By Steve Dawson,
National Director, SPSE
I want to tell you my experience with evangelization and the Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After my conversion to the Catholic faith over 10 years ago, I felt strongly that God wanted to use me for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls. I wanted to get involved with evangelization, to respond to the mandate of Jesus to preach the Gospel to all nations, but I had no idea how I should go about doing it. At this time in my life, I never even considered street evangelization, it wasn’t even a blip on my radar. But I did have other ideas.
First, I started to talk about Jesus and His Church to friends and co-workers. I did this with mixed results, and in several instances was blessed by God who allowed me to take part in conversions and reversions to the Catholic Church. This was great, but I only had so many friends an coworkers, and I still felt called to do more. Again, I didn’t know what I should do, until I heard a story about St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Miraculous Medal. I heard that St. Maximilian used to evangelize those he had never met before by offering a person a blessed Miraculous Medal. He felt that as a sacramental, the medal was a channel of grace, Our Lady’s “Silver Bullet”, and God often could use it to bring about conversion in a person’s life. I then heard the story of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a rabid anti-Catholic agnostic, who converted to the Church and became a priest after receiving a vision of our Blessed Lady after having been given a Miraculous Medal. These story’s inspired me to purchase 1000 Miraculous Medals in bulk. I was going to use the method of St. Maximilian and see what happened.
The method I employed was simple. When I was at the grocery store, gas station, or any random place, I would pick a person and would casually ask if they would like a free Miraculous Medal. Most of the time they would say “No thank you”, and I would answer, “OK God bless” and walk away. Yet, sometimes they would accept. As I would give them the medal I would say, “Here you go. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine in 1830 and promised that whoever wore this medal would receive great graces from God. So many miracles occurred because of it that it became commonly known as the Miraculous Medal”. That simple.
Here is what I found. Most of the time, the people that I gave the medal and told the story to smiled, said thank you, and that was it. But sometimes, that simple gesture would start further conversation that God was able to use to bear fruit. For example, I was with some friends at a restaurant and I offered our waitress a Miraculous Medal, which she accepted. This started a conversation about the Catholic faith, which led to a conversation about abortion and other moral teachings of the Church. We talked for about 10 minutes in total and we left, thinking we would never see her again. 6 months later I went back to that restaurant and the waitress was there and she recognized me. She ran up and proceeded to tell me that the day we talked the first time, she had just found out that she was pregnant and that she was going to have an abortion, but after we talked, she knew that we were sent by God as a sign for her to keep her baby. Of course I responded by saying: “Great! We’re gonna get that baby baptized right?!”
Now what is the point of all this? It was at this moment that I realized that God could use us to change hearts through short and simple conversations with people that we had never met before. That baby is alive today because of the Miraculous Medal and a 10 minute conversation that I had with a person who was a complete stranger. This experience in my life, along with several others, was part of the formation that I received that convinced me that God could use seeds planted through public evangelization of strangers to change hearts.
You can do this too! Purchase some Miraculous Medals from us at bulk wholesale pricing today: https://streetevangelization.com/medals/
thanks for sharing!
yes, it’s miraculous!
I threw a Miraculous medal on the roof of an adult book store. In a few month’s it closed down.
Simple is best and that was simply the best! How wonderful. I will use this article for my Church website if I may and push the message. God bless you.
My concern would be that people would look at it as a lucky charm. Do you see that as a problem?
If you have faith and you are a catholic you will not see the medal as a “charm”
My intuition on this objection is that you need to look past the medal itself to the promises attached to it. With a lucky charm, you are trusting in … the universe? The medal is a daily, hourly reminder that Almighty God has promised great graces in the life of the wearer. Certainly, if it were merely a nice idea, or a made-up story that produced the design, then it would be no more than a coin. But the vetting of the miracle, the lives of St. Catherine and St. Maximilian, St. Catherine’s uncorrupt body, and the many many miracles attributed to this medal are another thing entirely. Each of these topics become the starting point of a conversation of faith, God willing.
Years ago when my youngest son was at the hospital for emotional and psychological reasons he found a picture of the image of the Inmaculate Virgin Mary in the bathroom of the hospital (and it was not a catholic hospital) which is the same as the miraculous medal image of the blessed Mother. He was discharged that same week without any medication and the Dr. praising my son for being very intelligent! I promised that I would distribute these medals in appreciation for what I thought was a miracle!i
Thank you for this very concrete idea of how we can all evangelize
i love mother mary .. being catholic i always look up to her in prayer ..
