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September 7, 2023
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Margaret Alacoque was born in France in 1647. From her early childhood she showed intense love for the Blessed Sacrament and preferred silence and prayer to childish activities. Her father died when she was 8 years old, and frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the parish church became her only consolation. After her first Holy Communion she secretly practiced severe corporal mortifications, which resulted in paralysis confining her to bed for four years. Upon making a vow to the Blessed Virgin Mary to enter religious life, she was miraculously and instantly restored to perfect health.
In private revelations in 1675-1676, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French Visitation nun, was entrusted by Christ the mission to spread the devotion to his Sacred Heart, including the Nine First Fridays Devotion in reparation for human ingratitude for his love.
She recounted a great promise of the Lord, “On Friday during Holy Communion, he said these words to his unworthy slave, if I mistake not: ‘I promise you in the excessive mercy of my heart that its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they will not die under my displeasure or without receiving their sacraments, my divine heart making itself their assured refuge at the last moment.’”
In 1671, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray and added the religious name “Mary” to her baptismal name in honor of the Blessed Virgin. She experienced persecutions even from her sisters in religion for her private revelations of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord shared his grief with Margaret Mary, “Behold this heart which has loved men so much and has loaded them with all benefits, and for this boundless love has had no return but neglect, and contumely, and this often from those who were bound by a debt and duty of more special love.”
To make up for these faults of mankind, the Lord recommended the practices of receiving Holy Communion for reparation and a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. In later years these spiritual exercises have been approved by the Holy See and augmented with numerous indulgences.
Sister Margaret Mary was also instructed by Christ to pray lying prostrate with her face to the ground from 11 p.m. to midnight on the eve of the first Friday of each month in remembrance of his agony and isolation in Gethsemane. He appointed the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi as the feast of his Sacred Heart emphasizing his great love to men, “I love so much a soul’s desire to receive me, that I hasten to it each time it summons me by its yearnings.” Also, the Lord revealed his expectation to be honored in the Eucharistic adoration, “I have a burning thirst to be honored by men in the Blessed Sacrament, and I find hardly anyone who strives, according to my desire, to allay this thirst by making me some return of love.”
The prayer “All for the Eucharist; nothing for me,” became a constant expression of her love for Christ. By God’s grace she was able to recognize the goodness and greatness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hidden in the Holy Eucharist, as she often prayerfully repeated, “Let every knee bend before Thee, O greatness of my God, so supremely humbled in the Sacred Host. May every heart love Thee, every spirit adore Thee and every will be subject to Thee!”
Sister Margaret Mary died at the age of 43 with her last words being, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.” She was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1864 and canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.
Saint Margaret Mary said, “When you have anything to suffer, rejoice and unite it to that which the Sacred Heart has suffered and still suffers in the Blessed Sacrament … Everything that comes from the Sacred Heart is sweet. He changes everything into love.”
Information compiled from the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association, Catholic News Agency and the website of Saint Margaret Mary Catholic Church.
Jad Ziolkowska is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.
Photo: A stained glass window with Jesus and St. Margaret Mary at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Shawnee. Photo Jad Ziolkowska/Sooner Catholic.
