Meet the Saint – Margaret Mary Alacoque
This is the first entry in our blog series “Meet the Saints”, an introduction to each of the Saints who addresses us in the ARK writings.
Quick Facts
- Name: Margaret Mary Alacoque
- Country: France
- Lived: 1647 – 1690
- Canonized: 1920
- Feast day: October 16th
- Most Known For: Devotion to the Sacred Heart
- Speaks in: Heaven Speaks to Those Considering Suicide (booklet)
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a mystic and saint, was born in France in 1647. From an early age she felt intense devotion to the Eucharist. In childhood she began practicing corporal mortification and eventually developed a serious illness which rendered her bed-ridden for four years. She experienced an immediate, full-body healing after vowing to the Blessed Mother that she would enter religious life. Upon her healing she went through a phase of youthful revelry and socialising, considering marriage per her mother’s encouragement, but one evening after a ball she received a vision of the scourged Jesus, reproaching her for forgetting about him and pouring out his love for her. She entered the Order of the Visitation as a nun and became known for being humble, simple, frank, kind, and patient.
“If your situation requires a miracle from Heaven, you should ask for one. Miracles are not impossible when you keep company with saints.” – St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Those Considering Suicide booklet
Margaret Mary always experienced a rich inner prayer life and did not realise this was unusual, believing everyone around her to have the same degree of communication with Heaven. She began receiving private revelations after three years of being a nun in which God asked her to allow him to make his love for humanity evident through her, and revealed to her the image of his sacred, human heart, overflowing with love for humanity. He asked Sister Margaret to promote devotion to his Sacred Heart. Alongside this, he requested that she receive Communion on the first Friday of every month; practice a Holy Hour on Thursdays to share in his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane; establish a feast of reparation on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi (this is now known as the Feast of the Sacred Heart); to expose the image of his Sacred Heart; and to compensate for the shortcomings and failures of others with her own love.
Margaret Mary was judged harshly and with contempt by many around her, and her messages were disbelieved and dismissed. She suffered ridicule and rejection with humility and grace. Her confessor and spiritual advisor, St. Claude de la Columbière, was as instrumental supporter of her message, encouraging her to record her visions and affirming the authenticity of her experiences, leading to their validation.
“Jesus, in his most Sacred Heart, understands exactly how you came to be in such pain. He knows more about the source of your pain and hopelessness than you do. My beloved friend, I beg you now to turn to Jesus. He will heal you from wounds you do not even know you are carrying. You have felt loss in your life and you have felt emptiness. Jesus will fill you up again and restore you to a state of hope and joy. This hope and joy will flow out from you to others. I am telling you that your great pain will recede.”
-St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Heaven Speaks to Those Considering Suicide
Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque died at the age of 43. Her mission to promote awareness of and devotion to the Sacred Heart is widely regarded as a precursor to the Divine Mercy mission entrusted to St. Faustina.
Her works can be read about further in the books Letters of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque: Apostle of Devotion to the Sacred Heart and The Autobiography of Saint Margaret Mary.
“I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.” -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s last words.
Click here to read St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s message to those considering suicide.
