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Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque

 

Who is Margarita Maria de Alacoque?

 

“Only for your love, my God, I submit to writing this out of obedience, asking your forgiveness for the resistance I have put into executing it. But since You know better than anyone the great repugnance I feel when doing it, You are the only one who can give me the strength to overcome it, since I receive this obedience as coming from you «. (Autobiography).

 

Youth: preparation time

Marguerite Maria was born on July 22, 1647 in Vérosvres, a small town near Paray-le-Monial. She receives baptism on the 25th. She is the fifth among seven siblings.

 

Her father, Claudio Alacoque, a royal notary, died in 1655, and her mother, Filiberta Lamyn, unable to take care of her five remaining children, had to decide to take 8-year-old Margarita to the nuns’ boarding school. of Charolles. But she stays there only two years.

 

As a result of a strange illness that prevents her from moving, Margarita does not stay there for more than two years. But her grace has already touched her:

 

My only Love, how much I owe you for having warned me from my earliest age, constituting you owner and possessor of my heart, although you knew well the resistance that I had to make!

 

As soon as I became aware of myself, you made my soul see the ugliness of sin.

 

The Blessed Virgin always took great care of me; I turned to her for all my needs and she saved me from great dangers. I did not dare to address her divine Son of her, but always to Her ”.

 

At a very young age, Margarita felt inwardly driven to give herself to God in religious life. And during her illness, finding no remedy, she consecrated herself to the Blessed Virgin: “I promised her that if she cured me, she would one day be one of her daughters. As soon as I made this vow, I received health accompanied by a new protection from the Virgin. She rebuked my faults and taught me to do the will of God.»

 

However, once she recovered her health, Margarita confesses that she was only thinking of having fun, worrying little about her promise. But life in the family becomes difficult. The teenager will suffer and little by little she will turn to God. Meanwhile, her family intends to marry her off: good matches appear. She is twenty years old. Nevertheless, “the desire for the religious life revived so ardently in my heart,” she writes, “that I resolved to be a religious, whatever the cost. But alas! It couldn’t be done until four years later.»

 

The Lord drives her from within. “Finding myself one day in an abyss of astonishment, seeing that as many defects and infidelities as he found in me were not capable of causing him nausea, he replied: «It is that I want to make you as a compound of my love and my mercies».

 

The family ends up giving in. “Many convents were proposed to me without being able to decide on any, but as soon as Paray was named, my heart expanded with joy, and I instantly consented. Upon entering the booth, I internally heard these words: «This is where I want you.» It was May 25, 1671.

 

entrance to the monastery

«Having finally arrived, the long-awaited day – June 20, 1671 – to bid farewell to the world, I had never felt such joy and firmness in my heart.» However, at the moment of entering the Monastery, he violently feels a last internal assault: «But instantly it showed me that the Lord had broken the sack of my captivity and had covered me with his mantle of joy.» Her joy transports her in such a way that she exclaims: «This is where God wants me.»

 

The Order of the Visitation of Saint Mary

In 1610, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva – an accomplished teacher of spirituality, Doctor of the Church – had founded in Annecy with Saint Joan Francisca de Chantal a new female community of religious life accessible to all classes. of people, especially those who did not feel called to the lifestyle of the monasteries of their time. He wanted to give God «daughters of prayer» who would live the joy of their dedication in dealing heart to heart with the Lord.

 

The founder writes: «Our little congregation is the work of the Heart of Jesus and Mary.» “The Heart of Jesus, her crucified spouse, will be the home and rest of the visitandinas on this earth… the sweetness and humility, which are the foundation of the Order, give them the privilege of bearing the name of Daughters of the Heart of Jesus ”.

 

The new Institute received the name of Visitation of Saint Mary, because in this joyful mystery the simplicity, humility, sweetness and joy of Our Lady shine.

 

The Monastery into which Margarita Maria enters had been founded in 1626 by the first Monastery of Lyon, and was visited by the Mother of Chantal.

