MEMORIAL OF SAINT CATHERINE LABOURÉ, VIRGIN AND VISIONARY AND SAINT JAMES OF THE MARCH, PRIEST – FEAST DAY ~ NOVEMBER 28TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Catherine Labouré, Virgin, Visionary and Saint James of the March, Priest. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and all the Saints as we come to the end of this liturgical year, we humbly pray for God’s grace and mercy as we prepare for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Praying for hope, faith, love, joy and peace in our world today, as we face these incredibly challenging times. We pray for God’s deliverance from impossible causes or situations. We pray for the sick and dying, especially sick children, those who are mentally and physically ill, strokes, heart diseases, and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and we pray for all widows and widowers. We pray for torture victims, the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable in our communities and around the world. We pray for all parents and children, for peace, love, justice and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world… Amen🙏

SAINT CATHERINE LABOURE, VIRGIN AND VISIONARY: St. Catherine Labouré (1806-1876), the humble Daughter of Charity to whom Mary appeared, requesting that the Miraculous Medal be stamped so that all who wear it would receive great graces. St. Catherine Labouré was born in Burgundy, France on May 2, 1806. She was the ninth of eleven children of a piousand prosperous farming family. Upon her mother’s death, when Catherine was eight years old, the young girl assumed the responsibilities of the household. After her mother’s funeral, Catherine kissed a statue of the Virgin Mary in her home, saying, “Now you will be my mother.” It was said of her that she was a very quiet and practical child. St. Catherine was devout and simple, and did not learn to read or write. She cared for her family for many years and, drawn to the religious life, entered the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris at the age of twenty-two. Eventually she became a Daughter of Charity. In the year 1830, when she was still a novice at the age of 24, on the eve of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Catherine experienced her first apparition of the Blessed Mother. Our Blessed Mother Mary entrusted to St. Catherine the mission of spreading devotion to her medal of the Immaculate Conception also known as the Miraculous Medal. The design of which she revealed to the saint in a vision. Later, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared once again and requested that St. Catherine have a medal made portraying Mary just as she appeared. The Blessed Virgin Mary asked St. Catherine to have the medal made and spread devotion to it. The Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Catherine two more times after the initial visit. It took two years before St. Catherine was able to convince her spiritual director to have the medal created, but eventually, he listened to her and 2,000 medals were made and eventually the Miraculous Medal was mass-produced, widely promoted, and approved by the Church as a sacramental for public devotion. Their dispersal was so rapid and effective that it was said to be miraculous itself. It is worn by millions today.

St. Catherine preferred anonymity and remained unknown as the visionary to whom Our Lady appeared, even to the sisters of her own convent. After the visions ceased, St. Catherine Labouré spent the rest of her life in humble and obedient service as the portress, and she continued to live a quiet life in service to the sick and worked with the sick in a convent outside of Paris. She spent that time in silence, not telling her superior that she was the one to whom Mary appeared and gave the medal until 45 years after. St. Catherine died in Paris on December 31, 1876. After her death many miracles were ascribed to her relics. When her body was exhumed 57 years later, in connection with her cause for canonization, it was found to be in perfect condition. St. Catherine Labouré is one of the Church’s incorruptible saints: her incorrupt body is reposed in a glass casket in the chapel where she received the vision of Our Lady. In the Chapel of the Daughters of Charity Mother House of the Apparition you can gaze upon the face and the lips that for forty-six years kept a secret which has since shaken the world. St. Catherine Laboure was canonized by Pope Pius XII on July 27, 1947. Her feast day is November 28th.

QUOTE OF SAINT CATHERINE LABOURÉ:“When I go to the Chapel I place myself before the good God and I say to Him: ‘Lord, here I am, give me what You will.’ If He gives me something, I am very pleased and I thank Him. If He gives me nothing, I still thank Him because I do not deserve anything. And then again, I tell Him all that passes through my mind; I recount my pains and my joys and … I listen. If you listen to Him, He will speak to you also, because with the good God it is necessary to speak and to listen.”

Saint Catherine Labouré ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT JAMES OF THE MARCH, PRIEST: St. James of the March (1391-1476) was a Franciscan priest in the 15th century. He was born James Gangala into a poor family in Monteprandone, Italy in 1391 in the March of Ancona, Italy, and was therefore surnamed “of the March.” Though of humble origin he was able to attend the University of Perugia and won the laurels of Doctor of in Canon and Civil Laws. He was educated by his uncle who was a priest. He worked for some time as a tutor in a noble family, however, after a short stint at teaching, he renounced the world to become a Franciscan friar. After completing his novitiate, he studied theology under St. Bernardine of Siena. On July 26, 1416, he was received into the order of Friars Minor in the Chapel of the Portiuncula in Assisi. He was ordained and for fifty years preached the Faith to thousands in season and out of season. He continued as a missionary and preacher. He preached in Tuscany, in the Marches, and in Umbria. Together with St. John of Capistrano he fought strenuously against the rigorist and heretical sects known as the Fraticelli, and helped reconcile the moderate Hussites to the Church at the Council of Basle. St James of the Marches preached penance, combated heretics, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. He was also appointed inquisitor against the Fratelli, a heretic sect that dissented from the Franciscans on the vow of poverty, among other things. Everywhere he went St. James stood as a luminous figure of sanctity and the Franciscan apostolate. Such was the power of his preaching that he is said to have converted fifty thousand heretics and countless sinners, including thirty-six harlots through a single sermon on St. Mary Magdalene. He traveled all over Europe as the ambassador of Popes and rules, sleeping little and praying much. He was offered the See of Milan in 1460, but he refused it.

Inspired by St. Jame’s apostolic example, more than 200 young men of Germany were impelled to enter the Franciscan Order. The crowds who came to hear him were so great that the churches were not large enough to accommodate them, and it became imperative for him to preach in the public squares. At Milan he was instrumental in converting 36 women of bad repute by a single sermon on St. Mary Magdalen. It is said that he brought 50,000 heretics into the Church and led 200,000 nonbelievers to baptism. In addition, God granted St James such wisdom that popes and princes sought counsel from him. He possessed the gifts or miracles and of prophesy in great measure, yet his humility surpassed all those distinctions. On Easter Monday, 1462, St. James, while preaching at Brescia, repeated the ideas of some theologians that the Precious Blood shed during the Passion was not united with the Divinity of Christ during the three days of His burial. He was accused of heresy for saying that, but no discussion or resolution was ever granted to his case, and the matter was ignored or forgotten. St. James love for the poor led him to establish pawnshops where they might borrow money at low rates, a work that was made very popular by his protégé, St. Bernardine of Feltre. St. James spent the last three years of his life at Naples and after a vigorous life schedule, rigorous penances, and never-ending activity, St. James died on November 28, 1476, and was buried there in the Franciscan church of St. Maria la Nuova, where his body can be seen today. He was beatified by Urban VIII in 1624 and was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. Naples venerates him as one of its Patron Saints. His feast day is November 28th.

PRAYER: God, You made St. James an illustrious preacher of the Gospel to save souls and to bring back sinners from the mire od sin to the pathway of virtue. Through his intercession may we be cleansed from all sin and obtain eternal life. Amen 🙏