It is the first sign of pardon she accords man, after her long silence.
It is the announcement of a new era which is about to commence.
The apparition of November 27th, in the chapel of the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity, Paris, appears, at first, to be of little importance, yet it was destined to have an immense bearing upon the future and its consequences were to be incalculable. Like a stream whose source is concealed at the foot of a mountain, but which receives as it advances numberless tributaries, and finally becomes a majestic river, fertilizing the provinces and kingdoms through which it flows; so the vision of the medal has been the initiatory step in a religious movement, which, to-day, extends throughout the world, sitting in justice upon old errors, superannuated prejudices; systems inimical to truth, and fully revealing the true Church and true sanctity, rendering to Mary Immaculate, Mother of God and Mother of men, such tributes of veneration, love and devotion, as she has never received since the preaching of the Gospel.
The reader is already acquainted with Sister Catherine, the humble daughter whom Mary deigned to select for her confidante. The following chapter gives a detailed account of the apparitions.
We have said that this event was the dawn of a new era, the signal of renewed devotion to Mary throughout the world. It seemed as if this tender Mother wished, by lavishing extraordinary graces upon her children, to make them forget the severity with which she had punished their offences.
A rapid glance at the development of devotion to Mary, during half a century, will suffice to show the truth of this affirmation.
The medal, scarcely struck, is circulated by millions; it immediately becomes the instrument of so many cures and conversions, that it is universally styled the Miraculous Medal, a name which clung to it, and which is justified by the constant working of new miracles, as the second part of this book will show. But this medal was destined not only to work miracles, it had an object still higher, it had a dogmatical signification, it was to popularize the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
As far as is possible for us to penetrate the adorable designs of Providence, everything inclines us to believe that the Immaculate Conception is one of those truths whose proclamation is interwoven with the welfare of modern society, and whose influence upon Catholicity is incalculable. It is the complement of the Blessed Virgin's glory; even with the incomparable prerogative of her divine maternity, her grandeur would still lack something, were she not proclaimed free from original sin. The germ contained in the Holy Scriptures, preserved by tradition, taught by the Fathers and holy Doctors, supported by the Roman pontiffs, solemnized from the earliest ages in many churches, adopted instinctively by the piety of the faithful, and depicted under most graceful forms by brush and chisel of Christian artist, this belief received, through the medal, the seal of a popular devotion. The prayer revealed by the Blessed Virgin herself: "O Mary! conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!" this prayer, repeated incessantly by numberless mouths from infancy to old age, by poor and rich, and in every quarter of the globe, entered as a formula into the practices of a Christian life, and hastened, we might safely say, the day when Pius IX was to declare the Immaculate Conception an article of faith.