Ep 220 - The Miraculous Medal: with Shaun McAfee

James Caldwell: This is the Manly Catholic, the podcast that calls you out of the shadows and into the fight. Here we forge men into warriors for Christ, husbands, fathers, and leaders who refuse to kneel to the modern world's lies. No more passivity, no more excuses, no more lukewarm faith. This is your battle cry, your call to arms. The time for weakness is over. It's time to fight. Welcome to the Manly Catholic. Let's get to work. Hello all. Welcome back to another episode of the Manly Catholic. This is James, your host, and he's back for more. Sean McAfee. Sean, welcome back to the Manly Catholic podcast. Thank you. Number five, Sean. You have reached the Five Club, the ever elusive five club. So Yeah, it'll it'll be named after me. What am I, the first? You're the first. The Sean McAfee. The Sean Club. Yeah. No. It'll be the the five timers. Yeah. Well, tonight we are going to be talking about his late one of his latest books. It's hard to keep track of all the books you keep coming out. I don't know if this is the most recent one or one of the most recent ones, but it is Saints in Sacramento, Saint Catherine Laborie and the Miraculous Metal. So did this come out after the compendium of Eucharist Miracles or Yeah, yeah. It came out a it came out a month after. And it's the second in the Saints in Sacramentals series. And this this came from the Tan Books Compendium of Sacramentals idea where we said, okay, well, children aren't old enough to receive this kind of in level of information. But parents, you know, need a resource to help their children understand. We'll probably talk about this in depth, you know, help them understand, you know, why do we why do we have all this Catholic imagery and what does it mean and what does it do for us? Absolutely. Absolutely. But before we dive in. We will start with the Saint Michael prayer. Amen. We'll begin in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him. We humbly pray. And do thou prince of the heavenly host. By the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. Father's son. Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, Sean, let's start with the basics. Who is Saint Catherine Laboury. So Saint Catherine Labourie is a Labour. I'm butchered now. I'm sorry. Yeah, and you know it's French, so it's probably like La La Boret. LaBouret. La Bre. You know, and I should know how to speak French since I live here in New Orleans, but you know, I don't. her name actually means labor, like like farmer kind of labor. And it's interesting because her family was farmers. she lived in the middle of the nineteenth century. This puts puts us, I think, somewhere in like the eighteen sixties. And she was the youngest of I think three children, youngest daughter. Her mother died at an early age, and her father had to work the the rest of the farm with with the help of almost nobody other than little Zoe. Zoe was her name. and we preserve that in the book. So Zoe helped her father on the farm up until about she was nearly seventeen or eighteen years old maybe and she had this desire to become a nun and in the Daughters of Charity. And her father wrestled with this for a while, but she eventually became a nun and the rest is history. We could talk whenever you're ready about how we receive the miraculous medal. let's do it. Just keep going, Sean. Just go right into the story. Yeah. So on page four, No, so so she was, you know, I I say this often throughout the book. You know, one of the striking things that I tried to make the cornerstone of all of the all of the transitions in her story was that she just she wanted to remain secret. She had this amazing vision three times of the Blessed Virgin who came to her in an apparition in the chapel in her convent, and she asked her to to To put out this medal, to have this medal struck, that it would glorify, of course, our lady as our greatest intercessor, and it would help the the most in need of of mercy. And so she did, but she had a problem. She really wanted to do it all in secret. She just from a child from childhood, she really didn't want to, you know, be famous. She wanted to just quietly devote her work to the Lord. And so through the story, We try to communicate this, you know, in a childlike way to say, you know, the words of Christ, you know, he said, No, you know, be careful not to let people see your piety, you know, or your tr or your treasure that you're trying to earn will be removed, and you will not find it in heaven. so she kept those words in mind through this whole process, but eventually she had to obey our lady and she chose to do so with great fidelity. she confessed all of this, all of these apparitions to her Monsignor, Monsignor Aladell, who I believe may be a blessed himself, but he was instrumental in this cause because it he helped her interpret what she was going through. and he helped advocate to to the bishop of Per Paris in order to have this medal struck. And the bishop was immediately supportive. He said, okay, of course, have this metal struck. Our people need hope. And by the way, I want to be the very first to receive such a glorious medal. so so there's a lot going on here. I I kind of mentioned this in some of our other our other discussions, but you know, what God does through these events is he wants to not just increase our devotion to our lady or just, you know, bring us closer to himself. All of all of our devotions to our lady bring us closer to Christ because she always points us to him. but Oftentimes it's done through kind of like, let's say, the the ignorance of the individual. We find this definitely true in the in the story of Saint Bernadette, and we find it in the story of St. Catherine of Labyrinth as well, where she was given instructions on a very complex, a very theologically complex set of you know, set of images and text. You know, she was uneducated. They accepted