Alphonse Ratisbonne and his encounter with the Virgin of the Miraculous Medal
December 18, 2024
By: Olmes Madrigal Montoya
Among the innumerable extraordinary deeds and miracles wrought through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, the incredible conversion of the Jew Alphonse Ratisbonne has become one of the most famous in history.
Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jew with an immense fortune, a lawyer by profession, and a banker, was born on May 1, 1814, in Strasbourg, a city located in northeastern France. A member of a large family, he was the eleventh of thirteen siblings, of whom his great reference was Theodore Ratisbonne, his older brother.
Despite the Jewish roots of the young Alphonse, he decided to renounce the religious sphere of Judaism and declared himself an atheist, "he was a Hebrew in name only, because he did not even believe in God" (Presencia, 2022), he expresses in his writings. This atheism is accompanied by a great inclination for worldly pleasures and disorders, as well as by a deep aversion and hatred of Catholicism. The latter, due to the conversion to Christianity of his older brother Theodore, his great reference, who, in addition, with time is ordained a priest and exercises his ministry in the same city where his family was; an event that the family saw as an unforgivable offense and a total dishonor to their good name and prestige. The young Alphonse expresses the following in one of his letters:
"My brother Theodore, in whom there was much hope, declared himself a Christian; and shortly after, despite the desolation caused, he went further: he was ordained a priest and exercised his ministry in the same city, before the inconsolable gaze of the family. I was young; This behavior of my brother disgusted me, and I began to hate his habit and his person. The conversion of my brother, which I considered an inexplicable folly, made me believe in the fanaticism of the Catholics and I was horrified by them... I hated only one member of my family: my brother Theodore... His habit repelled me, his presence annoyed me, his words, grave, excited my anger." (INFOVATICANA, 2017)
However, despite the licentious and worldly life of the young Alphonse, despite his atheism and total contempt for Christianity, God had wonderful plans for him, and as happens in many cases, he delegates the most difficult processes of conversion to his Blessed Mother, who very well knows how to dispose with tenderness and efficiency of the opportune moments and events to bend hearts and bring them to the feet of her beloved Son.
As part of the divine designs in which the Blessed Virgin began to pull the strings of her intercession to lead Alphonse to a personal encounter with her, the young man arrives in Rome. His arrival in the "eternal city" is the total work of Providence. Alphonse would think that it was all a miscalculation and absolute carelessness on his part, because on a trip of rest and pleasures, being in Naples, he was to leave for Palermo, Rome was not in his plans. However, "instead of going to the departure hall for Palermo, where I wanted to go, I found myself in the stagecoach offices for Rome" (Presence, 2022), he wrote. Thus, on January 6, 1842, he arrived at the place that God had prepared for him, but that he did not have within his itinerary. So, the new last-minute plan was to stay in Rome until January 20.
Two days after his arrival, while on an impromptu excursion through the city's tourist sites, he suddenly crossed paths with a childhood friend, Gustavo de Bussières, based in Rome. The joy of the meeting was evident, and after agreeing to go to his dear friend's house to eat, the young Alphonse crossed paths with his brother, Theodore de Bussières, who not only bore the same name as Theodore Ratisbonne, his priest brother, but was also a friend of his, and, to make matters worse, I also shared with him the fact that he was a convert to Catholicism, but in this case from Protestantism; coincidences that generated a certain antipathy towards the character in question. Even so, he asks to talk to him in search of suggestions for his new travel destinations, since knowing about the travel experiences of Theodore de Bussières, he sees in him a source of knowledge that can be useful to him.
The conversations with Theodore took place not without various discomforts for Alphonse, because from time to time, Theodore stopped talking about trips to show him the wonders of Catholicism, presented him with the Miraculous Medal of the Virgin Mary, and told him about the incredible miracles worked through it. To all this Alphonse responds with irony, mockery, blasphemies, and accusations towards the Catholic Church; telling him, moreover, that the miracles attributed to the medal are surely the object of mere superstition, phenomena typical of ignorant and superstitious people. However, Theodore does not desist, and taking a Miraculous Medal in his hand, he challenges him to wear it around his neck for a few days, emphasizing, in a very cunning way, that he would have nothing to fear, because as he was an enlightened man and without any superstition, therefore, he would be a simple object of no importance and without effect. Alphonse's reaction to such a laughable proposal is related as follows:
"I confess that the proposal surprised me for its childish originality. I did not expect this occurrence. My first reaction was to laugh, shrugging my shoulders. And I agreed to take the medal to prove the story I would tell my girlfriend. Said and done. I put the medal around my neck and laughed: "Ha ha! I am already Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman!" It was the demon who prophesied through my mouth" (Presence, 2022)
However, Theodore would go further in his daring, and asked him that to complete the challenge he should perform every day the prayer "Remember" of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, also known as "Memorare", and as part of the strategy to manipulate his will and decision, he again alluded to Alphonse's condition as an enlightened man, learned and not at all superstitious; in short, it would not lose anything by doing something so apparently insignificant; "I said, 'Okay. I promise to recite this prayer, for even if it does not benefit me, I believe it will not harm me either!" (INFOVATICANA, 2017), they would reply.
