in just a few hours the body of a healthy person was reduced to an almost skeleton state. The country was in panic.
On June 30th the Daughters of Charity received the first medals of the Virgin, minted according to the model that the Blessed Virgin Mary had shown Saint Catherine Labouré two years before. It was an explicit wish from Mary with the intent to protect and fill with grace Her sons and daughters.
Miracles multiplied
The Sisters immediately started to distribute them. Miracles multiplied and the people from the town started calling them “Miracle Medals”.
What Our Lady ask of Sister Catherine was a reality: “Have a Medal struck after this model. All who wear it will receive great graces. Graces will abound for persons who wear it with confidence.”
In June 1832 the first two thousand medals were distributed. For 1834 more than half a million had already been delivered. In 1835, a million. By 1839 there were more than ten million medals in several places. When Saint Catherine passed away (1876) over a billion medals had already been coined.
History records -among many- the case of eight-year-old Caroline Nenain. She was the only one in her class not to wear the Miracle Medal and the only one afflicted by cholera. However, after the sisters gave her the medal she was cured and could go back to her studies.
The Virgin Mary healed bodies and souls then, as she keeps doing today.