her in the convent under that condition. she expected to spend the rest of her life kind of sweeping floors and you know, doing what the the labor the convent needed. She wanted to do that quietly, but she was given a very a very complex theological mission with this medal as well. So the twelve stars on one side, the images of the sacred heart and the Immaculate Heart, even the text, you know, that that went around our the Virgin Mary and and the image of her standing on top of the world and crushing the serpent as well. these are rich in theological you know variations and she she might not have understood exactly what she was doing, but she she did it anyways because our lady asked her to. I think that that's really significant. This will be the last thing I say before I kind of pause, is is converts to the church and maybe even Catholics too, we accept a lot of teachings without fully understanding them. Maybe something convinces us to continue going to Mass, even if we don't even if we can't, you know, have a theological discourse with with the greatest minds, you know, over what we're participating in, we still choose to believe it. We still choose to participate in it because Christ says so. I think there's a lot to be gleaned in that respect from the story. There's a lot of lessons that I try to kind of subtly take care of in the story. But that's one of the most important ones is doing it with faith even if we don't totally understand it. Well, yeah, I think that It's especially in our modern day and age it's it's almost, you know, paralysis by analysis, right? We have to like fully understand before we act. And you're just seeing what's like marrying apparitions or or even the the Eucharistic miracles that we talked about last time too. It's just having that that childlike faith that God is asking us to to have too and that humility, that obedience. And like you said too, she wanted to remain hidden. You know, so like she wanted to kinda keep this. It was like, Well, I don't wanna to do this this mission, so to speak, but no. just out of obedience, stepping out of her comfort zone and allowing God to work through her, allow, you know, Mary to egg her on, so to speak, and just to allow again that that humble service, you know, we we don't see that too often anymore because it's actually t too much too often it's the other thing. It's like, well, I wanna I want to to show what I can do. You know, I want to ha show the power that I have, the things that I can do versus, you know, I'm actually gonna keep this away. But if God wants me to reveal it, then I of course will do that. So Yeah, I just love that humility, that obedience. I I think it's always just a good lesson because we need more examples of that. Totally. And and I think God chose the the right kind of saint for this because it wasn't originally supposed to be called the miraculous metal. You know, there was no name that the Virgin Mary gave to Saint Catherine ever she you know, she gave her these instructions. She didn't say, Hey, I want you to make the miraculous medal and a lot of people are gonna get healed by this. You know, it was really just supposed to be a sign of hope and and of course as any sacramental you know, the Saint Benedict Medal or chalk or or ashes from Ash Wednesday. You know, these are of course they're supposed to dispose us to more often and more fully receive the actual sacraments of the church. but it became the miraculous medal. It was first called the Medal of Our Lady of Graces, but it became the miraculous medal really by word of mouth because almost immediately, you know, people were being the lame were were cured, they were able to walk blind were able to see and and even atheist, you know, this is a time of great great upheaval, intellectual upheaval in Europe, especially in France, you know, they're just getting over the Enlightenment period. You know, so there's a lot of lot of a lot of thinkers of that time who were very anti Christian, you know in fact atheistic. One of them was converted after after wearing this medal very famously. And so we see miracles of all kinds coming forth. And so within I think I think what we say in the book, like within a year, like over two million were struck after the initial like fifteen hundred medals, just because the demand was so high. That's amazing. Yeah. Geez, yeah. Yeah. And wasn't I I read too I don't know if you read this book, but it was who was the author? Christine Watkins The Miraculous Metal Pendant of Power. Okay, no, I don't think I'm familiar with that. yeah, I it was it was really good. I I was reading it on my Kindle, but yeah, it just walks through the different miracles that attributed to all these kind of especially men who are atheists or just like criminals and they received a medal and like totally total conversion and just yeah, if people's lives transformed and you know, illnesses being healed, like you said too. And you know, it's just so it's so interesting again too, the way the way God works. We talk about, you the brown scapular, the miraculous metal, and all these these things, again, we just think it's like okay, it's just a metal. So like why is this Why is it so important? You know, it's it's almost it miss makes you pause. It's like what what's so special about it? And of course the the metal itself is is nothing special, but it's what's what it represents, what is what is being the power of God through this this particular object that was given by of course his blessed mother. And I I just it's just so interesting to see how God works, you know, and and again who he works through, right? It's it's usually never the rich and powerful, but it's always the humble servants. as well. It it just too the miraculous metal with with St. Catherine. It's it's just I don't know. It's incredible just to hear these stories and to relate them to the children too. Cause I think often children are are in our