MARGHERITA D'YPRES, Blessed. - Mystic, born in Ypres (Flanders) in 1216 to a bourgeois family, died there on 20 July 1237; belonged to the Béguine movement.
She responded with ever more intense prayers, penances, mortifications, and flagellations. The Lord willed that she live in a permanent state of sacrifice; M. M. ended up finding nausea in food, torment in rest, in conversations, and in brief recreations, which she always concealed in community, appearing serene and joyful. To this was added the incomprehension of her fellow sisters: she was judged hypocritical, her docility and austerity were deemed exaggerated.
Particular importance attached to the revelations concerning the public cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On 27 December 1673, while in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament, Jesus revealed to her the marvels of His love for mankind and the inexplicable secrets of His Heart; and He proclaimed her “the beloved disciple of His Sacred Heart.” Later, the Heart of Jesus was presented to her upon a throne of flames, radiant as the sun, with the adorable wound, encircled by thorns, surmounted by a cross, and she was told that devotion to the Sacred Heart would be “the final effort of divine love that wished to favor mankind,” and she was asked to perform acts of reparation, in particular Communion on the first Fridays of each month. But even her spiritual directors distrusted her, branding her a fanatical visionary and causing the saint great anxiety. This came to an end with the recognition of the supernatural character of her visions by Bl. Claude La Colombière, who, in February 1676, became her spiritual director and always sustained her along her path. In the following June (during the Octave of Corpus Christi), the Lord asked that on the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi a special feast in honor of the Sacred Heart be instituted as reparation for the offenses of mankind, and He promised special graces of holiness to the promoters of this 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 celestial revelations with which she had been favored. Besides the Autobiography, there have come down to us the Memoirs of the early years of her religious life, instructions and counsels to novices—of whom she was made mistress in 1684—prayers and hymns, and a copious correspondence.
She was beatified by Pius IX (18 September 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 day: 17 October.