 

First communications from the Lord

 

One day, already in the monastery, Margarita Maria asks the novice mistress to teach her how to pray, for which she felt a great hunger. She replies: «Go and stand before our Lord like a canvas before a painter.» “My Sovereign made me know that this canvas was my soul, on which he wanted to draw all the traits of his painful life, and that he would print them after having purified it of all the stains that remained, whether of love for earthly things, already of love to myself”.

 

After a period of postulancy, on August 25, 1671, Margarita María received the habit of the Visitation. “My divine Master made it known to me that this was the time of our betrothal, that I should love him with preferential love. Immediately he declared to me that, in the manner of the most

passionate lovers, he would make me taste, during this time, all that is sweeter in the softness of his love ”.

 

The Lord drives her from within. “Finding myself one day in an abyss of astonishment, seeing that as many defects and infidelities as he found in me were not capable of causing him nausea, he replied: «It is that I want to make you as a compound of my love and my mercies».

 

The family ends up giving in. “Many convents were proposed to me without being able to decide on any, but as soon as Paray was named, my heart expanded with joy, and I instantly consented. Upon entering the booth, I internally heard these words: «This is where I want you.» It was May 25, 1671.

 

entrance to the monastery

«Having finally arrived, the long-awaited day – June 20, 1671 – to bid farewell to the world, I had never felt such joy and firmness in my heart.» However, at the moment of entering the Monastery, he violently feels a last internal assault: «But instantly it showed me that the Lord had broken the sack of my captivity and had covered me with his mantle of joy.» Her joy transports her in such a way that she exclaims: «This is where God wants me.»

 

The Order of the Visitation of Saint Mary

 

In 1610, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of Geneva – an accomplished teacher of spirituality, Doctor of the Church – had founded in Annecy with Saint Joan Francisca de Chantal a new female community of religious life accessible to all classes. of people, especially those who did not feel called to the lifestyle of the monasteries of their time. He wanted to give God «daughters of prayer» who would live the joy of their dedication in dealing heart to heart with the Lord.

 

The founder writes: «Our little congregation is the work of the Heart of Jesus and Mary.» “The Heart of Jesus, her crucified spouse, will be the home and rest of the visitandinas on this earth… the sweetness and humility, which are the foundation of the Order, give them the privilege of bearing the name of Daughters of the Heart of Jesus ”.

 

The new Institute received the name of Visitation of Saint Mary, because in this joyful mystery the simplicity, humility, sweetness and joy of Our Lady shine.

 

The Monastery into which Margarita Maria enters had been founded in 1626 by the first Monastery of Lyon, and was visited by the Mother of Chantal.

 

First communications from the Lord

 

One day, already in the monastery, Margarita Maria asks the novice mistress to teach her how to pray, for which she felt a great hunger. She replies: «Go and stand before our Lord like a canvas before a painter.» “My Sovereign made me know that this canvas was my soul, on which he wanted to draw all the traits of his painful life, and that he would print them after having purified it of all the stains that remained, whether of love for earthly things, already of love to myself”.

 

After a period of postulancy, on August 25, 1671, Margarita María received the habit of the Visitation. “My divine Master made it known to me that this was the time of our betrothal, that I should love him with preferential love. Immediately he declared to me that, in the manner of the

most
passionate lovers, he would make me taste, during this time, all that is sweeter in the softness of his love ”.

 

The date of the religious profession is approaching, but the superiors doubt. Margarita María complains to the Lord who answers her: “Tell your Superior that there is no reason to fear receiving you, since I answer for you… I will make you more useful to religion than she thinks; but in a way that is not yet known except by Me… I will know how to find the means to fulfill my designs”. Mystery words!

 

 

November 6, 1672 is the day of perpetual profession. “My divine Master wanted to receive me as his wife. She told me: «She is always ready and willing to receive me, because I want from now on to make my home in you, to talk and stay with you.» From this moment he favored me with his divine presence ”.