Faced with acceptance, Theodore asks her to begin by transcribing the sentence on a sheet of paper. Alphonse accepts, and although the transcription is done mechanically and without paying too much attention to what he writes, nevertheless the sentence is involuntarily and mysteriously engraved in his memory. Thus, from that moment on, and during the following days, like a desperate and continuous drip that did not stop making noise in his head, the prayer came to him again and again, he ruminated on it throughout the day despite his great displeasure and he could not get it out of his mind no matter how hard he tried. a mystery that began to disturb him. In this way, the days passed and January 20, 1842, the day of his conversion, arrived.
After a routine morning of breakfast, reading, and conversations with certain people, Alphonse meets again with Theodore de Bussiéres, who invites him to take a ride in his carriage, it was January 20, 1842. During the tour, passing by the church of "Sant'Andrea delle Fratte", Theodore asks Ratisbonne to wait a moment inside the carriage, as he had to enter the church to finalize some details of the funeral of a very dear friend, who had just passed away. This friend was Count Laferronays, a man Theodore had asked in previous days to intercede by praying the "Memorare" for the conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, and he had done so until his death. Even though he had been instructed to wait in the carriage, moved by a strange curiosity, Alphonse decides to get off and enters to see the church inside.
As the young man from Ratisbonne walked carefree inside the church, looking from one side to the other, and inspecting the characteristics of its structure, he suddenly noticed that everything around him began to disappear as if by magic. Alphonse, incredibly surprised and feeling in the middle of a great void, observes that an intense and wonderful glow floods the chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel, located on one of the sides of the temple. It is at that moment that the young man enters into a deep ecstasy and falls to his knees, while before his very incredulous eyes, and in person, on the altar, appears She, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the same appearance as the image that he wore printed on the medal of the challenge that hung around his neck, the Virgin of the Miraculous Medal. Alphonse himself recounts with emotion the magnificent event that changed his life:
"I turned my eyes towards the chapel radiant with so much light, and I saw on the altar of the same, standing, alive, large, majestic, beautiful and merciful, the Blessed Virgin Mary, similar in gesture and form to the image seen in the Miraculous Medal of the Immaculate. He signaled me with his hand to kneel. An irresistible force pushed me towards her and seemed to say to me: Enough is enough! He didn't say it, but I understood. At this vision I fell on my knees in the place where I was; I tried several times to raise my eyes to the Blessed Virgin, but respect and splendor made me lower them, although without impeding the evidence of that apparition. Looking at his hands, I saw the expression of forgiveness and mercy. In the presence of the Virgin, even though she did not say a word to me, I understood the horror of the state in which I found myself, the deformity of sin, the beauty of the Catholic religion, in a word: I understood everything" (Presence, 2022)
It was January 20, 1842, the day of the definitive meeting; a day in which, together with the conversion of this atheist and markedly anti-Catholic Jew, he would be granted the charisma of infused science. For the Mother of God, in that instant of splendor and splendor, with a single flash, and without using a single word, impresses on the soul of Regensburg the understanding of the whole mystery of salvation, leading it to glimpse its culmination in Jesus Christ and the perpetuity of his salvific action through his holy Catholic Church.
Emerging from the ecstasy, deeply moved, before a stupefied Theodore who had been at his side for several minutes, stunned to see him on his knees and bathed in tears in an apparent ecstasy from which he was unable to get him out, Alphonse Ratisbonne asks to see a priest. When he is brought into the presence of the minister, he tells him overwhelmed about his experience: It was She! It was Her! he said excitedly and during profuse tears, while pointing to the medal. This was the initial step to being welcomed into the bosom of the Church.
Alphonse Ratisbonne converted to Christianity on January 20, 1842. Cardinal Patrizi baptized him eleven days later, on January 31, 1842. Shortly afterwards he felt the vocational call to serve the Lord through the priestly ministry and was ordained a priest in 1847. Finally, he founded the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, whose charism is to work to convert Jews to Christianity.
Long live Christ the King!
Long live our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary!
● Image 1:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Alphonse_Ratisbonne.jpg
● Image 2:
https://caballerosdelavirgenecuador.com/la-conversion-de-alfonso-ratisbona/
● Image 3:
https://presencia.digital/nuestra-senora-del-milagro-aparicion-de-la-virgen-maria-a-alf onso-de-ratisbona
● Image 4:
https://www.lasexta.com/viajestic/destinos/basilica-santandrea-delle-fratte-contamos-what-knows-as-sanctuary-of-the-madonna-miracolo_2023030764070c440308f80 0016b579f.html
● https://presencia.digital/nuestra-senora-del-milagro-aparicion-de-la-virgen-maria-a-alf onso-de-ratisbona
● https://infovaticana.com/2017/06/03/la-conversion-alfonso-ratisbona/
● https://m.virgendelamedallamilagrosa.com/alfonso.html
https://www.aciprensa.com/recurso/2395/conversion-de-ratisbone