Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin
S. Margaritae Mariae Alacoque Virginis
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a humble nun of the Visitation, was chosen by our Lord to make known the riches of his Sacred Heart, and is honoured as the great apostle of devotion to the Heart of Jesus.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in 1647 at Verosvres, in Burgundy, France. From her childhood she was devout and drawn to prayer, and after a youth marked by illness and trial she entered the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary — the order founded by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane Frances de Chantal — at the convent of Paray-le-Monial. There, in humility and obedience, she gave herself to the hidden life of a religious, seeking only to please God and to be conformed to his will.
The revelations of the Sacred Heart
Within the cloister our Lord was pleased to favour Saint Margaret Mary with a series of revelations in which he made known to her the love of his Sacred Heart for mankind. In these manifestations, as she recounted them under obedience to her directors, Christ showed her his Heart burning with love and wounded by the ingratitude and coldness of men, and he desired that this love should be honoured, that the faithful should make reparation for the sins committed against it, and that a feast should be established in its honour. He asked also for the practice of Holy Communion on the First Fridays and of a holy hour of prayer.
Such a mission was not without trial. At first Saint Margaret Mary met with doubt and difficulty, and she suffered much in seeking to fulfil what had been asked of her. But she found a wise guide and support in the Jesuit priest Saint Claude de la Colombière, who recognised the working of God in her soul and helped to make the devotion known. Through her humility, her patience, and her fidelity, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus spread from Paray-le-Monial throughout the Church, until it became one of the great devotions of the faithful.
Her death and veneration
Saint Margaret Mary died at Paray-le-Monial on the seventeenth of October, 1690, having spent herself in the love and service of the Heart of her Lord. She was canonised in later centuries, when the devotion she had been chosen to promote had borne abundant fruit, and the feast of the Sacred Heart she had so desired had long been established and extended to the whole Church. The collect of her feast recalls how our Lord Jesus Christ wondrously revealed to her the unsearchable riches of his Heart, and asks that, loving him in all things and above all things, we may deserve to have a perpetual dwelling-place within that same Heart.
In Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque the Church honours a humble virgin who hid herself in the cloister, yet through whom our Lord opened to all the treasures of his love, and who teaches the faithful to love the Heart of Jesus and to make reparation for the coldness of men.
The Collect
O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst wondrously reveal the unsearchable riches of thy Heart to blessed Margaret Mary thy Virgin: grant that, by her merits and by following her example, we who love thee in all things and above all things may be found worthy to have a perpetual dwelling-place in that same Heart of thine.
Dómine Iesu Christe, qui investigábiles divítias Cordis tui beátæ Margarítæ Maríæ Vírgini mirabíliter revelásti: da nobis eius méritis et imitatióne; ut, te in ómnibus et super ómnia diligéntes, iugem in eódem Corde tuo mansiónem habére mereámur.
Patronage
She is venerated as the apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and is invoked by those devoted to the Heart of our Lord and by those who seek to make reparation for sin.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar her memorial is observed on the same day, 16 or 17 October depending on the edition; in the current general calendar it is kept as an optional memorial on 16 October.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque?
Her feast is kept on 17 October in the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, as a Third Class feast. In the current modern general calendar her optional memorial is observed on 16 October.
Who was Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque?
She was a seventeenth-century French nun of the Visitation Order at Paray-le-Monial to whom our Lord revealed the love of his Sacred Heart, asking that it be honoured and that reparation be made for sins against it. Through her, with the help of Saint Claude de la Colombière, devotion to the Sacred Heart spread through the Church. She died in 1690.
What is her connection to devotion to the Sacred Heart?
Saint Margaret Mary is honoured as the chosen messenger of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The revelations she received gave rise to the practices of First Friday Communions, the Holy Hour, and the feast of the Sacred Heart, which the Church afterward extended to the whole world.
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