I guess my curiosity got the best of me . After reading the previous post, I couldn’t wait …I went to my search engine and found this link:
amm.org/catherine.asp
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N.I., I thank you for your speedy research. In fact, reading the linked text jogged my memory. The defintive authority re the biographies of Catherine Laboure is Father Durkin, C.M… I found a description of his work in the EWTN site. Yes, he describes Catherine as praying to the community’s founder, St. Vincent de Paul with such a request - after she had long enjoyed visions of and communications with Vincent de Paul and visions of Our Lord as Christ the King and as Jesus hidden in the Holy Eucharist.
Here is reference of what came to pass for Catherine regarding visions of Our Lady.
ewtn.com/library/MARY/CATLABOU.htm
"VII. "This is the Blessed Virgin"
On a midsummer’s night—July 18, 1830, the eve of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul—Our Lady came to Paris. She came, not to the shadowy vastness of her Cathedral of Notre Dame, but to the narrow back street called the rue du Bac, to the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity.
As Sister Laboure and the other novices prepared for bed, they were filled with happy thoughts of the morrow. They had just left the chapel, transformed into a homely elegance of flowers, snowy linen, and polished candelabra in preparation for the feast-day Mass. Their Directress, the old Mother Martha, had talked to them of devotion to the saints, and especially to their blessed Father St. Vincent, and, as a feast-day gift, had given each of them a small piece of a surplice St. Vincent had worn.
Tomorrow, after the glorious Mass, there would be recreation, and they would chat and laugh together and sing old songs; and maybe they would walk over to the priests’ church in the afternoon to pray before their Holy Founder’s body…
Catherine’s heart was bursting with the certainty that grew and swelled within it, the certainty that something was about to happen, something of great moment. Lying wide awake and staring up at the pale whiteness of the bed curtains, she clutched in her hand her piece of that precious surplice. She talked to St. Vincent a long time in her prayers, telling him again of her soul’s dearest wish—to see with her own eyes the Blessed Virgin. It was a startling wish, a startling prayer, on the lips of this hard-headed, practical peasant girl, but it can no longer surprise us, who have seen her intense love of the Mother of God take root and burgeon and fructify; nor could it surprise her, who had witnessed the intimate wonders of Heaven, had seen the Lord Himself.
Suddenly, as if struck with an inspiration, she tore the tiny cloth in two and swallowed half of it. It was a simple act of devotion, growing out of a simple faith. Sophisticated rationalists might sniff at it as ludicrous superstition, but those whose believing mothers have signed their brows with the sacred wedding ring and given them holy water to drink will understand.
A serene peace came over Catherine. In her mind was a single, confident thought: Tonight I shall see her. Tonight I shall see the Blessed Virgin. She closed her eyes and slept.
She had been sleeping some two hours when a sudden light flickered in the dormitory. The light came from a candle carried by a little child of four or five, a child of extraordinary beauty and so surrounded with radiance that the whiteness of his little gown was dazzling. He approached the bed where Catherine lay. He called her softly:
"Sister Laboure! "
She did not stir. He called again, insistently:
"Sister Laboure! "
She moved a little; his voice had entered her dreams, and sleep was slipping away. Then:
“Sister Laboure!” once more, and Catherine awoke, her eyes big and staring. She turned her head in the direction of the sound. It seemed to come from near the door. Through the haze of her bed curtains she saw the brightness. She sat up quickly and drew the curtains. The child said:
“Come to the chapel. The Blessed Virgin awaits you.” "
~~~
That the young novice Catherine confided the desire of her heart to her Community’s founder, while in prayer, seems quite distinct from a scenario wherein one would pray “to have visions.”
:ehh: Well I guess Jesus wasn’t looking to hard…otherwise He would have come to me:takeoff: