On Saturday, May 21, 2021, Mary shared this “gift” with Libby Rohlfing, Founder and President of the Wear and Give Ministry…this is her story.

We are humbled and grateful for your interest in learning about our Wear and Give Miraculous Medal Bracelet Ministry. 

We believe there was a very special inspiration for the development of the ministry involving a few profound experiences I had with Mary.  We want to share these with you to illustrate how we truly believe that Mary inspired this ministry, and that we are called to further the mission she originally gave Saint Catherine Laboure to give the Miraculous Medal to all people. The medal is a powerful symbol in our faith and has a rich history. Mother Teresa was even known for giving away pockets full of Miraculous Medals and many, many miracles were reported by those who received them from her.

I had heard of St Catherine Laboure and the Miraculous Medal growing up but didn’t know the story until a few years ago.  The story of St. Catherine Laboure and the Miraculous Medal is the foundation of the ministry, so I’ll give you a quick summary:

 St. Catherine Laboure was born in a small village outside of Paris, France in 1806. When she was 9 her mother died. After the funeral she took a statue of Mary off a shelf in her house and said to it, “Now Mary, you are MY Mother”.

She entered the Sisters of Charity convent in Paris in 1830 when she was 24. During her first year there, Mary appeared to Catherine twice. The first time, Catherine was woken up one night by a “a young child-her guardian angel”.  He told her that the Blessed Mother was waiting for her in the chapel Catherine got up, went to the chapel, where she knelt on the altar floor next to Mary sitting in a chair and held her hands as they talked for two hours.  Mary revealed to her that troubling times were ahead for France and that the Lord was going to bestow a great task unto her. But she did not tell her then.

Four months later Mary appeared to Catherine again in the chapel. She had a vision and saw an image of Mary with outstretched arms and beautiful rays of light streaming from her open hands and that same moment Catherine heard her voice saying, “These rays of light are a symbol of the graces that I pour out on those who ask them of me.”  And then she said that the dark areas represent the graces that were not given because they were not prayed for” Then an oval formed around the apparition, and Catherine saw in a semi-circle this invocation: “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you,”   She then heard a voice saying, “Have a medal made according to this model. For those who wear it with confidence, there will be abundant graces.” 

Mary urged Catherine to keep the apparitions a secret to all except her confessor priest and commissioned her to have a medal made.  She told Catherine to “give it to the whole world, and every person”.  The medal was made and was first referred to as the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, until shortly after being distributed, so many miracles were attributed to it that the Church officially changed its name to the Miraculous Medal.                         

All the profound experiences I will share happened around the Miraculous Medal and are an integral part of my faith journey. First, I am just a regular person who grew up Catholic, but after college, like many young adults I found myself slipping away from the Catholic Church. I married outside the Catholic Church, so for many years I forgot about Mary and her special role in our faith and in the Holy Faily. In early 2019, I was newly divorced, struggling with all the changes, and I felt far away from God. Thankfully, He was still right there with me and prompted two of my best friends to invite me to go on an ACTS retreat with St Peter Church (add link to ACTS national website. I spent three wonderful days surrounded by faithful people and prayer which re-ignited my spirit and brought me back to the Catholic Church. The very next day I went to the St Peter parish office and rejoined the church and tuned into JOY FM on my radio which never changes to this day. From this retreat a prayer group formed – we call “Mary’s Mantle”, and I found myself in a community I never had before – Sisters in Christ. God works in community, and by being surrounded by such strong believers, I was beginning to feel him work in me in a way I never had before.

 In 2021, we decided to do a Consecration to Mary study (add link to the 33 Days of Morning Glory) and several studies on various Marian apparitions. We learned about how Mary, through the centuries, has appeared to regular people sharing divine messages, showing Her support, and reminding us that She is always with us (consider adding a link to a catholic website about apparitions). Some of these you may know about or have heard of such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadeloupe, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.  At the end of these studies, we took a field trip to the National Shrine of the Miraculous Medal, which is in Perryville, MO, just an hour away right down Highway 55 from St Louis. (add link to the Shrine) It is an amazing place.

My first experience occurred on Friday May 21, 2021. As we drove to The Shrine, I silently prayed to Mary, very intentionally, saying that I was sorry that I hadn’t been close to her through the years. I thanked her for the opportunity to learn all I did about her in the studies and that I really wanted to build our relationship. I remember asking very specifically for her help in doing that. When we arrived in the parking lot, I pulled out my phone and took a quick picture of the cathedral, which is incredibly beautiful. The picture shows from the time stamp, that I took it at 9:36am that day (put the image somewhere on the page?). We then walked into the building off to the side that houses the gift shop. We all wandered around the gift shop, and I bought my first beautiful blue Miraculous Medal necklace and immediately put it on.

 Then a few minutes later, I heard a text ding, took my phone out of my pocket, but instead of seeing a text pop up on the screen, what I saw was a beautiful picture of Mary on my phone that I had never seen before.  I looked at the photo and I was so confused. I had never seen this picture of Mary before. Where was the text I heard? I knew I had not taken that picture.  My phone was in my pocket. I didn’t know what to think so I approached a couple of my friends, quietly told them what happened, and one of them grabbed my shoulders and said, “Mary wanted you to see that She was present and here with you.”  I let that sink in for a minute and I became a bit overcome. I knew I hadn’t taken that photo. And after some discernment and confusion, I noticed that the time stamp on it was also at 9:36am, the same time I was out in the parking lot, and the same time stamp that is on the photo of the Shrine cathedral that I took.  I realized there could be no doubt; I didn’t take that picture because I couldn’t be in two places at once.   Then I started realizing that it truly was a gift from Mary but was still processing it.

 The second profound experience was different and even more powerful. That same day later that morning, after we took a cathedral tour, my friend and I were walking the Shrine grounds and approached a bronze statue of Mary in the garden. Mary is sitting with outstretched hands and a kneeler is there in front of her for guests to pray and hold her hands just like Catherine did in the chapel (link to picture) And just behind Mary’s statue, off to the right, there is also a bronze statue of Jesus, because it is always Mary’s desire to bring us to her divine Son…..  My friend immediately went over to it and kneeled to pray, so I gave her space and waited off to the side by a tree.  I then noticed that I was standing right in between the statues of Mary and Jesus. I looked at Jesus and started praying to him, thanking him for the opportunity to be there and for the blessing that I believed had just happened to me. But I also stood there thinking how uncomfortable I was at the thought of kneeling at the bronze statue to pray holding Mary’s bronze hands. It felt like it would be awkward. Spontaneous prayer had never been a fluid and easy thing for me, especially randomly and in public. So, when she got up and walked away, my intention was just to walk past it. But when I started to walk by, instead I felt my body turn and walk right up to that kneeler and kneel down. Something guided me there. My hands automatically reached to hold her bronze hands and I began to pray. I felt my head fall forward and the anxiety immediately change to a soothing peace that came over me. The words of prayer just started flowing through my mind. Prayers of thanks, prayers for all of those I loved, and prayers of forgiveness. I was so amazed at the prayer flowing so easily through me that I simultaneously had a second thought when I was finished, that I was going to “drop the prayer mic,” that it was the best prayer I had ever said. I didn’t even know where all the words came from. I ended my prayer with a thank you to Mary for my special picture showing me she was here with me. The moment I said Amen, I literally FELT THEM.

Suddenly, the strongest, most intense, flow of driving wind and energy blew straight into the core of my body. I felt the energy rush in, but it did not go out, it stayed inside me and took my breath away. I audibly gasped. Powerful waves of goosebumps covered every inch of me. There was a presence so palpable that I knew it was not self-produced. Then I felt a physical presence standing on my right side, almost touching my right cheek. It felt like a person. Just as you may imagine, if you were in complete darkness and you didn’t hear a thing, but you knew that someone was now standing right next to you….

I didn’t feel scared though. Instead, I felt calm and energized at the same time. A smile came to my face. I was still kneeling, holding Mary’s hands with my eyes closed. That was when my head turned slightly towards the presence. I opened my eyes and directly in my line of sight was the bronze statue of Jesus. Their message I felt with all my senses was “WE are present,” “WE are here,” “WE are with you,” we are not up on the clouds somewhere like I had felt before.

As you can imagine that Miraculous Medal necklace that I was wearing that day became very special to me. I did not take it off. It represented a newfound faith growing inside me. But, about a year later, the first “WEAR & GIVE” experience happened. I was with a friend whose 40-year-old wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They both had grown up Catholic but were not really practicing anymore and were very angry with God and feeling hopeless because of her illness. As he talked to me about what was going on, something inside me said to take off my necklace and give it to him to give it to her. I did, and after he went home and put it on her, he told me that something in her changed. She was energized, encouraged, and went online to research the story about the Miraculous Medal. She didn’t take it off and she started having hope again.  His reports about her and his own inspiration really affected me.

