Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:

Feast day : 16 October

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French mystic and Visitation nun who lived during the period 1647-1690. Over a series of visions from 1673-1675, Our Lord Jesus appeared to Saint Margaret and gave her a new form of devotion to His Sacred Heart. As directed by Our Lord, she revealed these visions to her confessor Rev. Fr. Claude de la Colombière, who directed her to write an account of the visions and messages. Soon her superiors also came to believe in the visions and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was privately observed in her monastery from 1686. The devotion gained immense popularity after her death in 1690. She was beatified in 1824 and canonized in 1920.

Early life:

Saint Margaret was born on July 22, 1647 in Lhautecur, France as the fifth of seven children. From an early age she was devoted to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin. At the age of eight, after she lost her father, she joined a convent school and received two years of education. She received her First Holy Communion at the age of nine but shortly after had to abandon her education owing to her illness that made her bed ridden for several years. During this period of suffering she recognised her inner calling and consecrated herself to Jesus. After she did so, she was miraculously healed. Her mother was opposed to her decision of becoming a religious and till the age of twenty three she struggled with conflicting thoughts on choosing her course of life. Eventually, on 25 May 1671, she joined the Visitation nuns at Paray-le-Monial, a community founded by Saint Francis de Sales.

Religious life:

The charism of the Visitation Order did not permit any of its members to seek mystical gifts from the Lord. Margaret followed the rules of the community but the abundant graces and gifts rendered by Our Lord to her couldn’t be hidden for long. Through a series of visions, Jesus appeared to Margaret and revealed His Sacred Heart and His desire to institute a new form of devotion to His Sacred Heart. Margaret found this difficult as most often her superiors did not believe in her visions.

Visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Over a series of visions from 1673-1675, Our Lord Jesus appeared to Saint Margaret and gave her a new form of devotion to His Sacred Heart. Our Lord revealed His Sacred Heart – a heart pierced, enthroned in flames, surrounded by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a cross. Our Lord said to her; “My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you, that, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of its burning love, It needs must spread them abroad through means of you, and It must make Itself known unto them in order to enrich them with the treasures which It contains. I make known to you the worth of these treasures. They contain the graces of sanctification and of salvation which are needful to free them from the abyss of perdition. I have chosen you, who are an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance, to carry out this great work, so that it may be seen that everything has been done by Me.”

In 1674, Our Lord Jesus permitted Saint Margaret to repose on His Sacred Heart and placed His heart in hers and returning it back called her “the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart’. Our Lord desired that the first Friday after the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi be observed in a special manner as a feast of His Sacred Heart, by offering Holy Communion with a reparation of honour for all the insults and indignities His Heart had received since the institution of the Holy Eucharist. She said that in her vision she was instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night to meditate on Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. He also revealed twelve promises that he would fulfil to those who practice devotion to His Sacred Heart. Read more about this devotion at Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

As directed by Our Lord, Sister Margaret Mary revealed these apparitions to her confessor Father Claude de la Colombière, then Superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray le Monial. Father de la Colombière directed Sister Margaret Mary to write an account of the apparition. He declared that the visions were genuine. In 1683, opposition in the community ended when Mother Melin was elected Superior and named Margaret Mary as her assistant. She later became Novice Mistress, and saw the monastery observe the Feast of the Sacred Heart privately, beginning in 1686. Two years later, a chapel was built at Paray-le-Monial to honor the Sacred Heart.

Death & Spread of the devotion:

Saint Margaret Alacoque died on 17 October 1690. She was beatified in 1824 and canonized in 1920.

After her death, the devotion spread rapidly in France with the efforts of the Visitation and Jesuit Orders. In 1730 the sudden end of the plague in Marseilles after the consecration of the city to the Sacred Heart gave further impetus to the spreading devotion throughout France. The devotion was approved by the Holy See in 1765 and the bishops of Poland, the Arch-confraternity of the Sacred Heart at Rome and the Visitation Order obtained permission from Pope Clement XIII to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart with its own Office and Mass. In 1815 Pope Pius VIII granted a plenary indulgence to all the faithful who on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, having confessed and communicated worthily, visit a Church or public oratory and pray for the intentions of the Pope. In 1856 Pope Pius IX ordered the Feast to be celebrated on the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi in every church throughout the world.

In 1875 Pope Pius IX consecrated the Catholic Church to the Sacred Heart. In 1899, Sister Mary of the Divine Heart, a nun from the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd reported to Pope Leo XIII that she received revelation from Our Lord Jesus to request the Pope to consecrate the entire world to the Sacred Heart. This request was initially ignored by the Pope but again on 06 January 1899 she again sent another letter communicating that in addition to the consecration of the whole world to the Sacred Heart, Our Lord also desired that the first Fridays of the month be observed in honor of the Sacred Heart. In 1899, after a solemn Triduum held throughout the world, Pope Leo XIII dedicated the whole of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and raised the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the rite of Double of the First Class.