Never speak against the Immaculate Conception

Every year, a French organization called “The Children's Rosary” publishes an image and a prayer for the novena of the Immaculate Conception, based on the direction given to the Church by the Holy Father. Published today in 400,000 copies, it is prayed throughout the French-speaking world.

In fact, there is a strong link between the spiritual history of France and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception … While the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not yet solemnly defined, the theologians of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages took an oath, in the Saint Séverin Church, never to speak against the Immaculate Conception!

But it was above all through the great Marian apparitions of the 19^th century, from the Rue du Bac in 1830, to Lourdes in 1858, that the Virgin Mary gave France a new impulse of devotion to God by contemplating her Immaculate Conception.

Many conversions have been and are still achieved through the miraculous medal and its invocation: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.” The famous convert Alphonse Ratisbonne, just because he agreed to wear the medal, saw the sky open in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome, and the Virgin, looking like the image on the medal, come to him silently.

The uneducated Bernadette Soubirous, from an extremely poor family, heard from the mouth of the "Beautiful Lady,” this name which alone convinced the priest Fr. Peyramale of the authenticity of the apparitions, and of the Virgin’s message!

Fr. Guillaume Chevallier

Priest, Chaplain of the Children's Rosary