LABOURÉ, CATHERINE, ST.

Mystic, inaugurator of the miraculous medal devotion; b. Fain-les-Moutiers, Burgundy, France, May 2, 1806; d. Enghien-Reuilly Convent, Paris, Dec. 31, 1876. Zoé, as she was baptized, was the ninth of 17 children of Pierre Labouré, a prosperous farmer, and Madeleine Louise Gontard (d. 1815). She received no formal education, but frequent Communion, daily Mass, and hours of prayer nurtured her desire to enter religious life. From the age of 12 she managed the household for her father and brothers. In 1828 her father tried to discourage her vocation by sending her to Paris to work as a waitress in his brother's café. Unhappy there, she fled to relations in Châtillon-sur-Seine, where she entered the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (January 1830) and took Catherine as her name in religion. At the novitiate in Rue du Bac, Paris, she soon experienced visions of St. Vincent de Paul's heart. Repeatedly she enjoyed the visible presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. According to Catherine, she was awakened on the night of July 18, 1830, by her guardian angel, who led her to the chapel. There Our Lady appeared and, while Catherine knelt at her knee, sat and talked for two hours, giving spiritual advice, predicting world calamities, and speaking of a mission for Catherine. In a second apparition (Nov. 27, 1830) this mission was revealed when the novice beheld a picture of Mary standing on a globe with light streaming from her hands. Around the Virgin were the words in French: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." After manifesting the miraculous medal, Mary entrusted to Catherine the inauguration of the devotion to it. A third vision (September 1831) was to the same effect. Catherine confided her experience only to her confessor, M. Aladel, who obtained permission from the archbishop of Paris to have the medal struck (1832). In 1836 an archdiocesan commission canonically approved the authenticity of the visions.

Catherine was sent to Reuilly, Paris (January 1831), and worked there for the remaining 46 years of her life, tending the aged and laboring in other humble occupations. Her mystical experiences continued. She had a mysterious vision of the cross (c. 1847) and made remarkable prophecies. To her superiors, however, she seemed "insignificant" and "cold, even apathetic." Not until May 1876 did Catherine reveal her visions to her superiors, and then in order to expedite a statue requested by Mary. Her incorrupt body lies in the chapel of the motherhouse on Rue du Bac, Paris. She was beatified May 28, 1933, by pius xi, and canonized July 27, 1947, by pius xii.

Feast: Nov. 28.

Bibliography: j. i. dirvin, St. Catherine Labouré of the Miraculous Medal (New York 1958). o. englebert, Catherine Labouré and the Modern Apparitions of Our Lady, tr. a. guinan (New York 1959). r. laurentin and p. roche, Catherine Labouré et la médaille miraculeuse: documents authentiques: 1830–1876 (Paris 1976). r. laurentin, The Life of Catherine Labouré, tr. p. inwood (London 1983). Siegeszug der wunderbaren Medaille, ed. w. durrer (Jestetten 1983). Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, "You Will Make This Known …" (New Bedford, MA 1998).

[j. i. dirvin]