In a single bound, I was at Our Lady's feet!

I heard a faint noise, like the rustling of a silk dress, which came from the side of the choir loft, near the painting of Saint Joseph. It stopped on the altar steps, on the side where the Gospel is read, in a chair like that of Saint Anne. But it was not Saint Anne who was in this chair, it was Our Lady … Still, I wasn’t sure that it was the Virgin Mary. So the child who was present told me: “Here is the Blessed Virgin.”

… In a single bound, I was at Our Lady’s feet! I knelt down on the steps of the altar, my hands resting on her lap. There, a period of time passed, the sweetest of my entire life. It would be impossible for me to say what I experienced. The Virgin Mary told me how I should behave towards my spiritual director and also several other things that I must not repeat about the way I am to endure sufferings.

I asked her what all the things I had seen meant. She explained everything to me:

“My child, the good Lord wants to give you a mission ... You will be tormented, until you have confided it to your director. You will be contradicted, but I shall grant you many graces. Do not be afraid. Tell everything with confidence and simplicity. Be confident. Do not be afraid. You will see certain things: share all that you see and hear. You will be inspired in your prayers: share these inspirations. The times are evil, and misfortunes are about to overwhelm France. The throne will be destroyed and the whole world convulsed by all sorts of calamities.”

Our Lady looked very sad when she said all that.

Saint Catherine Labouré (1806-1876),

a French religious sister, member of the Daughters of Charity in Paris

Excerpt from her testimony about Mary's apparitions at her convent of the Rue du Bac, given to her spiritual director in Paris, in 1830