society kind of cast aside as like, okay, well, let the adults handle it, let them do it. But no ch and the child like like like how old was she when when this occurred again? She was in her twenties. In her twenties. Okay. But even then her life leaving leaving leading up to this moment too. Like you could see the development of a holy life that she was was trying to live as well. Yeah. I think she's able to receive this from from our blessed mother. Yeah, I th I think I think w the one thing that I heard you say and that I want to reply to is is you know, especially in our modern age, you know, we take we take our faith for granted. no doubt a lot of a lot of modern Catholics grew up, if they especially if they're cradle Catholics, they grew up with maybe a rosary hanging on the wall or from the rear view mirror or bearing a Saint Joseph statue, or maybe even their mother her father wore a miraculous medal, but they might not have talked about it or they might not have talked about, you know, where it comes from, why that devotion exists and why why we really should must continue this tradition. That's why I wrote this book. That's why I r keep just writing about these exciting topics is because I want to give parents the resources to say, okay, this isn't just this isn't just a tradition for tradition's sake because, you know, you know, mom break baked bread this way and then makes us think of mom. but because God is asking us to, you know, I keep saying this, draw closer to him and to receive his grace and dispose us to the sacraments through these sacramentals, once in a while, God decides to, you know, perform a miracle. And we should be attuned to that because the things that we say are like those God moments, you know, those coincidences, those holy coincidences, you know, those might be minor miracles. We sh and we really should expect and pray for them as well. we shouldn't We shouldn't force God or challenge God to make those the cause of our faith. You know, as I keep saying, it's a theological gift. but we should we should definitely ask for ask for things with a bunch of confidence as we wear as we wear our holy medallions. Amen. Amen. Sean, I know you mentioned briefly, can we dive a little bit deeper into what is actually on the metal and the significance behind that? Right. so I I'd actually I d don't have a medal in front of me, but we what we see is actually let me pull it up. We got time. We got time. And what I'm grateful of the book is that we didn't just take an image of the miraculous metal. We are my artist, Jelly she call she calls herself Jelly Beam, Jennifer Beam. she actually drew it and it's so beautiful. I hope when by the time that you send this out that you can include that at that image. She she drew it and she it's it's you know, it's kind of cartoony 'cause it's it's for children, but it's still so reverent. So on the front of the medal is of course the Virgin Mary and she's on top of the world. This this of course is representative of you know our lady in her celestial glory. You know, we use this in the yep, there you go. In the Yep, in the the fifth glorious mystery is is her as Queen of Heaven. And so we see that she is on top of the world. there should be like a serpent under her foot. That's a famous thing. And so that's her queenship, and of course her hands have like beaming light coming from them. This is this is pretty famous too. but this is an image of the Immaculate Conception. that she is filled with the radiance, that she is queen of heaven and earth, and that she's queen of the apostles. some of these also have the an an accurate miraculous metal. Not all of them do. Some of them just have a halo, but it's also supposed to have twelve stars around them. And of course that represents her as Queen of the Apostles. And around the front of the medal it says, O Mary without sin, or conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. And so that of course that speaks theologically of her, you know, of Christ preventing her from having original sin in her Immaculate Conception, and it invokes her as our our highest patron, for that hyperdulia that we love her with so much. On the back of the medal is those twelve stars surrounding an image, a really a really interesting image. First of all, there's there's an image of the sacred heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which are so closely intertwined. And then above them is an with a cross through it, like a pectoral cross style. Of course, the cross represents, you know, Christ, you know, as the highest, and he's above even Mary, of course, because we don't have Christ without Mary. And we don't have Mary real really without Christ too. and then the under that cross is of course representing, you know, our Marian devotion. So that's kind of a synopsis of of those images. Now that might look so familiar to us, but I gotta say it again. I mean, imagine imagine about two hundred years ago, you know, seeing these images before Pius, what was it, Pius the the the ninth and then Pius the Twelfth in nineteen fifty four, like, you know, c made these dogmas. These were brand new. You know, this wasn't these are things that theologians had commented on for centuries, but had never been, you know, dogmatized in the church. So a lot of this, you know, went with the time. and God has, I believe, especially since the Enlightenment period, as a response to the doubt in the world, has been asking us to draw closer to Mary, draw closer to this image, because salvation, of course, comes through Christ, but you know, it's through her fiat, through her yes and her vocation. she said yes to that allowed this the the incarnation to happen at all. so as you know, I keep saying it, as we as we draw closer to Mary, we are always drawn closer to Christ 'cause she points us in that direction. Coffee and prayer. It's the perfect blend. Mystic Monk Coffee isn't just another cup of