The weak and lowly does God choose to confound the strong and
worldly-wise, and so in His inscrutable designs, when He would reveal
to the Church the marvelous blessings of the Miraculous Medal, He
chose for this great mission an humble Daughter of Charity. She was
Zoe Laboure, called in community life Sister Catherine. This saintly
child of God was born on May 2, 1806, at Fain-les-Moutiers, a village
of the Cote-d'Or, in France.
Zoe had not reached her eighth year when death took her pious mother,
and henceforth this peasant child felt that Mary, the Consoler of the
Afflicted, would be her only Mother.
From the time of her First Communion at the age of twelve years, she
felt an abiding desire to give herself unreservedly to her Divine
Master. The choice of her vocation was decided in a remarkable
manner. When she was eighteen a venerable priest appeared to her in a
dream, and told her that one day she would be happy to come to him
and that God had great designs on her. Sometime after she saw a
picture of this holy priest, and, on inquiring, she learned he was
none other than St. Vincent de Paul. After many trials and sufferings
she finally succeeded in overcoming all obstacles to her vocation,
and in the beginning of the year 1830 she entered as postulant the
house of the Sisters of Charity at Chatillon. Her soul was happy in
the thought that He who watches over our ways had brought her through
storm and trouble to the calm and peace of the religious life.
On April 21, 1830, she entered the Seminary of the Daughters of
Charity. During her novitiate she received many supernatural favors--
the most remarkable of which was the Manifestation of the Miraculous
Medal.
In the month of January, 1831, Sister Catherine received the holy
habit of a Daughter of Charity; and she was then sent to the hospital
of Enghien in the faubourg Saint Antoine of Paris. For forty-six
years she labored there in the most humble duties, ever faithful to
the rules and leading a life hidden with Christ in God. She always
manifested a great love for the poor and a wonderful devotion to our
Blessed Mother. On December 31, 1876, the final summons came, and she
passed from the shadows of earth to the eternal realities and joys of
her Heavenly Home.
Sister Catherine was declared Venerable by Pius X on December 11,
1907.
[Note to the electronic edition: Sister Catherine was declared a
Saint by Pius XII on July 27, 1947.]