Our Lady of the Rosary (Ratisbonne)

On January 20, 1842, Alphonse Ratisbonne, a young Jewish banker from Strasbourg who was openly anti-Catholic, entered the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome on a brief errand. He had reluctantly agreed, days earlier, to wear a Miraculous Medal and recite the Memorare prayer — a social wager proposed by a Catholic acquaintance. While waiting alone in the church, he reported a sudden vision of the Virgin Mary — the same image as on the Miraculous Medal — who said nothing but whose presence precipitated an instantaneous and total conversion. Witnesses found him shortly after, weeping and begging to be received into the Church. He was baptized on February 3, ordained a priest in 1848, and founded a religious congregation dedicated to Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Pope Gregory XVI formally approved the apparition, and the event is closely associated with the broader recognition of the Miraculous Medal apparitions.