An initiative of the Mary of Nazareth Association December 31 – Holy Mary Odigitria (Italy) – Saint Catherine Labouré (d.1876) 63 children gathered to recite the Litany of Our Lady [Wikipedia] Catherine Labouré was born in 1806 into a large family of well-to-do farmers from Burgundy, in France. Around the age of 14 she began to consider a religious vocation, but had to face the persistent opposition of her father. She was eventually able to enter the Daughters of Charity at the age of 23. In April 1830, Catherine arrived at the mother house of the Rue du Bac in Paris to start her novitiate. As early as July 1830, she revealed to her confessor that she had received apparitions of Our Lady: the Virgin Mary appeared to her, with beams of light flowing out of her open hands, illuminating the globe on which she stood. She asked Catherine to have a medal made and distributed everywhere, bearing her image and the special invocation: "O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." On the day she died Catherine asked to have 63 children recite each invocation of the Litany of Our Lady from the Office of the Immaculate Conception, at her bedside... Catherine saw in the number 63 an illustration of the oral tradition that gave the age of 63 to the Virgin: fifteen years before and after the thirty-three years of Christ's life. The Mary of Nazareth Team The uncorrupted body of Saint Catherine [Wikipedia] Saint Catherine Laboure Let’s pray together Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.