 

The Lord also makes him know the mystery of her Passion and Death, which gives him, forever, a great love for the Cross.

 

From now on, the Lord is going to reveal himself more to Margarita María. He will entrust to her the secrets of her Heart. The great demonstrations go from December 1673 to June 1675.
The big revelations

 

The first is on December 27, 1673, the feast of Saint John. He relates it like this:

 

“One day, when I was in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I found myself totally penetrated by this divine presence; but so strongly that I forgot myself and the place I was in, and I abandoned myself to this Spirit, giving my heart to the strength of his love. He made me rest for a long time on his divine chest, in which he revealed to me all the wonders of his love and the inexplicable secrets of her Sacred Heart, which until then had always been hidden from me. Here he discovered them to me for the first time. He told me: «My Divine Heart is so impassioned with love for men, and for you in particular, that since it can no longer contain in itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must communicate them through you, and manifest itself to all. to enrich them

 

with the precious treasures that I discover to you, which contain the sanctifying and salutary graces necessary to separate you from the abyss of perdition. I have chosen you as an abyss of indignity and ignorance, so that it is all my work.»

 

 

Later, at the beginning of 1674, undoubtedly on a Friday, this manifestation takes place, of which he will speak much later: “This divine Heart appeared to me as if on a throne of flames, brighter than the sun and transparent as crystal. He was surrounded by a crown of thorns, symbolizing the wounds caused by our sins, and with a cross, which meant that from the first moment of his Incarnation, that is, from the first moment this Sacred Heart was formed, the cross was planted in it.»

 

Also in 1674, in the month of June, around the feast of Corpus Christi: «Again, while the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, after feeling completely withdrawn within myself by an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my divine Master, appeared to me, all radiant with glory, with his five sores, which shone like five suns, and flames from his sacred humanity came out everywhere, especially from his adorable chest, which looked like an oven. And opening it, he revealed to me his lover and kind Heart of him, who was the living source of such flames.

 

It was then that he discovered to me the inexplicable wonders of his love, and the excess to which his love for men had led him, from whom he received nothing but ingratitude and contempt.
He told me: «She is attentive to my voice, and to whatever I ask of you to prepare you for the fulfillment of my designs.»

Conformity to the Suffering Christ

 

During the period of the apparitions, the cross of the Lord is manifested. Health tests and interior tests are multiplying. As Pope John Paul II wrote in 1990, «Saint Margaret Mary knew the grace to love through the cross.» Grace to love, grace to conform to the suffering Christ. Grace to participate in the communion of saints, in the salvation of her brothers and sisters.

 

It is the time of physical suffering, of trial, even of temptation. “The Lord warned me that Satan had asked permission to test me in the fire of contradictions and humiliations, of temptations and abandonment, like gold in the crucible… He assured me that I had nothing to fear, because He would fight for me… but that I I had to watch… It didn’t take me long to hear the threats of my pursuer. None of this worried me in the least; I felt so strengthened inside!”

On this path of purification, of preparation for the mission, the Blessed Virgin Mary encourages her: “Take heart, my daughter, because you still have to walk a long and painful path always on the cross. Don’t be afraid, I won’t abandon you.»

The Big Reveal

 

And we come to the most decisive manifestation in June 1675:
“Once when I was in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, one day of its octave, I received from God excessive graces of his love… Then, discovering his Divine Heart, he told me: «Behold this Heart, which has loved men so much, that it cannot nothing has been reserved until it is exhausted and consumed to demonstrate their love, and in response I receive only ingratitude from most of them, either for their irreverence and sacrilege, or for the coldness and contempt with which they treat me in this Sacrament of Love. But what is even more sensitive to me is that it is hearts that are consecrated to me that treat me like this.

 

For this reason, I ask that the first Friday after the eighth of the Blessed Sacrament be dedicated to a particular feast to honor my Heart, receiving Communion that day and repairing its honor… I also promise that my Heart will expand to pour out abundantly the
influences of his divine love on those who give him this honor and those who seek to have it paid to him.»

