Miraculous Medal
An oval medal showing the Virgin Mary standing on a globe with rays falling from her hands, with an M, a cross and two hearts on its back. It comes from the visions of Catherine Labouré in Paris in 1830.
Meaning
Catherine Labouré, a novice of the Daughters of Charity, reported that the Virgin Mary appeared to her three times in 1830 in the chapel of the order’s mother house in Paris. On 27 November, the chapel’s own account says, she saw Mary standing on a half-globe, crushing a serpent underfoot, with rays of light streaming from the rings on her fingers; a voice said, “These rays are a symbol of the graces that I pour out on those who ask them of me.” An oval formed round the figure with the words “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”, and she was told to have a medal made after the model. Then the image turned to show its back: the letter M with a cross above it and two hearts below. The people of Paris called the medal “miraculous”. Catholics wear it today, and the Children of Mary, the Catholic Encyclopedia noted, wore it on a blue ribbon.
Origin and history
The first apparition came on 18 July 1830, the second on 27 November, and the third a little later in December. Father Aladel, Catherine’s confessor and spiritual director, at first refused to listen, the chapel’s account says. After an inquiry he obtained the approval of the Archbishop of Paris, and the first medals were struck on 30 June 1832, during a cholera epidemic that killed more than 20,000 people in Paris. The Daughters of Charity gave out the first 2,000. By the autumn of 1834 there were 500,000 medals, more than ten million by 1839, and at Catherine’s death in 1876 more than a billion. Catherine herself spent 46 years caring for old men at a hospice in Paris, in complete obscurity; she was later canonized. The chapel connects the medal’s invocation with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which Pius IX proclaimed on 8 December 1854. Leo XIII instituted a feast of the medal in 1894, kept on 27 November.
The back of the medal
The chapel explains each sign. The M is Mary’s initial and the cross is the Cross of Christ; drawn together, they show the inseparable bond between Christ and his Mother. Of the two hearts, the one crowned with thorns is the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the one pierced by a sword is the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Twelve stars run round the edge, for the twelve apostles and so for the Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s description of 1911 adds a crossbar beneath the M, the form the Marian cross later took.
Read next
- Next in Catholic symbolsMarian crossA cross with a capital M beside it or beneath it, for Mary standing at the foot of the cross. It is best known from the coat of arms of Pope John Paul II.
- The heart crowned with thorns on the medal’s back is the Sacred Heart.Sacred HeartA heart wreathed in thorns, with flames rising from it, a cross above and a wound in its side. Catholics honour it as the heart of Jesus and the sign of his love for people.
See also
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Keys of St Peter, Papal tiara, Rosary, Monstrance, Chalice and host.
Sources
- The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal, Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, rue du Bac, Paris (Daughters of Charity), “The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal”, Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse (official site), The apparitions and the Miraculous Medal
- Miraculous Medal, John Glass, “Miraculous Medal”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), via New Advent, Miraculous Medal
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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