coffee. It's handcrafted by the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming, roasted with care and infused with prayer. Whether you're starting your morning or fueling your day, Mystic Monk Coffee has you covered. It offers rich, bold flavors that are as divine as their mission. By choosing Mystic Monk, you're not just enjoying exceptional coffee, but you're supporting a community of monks dedicated to their work, to prayer, and to the church. It's coffee with a cause. So what are you waiting for? Visit MysticmonkCoffee dot com and experience the brew that's fueling faith and flavor. That was a mouthful. And like you said too, Sean, it's you know, going back to her time in this day and age, and you had to have very faithful people. That just step forth like, okay, I I believe this this young girl who's coming forth with these visions. And then obviously too, like you said, the fruit that it that came from him, and what'd you say, fifteen thousand to like two million within a year? They had to increase the amount that they had to make. So I mean, that in itself, the fruit that's coming from, obviously clearly indicated that something something was was running with it. So you know you mentioned some miracles that that have been attested to this. Was has there been any too that you found that were you almost had to do a double take like that that's pretty powerful. I I I I I've gotta find the name. He he's in he's in all of the manuscripts that that describe this. But there was an atheist philosopher of the of that time. Yeah, who who was rather famous and after after donning this metal, you know, he he can he converted. I think that that's one of the most brilliant one because As I as I keep pointing to, it's wonderful when when the lame are healed and the blind, you know, get to see and people are ki cured of their illnesses, but there's a lot of theological underpinnings about this, about the message that the miraculous metal gives us as well about as well about who Christ is and who Mary is in the plan for salvation. so whenever I read this story about this this philosopher who had converted very famously, That was cool. Imagine somebody like Christopher Hitchens or somebody from, you know, the last couple decades, you know, wearing a miraculous medal and then, you know, almost instant conversion, you know, just a just a change of heart and devotion to our Lord. What what did you find the name? Yeah. it was Alphonse R Ratis Ratisbone. Ratisbone. Yeah, anti-Catholic, atheistic Jewish banker and lawyer who converted to Catholicism after seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary and wearing a miraculous medal. He basically accepted it as a wager and agreed to recite the memorial prayer merely as a bet or out of mockery to satisfy a Catholic friend. Wow. And then and then in January 1842, while inside the church, he experienced a vivid vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary looking exactly as she depicted on the metal. And then he underwent a profound instantaneous transformation, later became a Jesuit priest and dedicated his life to converting others. Yep. And he became a missionary with the congregation of Our Lady of Scion. So that's Did Yeah. Did you hear this? This is totally off topic, but this made me think of it. Did you hear I forgot what Saint it was, but he was a he was an actor and he they were putting together a mockery of like the Christian baptism. And so they actually so they had a fake priest, one of the actors, and then he was gonna be fake baptized. But they did the proper formula. So the the actor priest said in the name of the father, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. And so he had a tremendously profound vision and conversion right on the spot. And so the audience was expecting him to like make fun of the Christians and just mocking them. And then he actually gave like this brilliant speech about Christianity and the need to repent and convert and all this I have I have to look it up but it was but just you have these again these these incredible conversion stories just like this like I'm just gonna I'm gonna take this medal and I'm just gonna say whatever they want me to say and I'm just gonna mock them for it. But then you know they do have these these profound experiences and it just gosh it just it's so hard to just neglect that, you know, and it's like, well that was just like a one off thing. It was like no this was a devout atheist Who was clearly just in the mind like I'm just gonna mock them for whatever it is, these these foolish beliefs they have. And then he just completed a 180, and then he just he set his life on fire for Christ. So it means Saint Paul too. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And God using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Yeah. Yeah. So what what else about the miraculous metal or Saint Catherine should we know about Sean? You know, I just I just I'd continue on the hiddenness, is that she, you know, I I mentioned it that she wanted to remain remain anonymous through the process. But what's interesting is she even after this metal became famous, nobody knew that she was its creator until after she was dead. And Father Alladil, you know, through through whatever through whatever means he spilled the beans. And and then she was quickly, you know, she had a cause for canonization and how wonderful, how wonderful that she never knew how famous she needed to be. That probably would have been a lot of anxiety to her, probably would have been a stumbling block to her personal faith as well. You know, it wasn't just you know, fake piety, you know, I don't want to be famous, you know. I mean, most of us want to be famous, most of us love the attention, right? But she really lived it through to her very last day, didn't claim a single a single bit of credit for it. It was all done after her death. And I think it's a wonderful