MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE, Saint. - Born on 22 Aug. 1647 at Verosvres (Burgundy), died on 17 Oct. 1690 at Paray-le-Monial. Even amid her domestic chores, she devoted long hours daily to prayer and to the relief of the poor. Having overcome family difficulties and refused offers of marriage, she entered the Visitation nuns of Paray-le-Monial on 25 Aug. 1671.
The extraordinary mystical graces that she began to enjoy from her novitiate onward were regarded with distrust by her superior. Having offered herself as a "victim to the Heart of Jesus" at her profession, her graces increased; and she responded to them with greater prayers, penances, mortifications and flagellations. The Lord willed that she live in a permanent state of sacrifice; M. M. came to find food nauseating, and rest, conversations and the brief recreations a torment, which she always concealed in the community, showing herself serene and cheerful. To this was added the lack of understanding of her sisters: she was judged a hypocrite, and her docility and austerity were taken for oddities.
Particular importance attached to the revelations concerning the public cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On 27 Dec. 1673, while she was in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus manifested to her "the wonders of his love" for men and "the inexplicable secrets of his Heart," and proclaimed her "the beloved disciple of his Sacred Heart." Later, the Heart of Jesus was shown to her "upon a throne of flames, radiant as the sun, with the adorable wound, surrounded by thorns," surmounted by a cross, and it was made known to her that devotion to the Sacred Heart would be "the final effort of divine love which wished to favor men," and she was asked for acts of reparation, in particular Communion on the first Fridays of each month. But even her spiritual directors were distrustful, branding her a fanatical visionary and causing the saint keen anxieties. These came to an end with the recognition of the supernatural character of the visions by the blessed Claude La Colombière, who, in Feb. 1676, became her spiritual director and always comforted her on her way. In the following June (during the Octave of Corpus Christi), the Lord asked her that on the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi a special feast be instituted in honor of the Sacred Heart, in honorable atonement for the offenses of men, and he promised special graces of holiness to the zealous promoters of the devotion. The first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the monastery of Paray in 1686, and soon spread to other houses of the Order.
Moreover, by order of her director, M. M. in 1686 described in her Autobiography the graces and heavenly revelations with which she was favored. There have come down to us, besides the Autobiography, the Memoirs of the early years of her religious life, instructions and counsels to the novices, of whom she was elected mistress in 1684, prayers and canticles, and a copious collection of letters.
She was beatified by Pius IX (18 Sept. 1864) and canonized by Benedict XV (13 May 1920). Her tomb, at Paray-le-Monial, is a center of pilgrimage for devotees of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Feast on 17 Oct.
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Pietro Sannazzaro