 

And answering that I did not know how to be able to fulfill what he had wanted from me for so long, he ordered me to go to his servant, since he had sent him for the fulfillment of this design.

 

It is about Fr. Claudio de la Colombière, of the Society of Jesus, who, indeed, had to confirm Margarita María on her way, and work with her Jesuit brothers in spreading the Message.

 

Only four years have passed since the entry of Margarita María into the Visitation of Paray. For another fifteen, she will continue her life in the cloister. She will be novice teacher for two years. Two Superiors will choose her as her Assistant (subprioress or vicar). In addition, she will take care of all the works at the service of the community, standing out for her humility and charity.

 

First broadcast of the message

 

The cult of the Sacred Heart, initially considered in the Monastery as a «new devotion», was slow to be accepted. The novices are the first who, on July 20, 1685, honored the Heart of Jesus, «making a small altar on which they placed his image drawn with a pen, to which they paid the tributes that this divine Heart suggested to them.» Some sisters in the community were reluctant, until June 21, 1686 when the entire Monastery celebrated the Feast of the Heart of Jesus.

 

Later, writing to Fr. Croiset, Marguerite Maria would say: «I wish I could tell everything I know about this devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and discover to the whole earth the treasures of graces that Jesus Christ encloses in his adorable Heart, and that he wants to pour out abundantly on all those who practice it!”. And she continued with this fiery exhortation: «I beg you, don’t forget anything to inspire it to the whole world.»

 

This plea appears over and over again in most of her letters. Some refer to the publication of books.

 

The Mother of Saumaise, who had been superior of the Visitation of Paray between 1672 and 1678, returned to her monastery in Dijon, transmitting to those around her everything that she had experienced together with Saint Margaret Mary.

 

 

 

Sister Joly enthusiastically entered this spiritual current, lived it intensely and wanted to publish in 1686 a kind of manual, known as the «little book of Dijon», in which devotion was explained and practices, prayers, an office, a Mass and some litanies.

 

 

 

Other books are also printed. Margarita María expresses her joy at seeing these publications that will contribute to extending the Reign of Jesus.

 

In other letters she insistently asks for an image to be printed, because, according to the Lord’s promise, he will pour out all kinds of blessings abundantly in the places where she is honored.

Marguerite Maria made a special effort to obtain from Rome the approval of the Mass composed in Dijon. The Monastery of this city celebrates it in 1689 with the authorization of the Bishop of Langres.

The Saint has the great joy of knowing that the devotion extends even abroad. «Now I will die happy, because the Sacred Heart of my Savior is beginning to be known.»
The last days

At the end of her life she writes: “I have had three ardent desires: to love Jesus Christ perfectly; suffer for his love, die in the ardor of this love ”. She seems to have satisfied them because she no longer wants anything, according to what she wrote.

Contemporaries tell us about her last days: «She felt ill the day before she was preparing to enter her retreat… She went to bed nine days before his death, and she used them to prepare for the coming of the Bridegroom.»

According to the doctor, the disease was benign, «but she insisted that he would die of it.»
She asked for communion, knowing full well that she was the last one she would receive. “All the sisters who visited her admired the extraordinary joy that the thought of her death caused her. However, she had a moment of a strange fear – last purification –, then she recovered a great calm ”.

“On October 17, an hour before her death, she called her superior and asked her to administer the anointing of the sick. She said thank you for everything ”. She exhorted her sisters: «Love Love, but love Him perfectly.» It is the last legacy of her. “And she added that she no longer had anything to do in this world, but to sink into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Then, after pronouncing the holy name of Jesus, she sweetly gave up her spirit”.

Forty-three years of her life have passed, a life marked by joy, the cross, identification with Jesus, her only Love; and the gift of a mission: to make known to the world the Love of God made flesh in Jesus, Man-God.

Margarita Maria was beatified by Pius IX on September 18, 1864 and canonized by Benedict XV on May 13, 1920.