Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque 17C

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was born on 22 July 22 1647 and died on 17 October 17 1690. She was a French visitation nun and mystic who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was in James Joyce’s short story “Eveline”, in his book Dubliners, a “colored print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque” is mentioned as part of the decorations of an Irish home at the turn of the 20th century. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was of nobility. Why are so many saints born of nobility?

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Biography

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in 1647. She was the fifth of seven children. When Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was eight years old, her father died of pneumonia. She was sent to a convent school run by the Poor Clares in Charolles, where she made her First Communion at nine years old. She later contracted rheumatic fever, which confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having made a vow to the Blessed Virgin Mary to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. This is a common thing for saints to be ill.

One night, after  Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque came home from a ball for Carnival dressed in her finery, she experienced a vision of Christ, scourged and bloody. He reproached her for her forgetfulness of him; yet he also reassured her by demonstrating that his heart was filled with love for her, because of the childhood promise she had made to his Blessed Mother. As a result, she determined to fulfill her vow and entered, when almost 24 years of age, the Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial on 25 May 1671, intending to become a nun.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque entered the monastery on November 6, 1972. At the monastery, she received apparitions and revelations of Jesus. These visions revealed to her different forms of devotion to the Sacred Heart, among other things. On December 27 1673, the feast of St. John, she said that Jesus let her to rest her head upon his heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of his love, telling her that he desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of his goodness, and that he had chosen her for this work.

Between 1674 and 1675, other apparitions followed. From the second apparition onwards, a theme of sadness was present in her visions: “Jesus spoke of the sadness he feels because his great love for humanity receives in exchange “nothing but ingratitude and indifference”, “coldness and contempt.” And this, he added, “is more grievous to me than all that I endured in my Passion.”

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque received a useful vision with respect to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The First Fridays Devotion, which is the reception of Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of each month as an act of reparation, was suggested to her and a “Great Promise” was given to those who receive the Echarist on nine first Fridays: “I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive communion on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penance; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.”

In an other vision, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque said she was instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night in prayer and meditation on Jesus’ Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane: “and on each night of Thursday to Friday, I will make you participate in the mortal sadness that I have accepted to feel in the Garden of Olives, (…), you will get up from eleven until midnight, to prostrate yourself during an hour with Me…” That practice later became widespread among Catholics, known as the Holy Hour, also frequently performed during an hour of Eucharistic adoration on Thursdays.

Conclusion

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque had several visions of Jesus, and he revealed to her at least one useful fact. One wonders, of all the nuns and priests in the world, why did Jesus select her? Several of the revelations are now common practice among Catholics to this day, so she had a big effect. She died on October 17, 1690. 140 years after her death, her body was exhumed, and her brain was discovered to be incorrupt.