Eight editions of the book, and her name in none

PARIS, 1848 AD — There is a small book in Paris that tells where the Miraculous Medal came from. It has been printed eight times over. Each new edition ran longer than the last, with more cures and more conversions added. By that eighth edition, in 1842 AD, a hundred and thirty thousand copies had been sold. The sister the whole story came from is not named in a single one of them.

The priest who wrote it is Fr Jean-Marie Aladel, director of the Daughters of Charity since 1846 AD. He left a great deal of what that sister had told him out of every edition. The apparition got only a few lines. Most of all, Fr Aladel was afraid people would work out which sister had brought him the Blessed Virgin’s orders, and he wanted that sister to stay unknown as long as she lived.

Her name was in none of them

Her name is St. Catherine Labouré. On the evening of November 27, 1830 AD, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her at the sisters’ motherhouse in the rue du Bac. An oval frame formed round the Blessed Virgin, with words on it in gold: “O Mary! conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!” There the Blessed Virgin told her to have a medal struck and put into people’s hands: “Have a medal struck upon this model, persons who wear it indulgenced, will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around the neck; graces will be abundantly bestowed upon those who have confidence.” St. Catherine Labouré told Fr Aladel, the priest who heard her confessions, what she had seen and heard.

The first medals were struck on June 30, 1832 AD. Later that year they reached the sisters she lived with. St. Catherine Labouré took one along with the others, and gave no sign that she was the one who had been told to have them made. By the autumn of 1834 AD more than five hundred thousand had been struck. The people of Paris were calling it the Miraculous Medal, for the cures and the conversions that followed it.

The next edition that never came

The eighth edition of Fr Aladel’s book appeared in 1842 AD. St. Catherine Labouré told him then that he would never publish another. Six years have gone by, and the book has not been reprinted. Fr Aladel is busy printing something else this year: a rulebook for the Children of Mary. New editions of that are following one after another.

Thirty-four years after that eighth edition, in 1876 AD, St. Catherine Labouré said the same thing to another priest. Fr Chevalier, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, was preparing a new edition of the book. He had been visiting her at the Hospice d’Enghien in Paris, where she had charge of the old men’s ward. He came to hear whatever she was willing to say about the apparition. One day he mentioned the new edition he was working on.

“When M. Aladel’s edition of 1842 appeared,” St. Catherine Labouré answered, “I said to him, truly, that he would never publish another, and that I would never see another edition, because it would not be finished during my lifetime.”

“I shall catch you there,” Fr Chevalier said, expecting his own edition very soon.

Then problems nobody had expected held up the printing. St. Catherine Labouré died at Enghien on the evening of December 31, 1876 AD, and the new edition was still not finished.

It came out after she died. The book that had kept her name out of eight editions began with the story of her life, and printed what Fr Aladel had left out.