HAPPY 175TH BIRTHDAY!

Here's something I had meant to post on November 27th, and was unable to. I've worn this medal around my neck since 1999, and on Dec. 8th (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) of that year, consecrated myself to Mary. January 1, 2000 (also my birthday AND Mary's feast day) I joined the Militia Immaculatae.

Happy 175th Birthday to the Miraculous Medal!

It's small and inconspicuous. It has power unknown to most people.

"It" is the Miraculous Medal, worn on a chain around many Christians' necks for nearly 175 years -- from peasants to great saints like Maximilian Kolbe.

Nov. 27th is the 175th anniversary of the apparition of Mary to St. Catherine Labroure (1830) that led to the creation of the medal. The Blessed Virgin, who had been appearing since July of that year to the young novice of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, asked her to have a medal struck that would bring great graces to those who wear it with "great confidence."

Read The Miraculous Medal and Its Meaning.

Novena of the Miraculous Medal
O Immaculate Virgin Mary,
Mother of Our Lord Jesus and our Mother,
penetrated with the most lively confidence in your all-powerful and never-failing intercession, manifested so often through the Miraculous Medal,
we your loving and trustful children implore you to obtain for us the graces and favors we ask during this novena, if they be beneficial to our immortal souls,and the souls for whom we pray.(Here form your petition)

You know, O Mary, how often our souls have been the sanctuaries of your Son who hates iniquity.
Obtain for us then a deep hatred of sin and that purity of heart which will attach us to God alone so that our every thought, word and deed may tend to His greater glory.
Obtain for us also a spirit of prayer and self-denial that we may recover by penance what we have lost by sin and at length attain to that blessed abode where you are the Queen of angels and of men.
Amen.