Chapel of the Miraculous Medal

first      previous      next      last     

Paris is filled with grand and grandiose religious structures and monuments and places of interest to Roman Catholics in particular (France being a Catholic country for the most part). However, there are also a few Catholic sites of interest that are so discreet as to be invisible to anyone not looking for them. One of these latter sites is the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity, one of the world’s largest Catholic religious orders, and an offshoot of Saint Vincent de Paul.

This is a picture of the chapel of the mother house. The site is famous because it was here, in the nineteenth century, that Catherine Labouré (later canonized as Saint Catherine), a member of the order, is said to have experienced a visitation from the Virgin Mary in which the latter commanded her to cause medals to be struck and distributed to all. You can buy little packets of the medals here and have them blessed on the premises.

In this relatively small chapel are the preserved bodies of both Catherine Labouré and Saint Louise de Marillac, a co-founder (with Saint Vincent de Paul) of the Daughters of Charity. Catherine is to the right of the altar (the glass case in which she rests is partially and barely visible), and Louise is on the left, in a similar case.

Photographed in the spring of 2001.