Alphonse Ratisbonne hated the Catholic Church. He put on a Miraculous Medal as a joke, just to win a bet with a Catholic friend. Days later he walked into a church in Rome, saw Our Lady standing exactly as she's pictured on that little medal, and walked out a changed man. He became a priest. That conversion, and the hidden nun behind the medal that caused it, is the whole episode today.
Shaun McAfee joins James for his fifth appearance on The Manly Catholic (he's officially in the Five-Timers Club now) to talk about his newest release for TAN Books, Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal, the second book in his Saints and Sacramentals series written to give parents a way to explain Catholic devotions to their kids.
In this episode:
• Who Saint Catherine Labouré was, and how a farm girl became the visionary behind the most-produced medal in Church history
• Why she refused every bit of credit for the rest of her life, and how nobody knew it was her until after she died
• What's actually on the Miraculous Medal, and what the serpent, the twelve stars, and the two hearts on the back really mean
• The wild true story of Alphonse Ratisbonne, an atheist who wore the medal to mock it and ended up a missionary priest
PRODUCTS & REFERENCES MENTIONED:
• Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal by Shaun McAfee (https://tanbooks.com/products/books/saint-catherine-laboure-and-the-miraculous-medal/?srsltid=AU7gw4WDysoTzZfvYKa5FvtXwbUniw9xTmVWG-POgenuFevmcjqC7_Fr)
• Compendium of Sacramentals and Compendium of Eucharistic Miracles (https://tanbooks.com/products/books/compendium-of-sacramentals-encyclopedia-of-the-churchs-blessings-signs-and-devotions/)
• Saints and Sacramentals: Saint Dominic and The Rosary (https://tanbooks.com/products/books/saints-and-sacramentals-saint-dominic-and-the-rosary/)
• Shaun McAfee's website (https://shaunmcafee.com/)
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Stop outsourcing your faith to a shopping cart. This week, go find a local Catholic bookstore and pick out a sacramental in person — a medal, a scapular, a rosary. Hold a few in your hand before you choose one. The intimacy of picking it yourself is part of the point.
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