Corrado Giaquinto (1703–1766). Sainte Marguerite Marie Alacoque contemplant le Sacré Cœur de Jésus, 1765, 171 x 123
Sainte Marguerite-Marie Alacoque
Religieuse visitandine à Paray-le-Monial (✝ 1690)
Elle est née, le 22 juillet 1647, en
Bourgogne Elle devient orpheline alors qu'elle a douze ans et ses tantes
qui gèrent la famille font d'elle un véritable souffre-douleur. A 24 ans, elle
peut enfin réaliser sa vocation: répondre à l'amour intense de Dieu. Les grâces
mystiques qui accompagnent ses épreuves culminent en 1673 dans plusieurs
visions du Christ: Voici le cœur qui a tant aimé les hommes jusqu'à s'épuiser
et se consumer pour leur témoigner son amour. Guidée par le Saint jésuite Claude
de La Colombière, elle parviendra à promouvoir le culte du Sacré-Cœur
d'abord dans son monastère de la Visitation, puis dans toute l'Église
Catholique latine. Elle meurt le 16 octobre 1690.
Béatifiée d'abord par l'opinion populaire à cause de tous les miracles obtenus
par son intercession, les pressions jansénistes puis la Révolution retarderont
sa béatification jusqu'en 1864 puis sa canonisation en 1920. Les foules
continuent d'affluer à Paray le Monial. Plusieurs Papes ont souligné
l'importance de son message: l'immensité de l'Amour de Dieu révélé dans un cœur
d'homme, et proposé à tous.
- vidéo de la webTV de la CEF, Chronique des saints: Marguerite-Marie Alacoque.
Mémoire de sainte Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, vierge. Entrée à vingt-quatre ans
au monastère de la Visitation à Paray-le-Monial en Bourgogne, elle avança de manière
admirable sur le chemin de la perfection. Pourvue de dons mystiques, elle se
préoccupa avant tout de la dévotion envers le Sacré-Cœur de Jésus, et fit
beaucoup pour promouvoir son culte dans l'Église. Elle mourut le 17 octobre
1690.
Martyrologe romain
En vous oubliant de vous-même, vous le posséderez. En
vous abandonnant à lui, il vous possédera. Allez donc, pleine de foi et d'une
amoureuse confiance, vous livrer à la merci de sa Providence, pour lui être un
fonds qu'il puisse cultiver à son gré et sans résistance de votre part,
demeurant dans une humble et paisible adhérence à son bon plaisir.
Lettre à une religieuse
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/2028/Sainte-Marguerite-Marie-Alacoque.html
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Le
Sacré-Coeur de Jésus et Marguerite-Marie Alacoque. Vitrail, 1916.
Maitre-verrier : Charles Champigneulle, Eglises d'Ivry sur
Seine
Sainte Marguerite-Marie
Alacoque
Confidente du Sacré-Coeur
(1648-1690)
C'est pour instituer et
propager le culte de Son Sacré Coeur que Jésus-Christ Se choisit, au monastère
de la Visitation de Paray-le-Monial, une servante dévouée en Marguerite-Marie
Alacoque: une des gloires de la France est de lui avoir donné naissance.
Prévenue par la grâce
divine dès ses premières années, elle conçut de la laideur du péché une idée si
vive, que la moindre faute lui était insupportable; pour l'arrêter dans les
vivacités de son âge, il suffisait de lui dire: "Tu offenses Dieu!"
Elle fit le voeu de virginité à un âge où elle n'en comprenait pas encore la
portée.
On raconte qu'elle
aimait, tout enfant, à réciter le Rosaire, en baisant la terre à chaque Ave
Maria. Après sa Première Communion, elle se sentit complètement dégoûtée du
monde; Dieu, pour la purifier, l'affligea d'une maladie qui l'empêcha de
marcher pendant quatre ans, et elle dut sa guérison à la Sainte Vierge, en
échange du voeu qu'elle fit d'entrer dans un Ordre qui Lui fût consacré.