I went on to give away six more necklaces after that and eventually figured out it was much simpler and easier to give away bracelets with Miraculous Medals on them.  My mom taught me how to make bracelets and by November of 2022, we began making bracelets and added Miraculous Medals to them every day together at my kitchen table. I started bringing a bowl full of them to my Mary’s Mantle Rosary Prayer Group meetings…. all the women in the group started wearing and giving them away. It was this community that took the ministry and ran with it. Hundreds were given away quickly. A couple of months later at one of our meetings, as the ladies were telling touching Giving stories, our leader declared, “This is quite a ministry that you have started.” I had not really thought of it as a ministry then, but it surely had become one, as more and more in our community began wearing them and giving them away.

Not too much later, one day during a Sunday mass at St Peter, as I was sitting there and the words “Wear & Give,” “Wear & Give,” “Wear & Give” kept running through my mind….  I shared this with my prayer group, and all thought it was divine inspiration, and the ministry Name was born.  Hundreds of bracelets worn and given quickly became thousands.

In November of 2023, we returned to the Shrine in Perryville…. While we were there, I visited the bronze statue of Mary again and this time while praying, the Holy Spirit moved me to take off the bracelet I was wearing and place it into her outstretched hands. When I got up and walked away, I almost felt a little silly about doing that, but then in my mind I thought, “well someone is going to take it and it’s because they probably really needed it right??”  I didn’t think much of it until I went back again three months later on February 13th, 2024.

The Shrine has a very special prayer service on the 13th of every month, where Mary is known to be present in the Cathedral. While we were all saying the rosary part of the service, I had my eyes closed and was deep in prayer. It was during the Luminous Mysteries, after we started the Wedding at Cana (which is the first-time written describing Mary’s intercession for us with Jesus), it was then that I vividly saw Mary standing on the left side of the altar, with her arms outstretched wide like She is in the Miraculous Medal. I saw light brightly sparkling under her right hand, and then noticed it was reflecting from a Miraculous Medal dangling off a bracelet on her wrist. I could see the individual beads, white and blue crackle glass beads – the exact bracelet that I left in her hands in October. I lost my breath and got those Holy Spirit goose bumps like I had before. I knew then with certainty that Mary was the driving force behind our Wear & Give ministry and the reason we do what we do.

 There are really two fundamental parts to the ministry…... 

First:  wearing a bracelet with a blessed Miraculous Medal on it… There is power in the blessed medal and when we see it or feel it dangling on our wrist, it is a constant reminder that Mary loves us, that we are not alone, she is here with us, and if we pray, she will intercede taking our prayers directly to Jesus.

Second: giving away a bracelet when the Holy Spirit prompts you to create a holy moment.  Matthew Kelly in his book Holy Moments explains that creating a holy moment involves three basic parts: 1) you open your heart to God, 2) you set aside your personal preference, and 3) you do something kind for someone else. This can be as simple as being patient with your sibling or classmate, doing a chore you weren’t asked to do, sitting with someone who looks lonely…… or giving away a bracelet! 

The simple act of taking a beautiful bracelet with a blessed miraculous medal off your wrist and putting it on someone else’s wrist is very powerful. Whether you say a lot, or a little, or nothing at all when you do this, you convey to that person:  1) I care about you; 2) you are not alone; 3) Mary and Jesus are with you; 4) you matter. This small gesture of giving something of yours to someone else is a holy moment. Small kindnesses matter. Small moments matter. They add up in big ways! While you may not know the impact you have each time you give away a bracelet and create a holy moment, it is part of a ripple effect that will change lives!

 We have so many stories from people who have given or have been given Miraculous Medal bracelets.  From small moments of gratitude when someone says “you have no idea how much I needed this today” to people who have told us the gift of a bracelet brought them back to their faith, gave them hope, or helped them heal. Small gestures do matter. And the conversations about God that occur when bracelets are given are wonderful moments of gentle evangelization. When we bring God into the conversation, He does all the rest! Hearts and minds are changed. People are changed. The world needs more prayer and by simply following Mary’s directive to give away her medal, we can be a part of that. Our hope is that everyone here will join us in this mission together to spread Mary’s love, joy, and to create opportunities to have Holy Moments as we spread it to one person and one community at a time.

We look forward to you becoming part of the Wear & Give Ministry!