The Miraculous Medal

You've stopped bringing it up.

He hasn't been to Mass in years. You've tried. Now you just pray.

This is the medal people give when there's nothing left to say.

The front of the Miraculous Medal The front
The back of the Miraculous Medal The back
A family table with one empty chair

The thing nobody says out loud

You've tried everything you know.

The Christmas invitation. The comment that came out wrong. The conversation that ended with both of you being careful.

So you stopped raising it. And you wonder if the praying is doing anything.

Nobody has ever been argued back to God.

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Alphonse Ratisbonne in a Roman church, 1842

Rome, 1842

A man who wanted nothing to do with the Church wore one as a joke.

Alphonse Ratisbonne was a young banker. A friend bet him he wouldn't wear the medal and say one prayer. He took the bet to prove a point.

Days later he walked into a church in Rome and walked out believing. He became a priest.

He didn't believe a word of it. He wore it anyway.

You can't argue him back. You can put this in his hands.

Get one for him
Claude Newman in a Mississippi prison cell, 1944

Mississippi, 1944

Another man didn't know what it was. He asked.

Claude Newman was twenty, in a cell, condemned. He saw a medal on another prisoner and asked what it was.

He asked to be taught. He was baptised. Four other men on that block followed him.

Nobody preached at him. He asked first.

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The Miraculous Medal resting in an older woman's hand

What you're giving him

It won't argue with him. That's the point.

A medal corners no one. It sits in a drawer, a coat pocket, under a shirt. It waits.

It promises nothing about what he'll do. It puts something of Our Lady's in his hands, and gives you a way to ask her to pray for him.

You're not sending an argument. You're asking his Mother to go where you can't.

The Miraculous Medal in a small gift box on a dresser

How to hand it over

You don't have to make a speech.

Give it to him. Say you saw it and thought of him. Say it comes blessed. Leave it there.

He doesn't have to say anything back. He probably won't.

See the medal you'd be giving him →
An older woman's hands folded in prayer, holding the Miraculous Medal

And then you keep asking

You may never see what it does.

Ratisbonne took days. Others take thirty years. That isn't failure — it's what intercession looks like. You put it in his hands. You ask her to pray.

Ask her to pray for him.

Put one in his hands

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