Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Virgin
- Feast Day
- October 16
- Life
- 1647–1690
- Canonized
- 1920
- Order
- Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary
- Born
- Verosvres, Burgundy, France
Marguerite Alacoque was born at Verosvres in Burgundy on 22 July 1647. After a childhood of illness and the early death of her father, she entered the Visitation monastery of Paray-le-Monial in 1671, taking the name Margaret Mary at her religious profession in 1672. She lived all her religious life there, performing humble offices in obscurity.
Between December 1673 and June 1675 she received a series of revelations of Jesus, in which the Lord disclosed to her the love of his Sacred Heart for humanity and asked for the institution of a feast in honor of the Sacred Heart on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, the practice of the Holy Hour on Thursday nights in memory of his Agony in Gethsemane, and Communion of reparation on the First Friday of nine consecutive months. The revelations were rejected by her superiors and most of her sisters, but were validated by her Jesuit confessor, Saint Claude La Colombière, who provided crucial theological and spiritual support.
She died at Paray-le-Monial on 17 October 1690. The devotion to the Sacred Heart spread through the Society of Jesus and was approved liturgically for particular dioceses in 1765 by Pope Clement XIII. Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church in 1856. Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart in 1899. Pope Benedict XV canonized Margaret Mary on 13 May 1920. Her Optional Memorial is observed on 16 October.
Saint Margaret Mary stands at the source of the modern Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one of the great popular movements of the Catholic Reform. Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928), described the devotion as the summary of all religion, taught by Jesus through Margaret Mary as a remedy for the cooling of charity in the modern world.
Patronages
devotees of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
From Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
"Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing."
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
4 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque — Tucson, AZ
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque — Shelton, CT
- Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Catholic Church — Cortez, CO
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque — Saint Louis, MO
Sources