THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL

Médaille miraculeuse



English:

O MARY, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.




Latin:

O MARIA sine labe concépta, ora pro nobis, qui confúgimus ad te.

or

O Maria, sine labe concépta, ora pro nobis qui ad te confúgimus.




French:

O Marie conçue sans péché priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous.



German:

O MARIA, ohne Sünden empfangen, bitte für uns,

die wir zu Dir unsere Zuflucht nehmen.



Spanish:

Oh María, sin pecado concebida, ruega por nosotros que recurrimos a ti.



Italian:

o Maria, concepita senza peccato, pregate per noi che ricorriamo a Voi.



Swedish:

O Maria, avlad utan synd, bed för oss som tar vår tillflykt till dig.





We have learnt that there are loads of versions of the prayer linked to the Miraculous Medals and it became important to us to show the correct prayer, as it is a simple, but great and important prayer.

The text on the attached Miraculous Medal ought to be readable.



The original french wording is:

O Marie conçue sans péché priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous


The text is from the La Chapelle du Grâce de Sainte Vierge Miraculeuse on Rue du Bac in Paris where Saint Catherine Labouré received the apparition.



The german version is:

O Maria, ohne Sünde empfangen, bitte für uns, die wir zu dir unsere Zuflucht nehmen



The text in German and if you need the text in English to order medals in Latin just follow the link. We only order the 25mm version nowadays as one can clearly see the prayer on the medallion.





The main source of the answer is in The Raccolta, edition 1910, and prayer #255

"The Miraculous Medal and Ejaculation.

100 Days. T.Q. (Sec Instructions.) 255 Pius X, Br. June 6, 1904.

This indulgence may be gained by those only who wear the miraculous medal blessed by a duly authorized priest.

O MARY, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee."


If you have a newer version of the Raccolta, like the 1957 version, the prayer is # 359.




All our extensive research in our Rosary development reach similar obstacles all through as we have seen; poor translations, translations that differ in the various languages, prayers from the Bible that does not match the Latin text and so on.

  • It may be poor language skills of the translator.
  • It may be a poor translation that the translator is working with.
  • It may be a person who does not want the text to be "old" and want it to be "modern".
  • It can be the ignorance or level of knowledge of the person "copy and paste" source.
  • The source can be poorly produced or incorrect too.
  • It can be a case where the person intentionally remove bits and pieces. 



Concerning the two Latin versions above we do not know if it should be:

"... confúgimus ad te."


or


"...ad te confúgimus."



O MARIA sine labe concépta, ora pro nobis, qui confúgimus ad te.


O Maria, sine labe concépta, ora pro nobis qui ad te confúgimus.



Maybe it is just a technical detail, a fine tuned level of question in the matter

"... to thee recourse?


or


"... recourse to thee".?




If you view the above French, Italian, Spanish and English version, all of them say:


"confúgimus ad te"


(à vous, a ti, a Voim to thee).

On a friendly note:

Do remember that the blessing of a Rosary breaks when you buy a Rosary. 

So you have to have it re-blessed again and if your Rosary contain a St. Benedict medal, it must be exorcised too.

If a Rosary is given to you and you donated money for something, apparently, then the blessing will stay.


Saint Catherine Labouré, Pray for us.