testament to that that enduring journey. Are there Certain places you recommend people purchase a miraculous medal. I would go to your first of all, I would go to your local Catholic bookstore. You know, I I would try, I would I I'm always a little bit nervous about buying things like this online. First of all, you're probably gonna overpay, but you know, you're just probably not gonna have the, you know, that I think there's an intimacy with the way that we spent our money spend our money. and buying online may seem convenient, especially if you're buying in bulk. but buying something that you choose that you take home with you that you hold in the palm of your hand for the minute you embrace it, I think that that's really cool. If if I was to give advice on how to buy a sacramental of any kind, I'd say don't get it over the internet. It's much more intimate and personal whenever you're you know, it's like going and picking out that that hat or those shoes. You know, you gotta try it on. Sometimes you're sifting through all of the metals in the in the collection at the bookstore. and you just you know, one s one seems to stand out and that's the one that God wanted you to have. Yeah, I'm gonna put that was a good question. Do you have a well there's one site. I I've I've scapulars dot com has one and they are pretty well known. They have scapulars, they have rosaries, but they have their miraculous metal as well. Wow. I gotta check this site out. Yeah. Yeah, I interviewed the the guy who started it all. Really great guy. He has a really cool story behind why they won they basically they said he he said, Yeah, we we got scapulars and they always like fell apart, you know, when they were doing stuff. So they actually went in like really solid actually it's the one I'm wearing right now. like solid material and that are sturdy and and everything. So it's actually a really cool story. And then now they have all this other stuff too, but sorry. But you had the investiture with the the brown scapular? Yes, I have. Wow. Good. Good on you for doing that. A lot of people skip that. They just go straight to wearing it. Yeah. Yeah. I did it with Father Dom, who I started the podcast with. So he he got me invested. The investiture. Yeah, that's the word. So yeah, sorry, we got we got off topic there. But let's actually this is a good topic. So a sacramental, I know we talked about the last time. So again, someone maybe who just listening, what exactly is a sacramental? So sacramental is a sign. it's it it swells actually let's start over. So sacramentals fall into three categories exorcisms, blessings, and devotions of popular piety. But they're always signs that point us to and dispose us to receive the sacraments. They resemble the sacraments in s in such a way that you know is supposed to draw us in closer to receiving them, to being disposed, like you mentioned in the worlds words of Saint Paul to to to better enable us to to receive it worthily. so through the through there are many different kinds. we go over those in my other book, Compendium of Sacramentals. There's holy water, there's crucifixes and different kinds of crosses, there's the scapulars, and there's a lot of those. You know, nearly every religious order has has a type of scapular. and the story of how we receive the scapular is really interesting too. there's the rosary. and all of these are are designed to draw us closer to. to the sacraments and to to w make us more worthy to receive it, to dispose us to, you know, bring out that inner piety that makes us say, okay, I've got to go receive communion more often. I need to go to confession more thoroughly and more often and so forth. The story of the scapular sounds interesting. We might have to have you back on and talk about it next time. Yeah. Well we got the next book is going to be Saint Saint Simon's stock at the Brown Scapular. So you'll be able to tell me a little bit about that too. Do you know when that is coming out, Sean? It's probably next summer. You know, the original plan with Tan was to have these come out like every three months, but the schedule right now is is is one book a summer. So that that's actually perfect. There you go. So next summer. Stitch is like the next blockbuster. Right, exactly. Next summer. Well, Sean, where can we check out this book? Purchase it, and any other information about you before we let you go. Yeah, so we just mentioned Catholic bookstores and I think that that's one of the best places to get gifts, especially for children. So ask your local Catholic bookstore if they can c they can order this book for you. otherwise go to tanbooks dot com. Amazon is gonna have a really wonderful audio book for this with voice acting and, you know, sound narration and whatnot, just like we did for Saint Dominic and the Rosary. so that should be fun. So if you're looking forward to that, that'll be up available on Amazon pretty soon. Who did the did you do the audio of it? No, I'm not a great reader, not a good talker, and I don't have an interesting voice. I can't remember the name of her, but she's done other Catholic audiobooks. well, I'll have to check that out. But yeah, I'll leave a link leave a link in the show notes for all this as well, as well as Seanmafee.com. Can't forget that. Thank you. and then we'll stay tuned for next summer for Saint Simon's stock in the Brown Scapular. Amen. Well Well, Sean, thank you again so much for your time and all the work you're doing. Can't wait to have you on for five more books and everything else that's in the pipeline for you. But until next time, everyone, go out there and be a saint. Brothers, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If the show has added value to your life, I'm going to ask you to do three things. Share with a brother who needs it, leave us a review, and finally support the show so we can keep fighting. Links are in the show notes. We'll see you next week.