Thank you so much, now I believe is the time to have the miraculous medsl to thrm victims of typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. Please share.
I am a paramedic. One day a had a patient who was a young black woman. Most blacks are not Catholic, especially in our area where they are mostly Baptist one of the many lesser know, unaffiliated churches if religious at all. I notice she was wearing a beatiful Miraculous Medal and mentioned that it was a beautiful Miraculous Medal. She asked why I called it that and I told her the story. It turned out she was not Catholic and knew nothing of the medal except that it was pretty. She said she wanted to know more and asked where she could find out more. I told her she could go to any Catholic Church and ask a priest (thinking that would not happen) told her she could Google it. I thought about it more and decided to copy off the story on my computer and sent it to her. Several months later she emailed me to tell me she had been baptized a Catholic. You never know what a small comment may turn into.
This part…. “I then heard the story of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a rabid anti-Catholic agnostic, who converted to the Church and became a priest after receiving a vision of our Blessed Lady after having been given a Miraculous Medal. These story’s inspired me to purchase 1000 Miraculous Medals in bulk. I was going to use the method of St. Maximilian and see what happened.”…..made me think….what inspiring faith! God Bless. I have a bunch in my purse…I should start giving them out!!
I am a Swimming Teacher, and I have worn my medal every day, since my dear friend gave it to me. However the chain broke, and so I am looking for another chain so I can wear it in the pool. My students often comment on how pretty it looks or what it is for. So at the end of their lesson I give them one after asking the parents permission. Our blessed Mother is there, helping these children to not be afraid of the water. I am truly thankful!
I have placed Miraculous Medals on top of abortion clinic rooftops and in the ground around the clinic. One clinic in Lansing, MI has closed down. We are praying and fasting that the second and last one which does free-standing surgical abortions will also close down. Pray! Fast! Ask our Lady for her intervention for the conversion of abortionists and all those who work in the industry.
GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU! FOR YOUR COURAGE, YOUR FAITH, YOUR HOPE AND YOUR LOVE! OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE- CRUSHES THE HEAD OF THE SERPENT!
Genesis 3:15 NKJV
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Romans 16:20 NKJV
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
God, not Mary, will and already has crushed the head of the Serpent,
Colossians 2:13-15 NKJV
And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
yes, i believed in the power of the miraculous medal for her protection for my whole family.
Is there a reason why you just hand them at random My faith has wavered a bit over the last few years But for some reason I often get singled out in the queue at the bank and in the street always wondered why. Thanks for your article
Hi John,
It may appear random, but I doubt it is. God arranges these encounters all the time, especially if we pray and ask Him to guide us. Why has your faith wavered? How can I help?
Fascinating. I’m not a Catholic but I had a convent education so in many ways I feel more at home with the R.C. faith. Whilst at school, was inspired by the stories of the appearances of Our Lady -particularly to St. Catherine Laboure and St. Bernadette. However many Catholics now tell the story of the miraculous medal slightly differently from how I remember it: they now state that it has to be blessed by a priest in order to be effective! ( A priest did bless mine when asked….but I must admit to being somewhat disappointed when he simply made the sign of the cross over it. I remember thinking ‘Is that it’? Lol. I couldn’t see why that gesture would make such a difference?). What are your feelings about this please?
Hi Hayley,
I know what you mean. What difference could this simple gesture with the hand possibly make? I wanted to get the right answer, so I checked the web. I came across this interview and thought I’d share –
https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/why-do-catholics-bless-stuff
How can I help you make the leap into the Catholic Church? The reason I’m Catholic is because it’s the Church Jesus Himself instituted in order to save us from sin and death and for heaven. Jesus promised the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church, that means it’s protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching anything false. He also gives us the strength to love like we need to in order to go to heaven.
Why does it say, “Italy” on the back of the medal? Is this part of Mary’s design of the medal? If the answer is yes, then why not another country? Why did she choose Italy? If no, then isn’t this a corruption of Mary’s design?
The people who struck the medal we sell added the word Italy because that’s where they are located. Like a “Made in the USA” stamp. It’s not a corruption of Mary’s design to add elements and no medal has ever been struck that adheres precisely to the original design; for example, the pose Mary appears with and the stars around the back were both added to the original design when the medal was originally struck. See this document for more info: https://evangelizationschool.com/false-miraculous-medals/ Remember that the reason why the medal is a sacramental is not related to its precise physical design but to the blessing of the Church and the prayers of the saints.