Labouré was born on May 2, 1806, in the Burgundy region of France to Pierre Labouré, a farmer, and Madeleine Louise Gontard, the 9th of 11 living children. Her baptismal name was Zoe, after Saint Zoe, whose feast day falls on her birthday, but her family rarely used that. Catherine was her baptismal name. Labouré's mother died on October 9, 1815, when Labouré was nine years old. It is said that after her mother's funeral, Labouré picked up a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and kissed it saying, "Now you will be my mother." Her father's sister offered to care for her and her sister Marie Antoinette. After he agreed, the sisters moved to their aunt's house at Saint-Rémy, a village from their home. Labouré was observed to be extremely devout, of a somewhat romantic nature, given to visions and intuitive insights. As a young woman, she became a member of the nursing order founded by Vincent de Paul, the Daughters of Charity; she chose this order after a dream about him.
Visions
Vincent de Paul
In April 1830, the remains of Vincent de Paul were translated to the Vincentian church in Paris. The solemnities included a novena. On three successive evenings, upon returning from the church to the Rue du Bac, a church, Catherine reportedly experienced, in the convent chapel, a vision of what she took to be the heart of de Paul above a shrine containing a relic of bone from his right arm. Each time the heart appeared a different color: white, red, and black. She interpreted this to mean that the Vincentian communities would prosper, and that there would be a change of government. The convent chaplain advised her to forget the matter.
Labouré stated that on July 19, 1830, the eve of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, she woke up after hearing the voice of a child calling her to the chapel, where she heard the Virgin Mary say to her, "God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world." Labouré kept walking, thinking about what she just heard. On November 27, 1830, Labouré reported that the Blessed Mother returned to her during evening meditations. She displayed herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe; rays of light came out of her hands in the direction of a globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." As Labouré watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, and the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary underneath. Asked why some of the rays of light did not reach the earth, Mary reportedly replied "Those are the graces for which people forget to ask." Labouré then heard Mary ask her to take these images to her father confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions. "All who wear them will receive great graces." Labouré did so, and after two years of investigation and observation of her normal daily behavior, the priest took the information to his archbishop without revealing her identity. The request was approved and the design of the medallions was commissioned through French goldsmith Adrien Vachette. They proved to be exceedingly popular. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had not yet been officially promulgated, but the medal with its "conceived without sin" slogan was influential in popular approval of the idea.
