St Catherine Labouré is universally celebrated as the patron saint of the Miraculous Medal and a Marian visionary. However, it is because of her radical humility that this young, unassuming girl from Burgundy is now exalted as an exemplar of sanctity and considered worthy of public veneration.

Described as ‘simple’ and ‘uneducated’, St Catherine, born 2 May 1806, was raised in a family of farmers. Despite a rather ordinary upbringing, signs of her sanctity began to emerge when, at the age of nine, her mother died. It is said that, upon returning home following her mother’s burial, St Catherine took a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in her anguish said, “Now, dear Blessed Mother, you will be my mother.”

The seeds for a religious vocation were seemingly sown, too, at a young age. While living with her aunt at the little village of Saint-Rémy, St Catherine had a vision of being accompanied to a sick room by St Vincent de Paul, who said, “My child, it is a good deed to look after the sick; you run away now, but one day you will be glad to come to me. God has designs on you – do not forget it.”

Her desire to enter the convent, however, was undermined by her father, who insisted she move to Paris to work in her brother’s restaurant. Nevertheless, St Catherine persisted in her desire for religious life, becoming a postulant at 24 years of age with the Daughters of Charity, an order founded by St Vincent de Paul.

It was during her time as novice at the mother house in Rue du Bac that St Catherine received apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the eve of the feast of St Vincent de Paul in 1830, St Catherine was awoken to the voice of a child beckoning her to the convent chapel during which Our Lady said: “God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world".

St Catherine received another vision of the Virgin Mary on 27 November 1830. During her evening mediations, St Catherine saw a beautiful lady in an oval frame standing on a globe with rays of light emanating from her hands with the words “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee” surrounding her head. Following the apparition, St Catherine was ordered to have a medal struck, promising “great graces’ upon those who wear it.

Following the apparitions, St Catherine devoted the rest of her life to the poor and infirm, working at the Hospice d’Enghien on the outskirts of Paris. She died in the same hospice on December 31 1876, aged 70, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII on 27 July 1947.

The Feast of The Miraculous Medal falls on November 27 and the Feast of St Catherine Labouré is celebrated on November 28.