ONE of my favourite places in Paris is a small, almost unknown, former convent garden in the seventh district. When I say it is called the Jardin Catherine Laboure thousands of, Irish people will immediately know its location, although I, suspect very few will know the actual garden.
For the place in Paris most visited by Irish people is not the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral, but an obscure convent in the Rue du Bac. Its former garden, now a municipal park, is a haven of peace, shade and birdsong 200 yards from one of the Left Banks busiest intersections, Sevres Babylone.
Sitting on a bench in one of its tree lined walks, looking over towards the magnificent grounds of the prime minister's palace, the Matignon, you could imagine yourself under the chateau walls of some sleepy, sun drenched small Provencal town. It is a heavenly spot.
Vision of Mary
One hundred and sixty six years ago in the adjoining convent, a 23 year old novice, a member of the Daughters of Charity of Vincent de Paul, Catherine Laboure, found a heavenly spot in a more literal sense of the word. On July 18th 1830, this Burgundy farmers daughter saw a vision of the Virgin Mary beside the priest's chair in the convent chapel.
She claimed to have seen visions before, but this time her sceptical confessor was impressed. She said the Mother of Christ had told her there would soon be another revolution in France and an archbishop would knock at the convent door seeking refuge. Within 10 days both of these things happened, with the people of Paris taking to the streets, forcing the Bourbon Charles to flee.
Four months later it happened again. This time the Virgin appeared to Catherine above the main altar during the assembled nuns' afternoon prayers. Her hands radiated light illuminating a globe at her feet.
She saw a circle forming around the apparition in the shape of a medal, with the inscription "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you". She heard this message: "Have a medal made like this one. People who carry it will enjoy a very special protection from the Mother of God."
Her confessor was dismissive, telling her if she wanted to honour the Virgin Mary she should imitate her virtues. However, a month later the vision of the Virgin appeared to her once more, telling her that this would be the final time and instructing her again to strike a medal.
in February, 1831, Catherine crossed Paris to begin work in the kitchen of the Enghien old people's home in the Rue de Picpus, a poor working class area. She was to spend the rest of her life there.
Miraculous Medal
Shortly after her arrival, she told her confessor that the Virgin was angry with her for not having the medal made. He repeated what she had said to the Archbishop of Paris. The archbishop, anxious that the Pope should put an end to the endless debate about the Virgin birth, told him to allow the medal to be struck, but without mention of any vision.
The newly struck medal was immediately put to good use. During a cholera epidemic of 1832, in which over 20,000 Parisians died, it was given by the Sisters of Charity to those suffering from the disease.
Many of those who survived singled out the medal, "the miraculous medal" they called it. By the autumn of 1834, over 500,000 medals had been distributed. The following year the number had reached a million, and it was reckoned to be more than 1,000 million by the time Sister Catherine died in 1876.
Conversion to Catholicism
According to Rene Laurentin, Catherine's biographer, the medal played a part in the conversion of many prominent people to Catholicism, including the future Cardinal Newman, who was converted seven weeks after receiving one.
Catherine spent most of her life trying to keep it secret that she was the source of the vision which had led to the "miraculous medal" of the Rue du Bac. One of the few people she told before her death was the wife of Marshal MacMahon, the reactionary French president of Irish descent who was elected in 1873.
In July, 1947, Pope Pius XII named Sister Catherine Laboure a saint. In May, 1980, Pope John Paul II visited the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.
Over two and a half million people now visit the chapel every year, including tens of thousands of Irish people. Seamus Heaney remembers visiting it as a child on the way to Lourdes.
This month there are no fewer than eight special Masses for the Irish alone. The Argentines, the Chinese, the Colombians, the Filipinos, the Indonesians, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Poles, and a dozen other nationalities all have their Masses. Amazingly, very few of them seem to make it out of the convent, around the corner, and into the sweet peace of the saint's garden.