Revenue à la santé, elle oublia son voeu, et, gaie d'humeur, expansive,
aimante, elle se livra, non au péché, mais à une dissipation exagérée avec ses
compagnes.
De nouvelles épreuves
vinrent la détacher des vanités mondaines; les bonnes oeuvres, le soin des
pauvres, la communion, faisaient sa consolation. Enfin elle entra à la
Visitation de Paray-le-Monial. C'est là que Jésus l'attendait pour la préparer
à sa grande mission.
Le divin Époux la forma à
Son image dans le sacrifice, les rebuts, l'humiliation; Il la soutenait dans
ses angoisses, Il lui faisait sentir qu'elle ne pouvait rien sans Lui, mais
tout avec Lui. "Vaincre ou mourir!" tel était le cri de guerre de
cette grande âme.
Quand la victime fut
complètement pure, Jésus lui apparut à plusieurs reprises, lui montra Son Coeur
Sacré dans Sa poitrine ouverte: "Voilà, lui dit-Il, ce Coeur qui a tant
aimé les hommes et qui en est si peu aimé!" On sait l'immense expansion de
dévotion au Sacré Coeur qui est sortie de ces Révélations. La canonisation de
la Sainte a eu lieu le 13 mai 1920.
Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, Tours, Mame, 1950
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/sainte_marguerite-marie_alacoque.html
National Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Solemnly Consecrated June 15, 1985, on July 2, 2000, Dedication of New Altar Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila Sacred Heart Street List of barangays of Metro Manila, Legislative districts of Makati, Barangay San Antonio, Makati City.
16 octobre
Sainte Marguerite Marie Alacoque
.jpg)
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Joseph-Hugues Fabisch, L'apparition du Sacré-Cœur ou Le Christ et Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, 1877, retable, Chapelle de l'Hôtel-Dieu /Chapelle du Sacré-Cœur, Lyon 2e
Ce divin Coeur est un abîme de bien où les pauvres
doivent abîmer leurs nécessités ; un abîme de joie où il faut abîmer toutes nos
tristesses ; un abîme d'humiliation pour notre orgueil, un abîme de miséricorde
pour les misérables, et un abîme d'amour où il nous faut abîmer toutes nos
misères.
Dites dans chacune de vos actions : " Mon Dieu, je
vais faire ou souffrir cela dans le Sacré Coeur de votre divin Fils et selon
ses saintes intentions que je vous offre pour réparer tout ce qu'il y a d'impur
ou d'imparfait dans les miennes. " Et ainsi de tout le reste.
Ne nous troublons pas, car les troubles ne servent
qu'à augmenter notre mal. L'Esprit de Dieu fait tout en paix. Recourons à Lui
avec amour et confiance, et il nous recevra entre les bras de sa miséricorde.
Vous demandez quelque courte prière pour lui témoigner
votre amour ; pour moi je n'en connais point d'autre et n'en trouve point de
meilleur que ce même amour, car tout parle quand on aime, et même les plus
grandes préoccupation sont des preuves de notre amour.
A la vérité, je crois que tout se change en amour, et
une âme qui est une fois embrasée de ce feu sacré, n'a plus d'autre exercice ni
d'autre emploi que d'aimer en souffrant.
Le Seigneur ne fait sa demeure que dans la paix d'une
âme qui aime fortement de se voir anéantie, pour demeurer comme toute perdue
dans l'amour à son abjection.
Vous ne trouverez de paix ni de repos que lorsque vous
aurez tout sacrifié à Dieu.
Ne nous troublons pas, car les troubles ne servent
qu'à augmenter notre mal. L'Esprit de Dieu fait tout en paix. Recourons à Lui
avec amour et confiance, et il nous recevra entre les bras de sa miséricorde.
La sainteté d'amour donne à l'âme un désir si ardent
d'être unie à Dieu qu'elle n'a de repos ni jour ni nuit ... Dieu se faisant
voir à l'âme et lui découvrant les trésors dont il l'enrichit et l'ardent amour
qu'il a pour elle.
Sainte Marguerite-Marie Alacoque
SOURCE : http://missel.free.fr/Sanctoral/10/16.php
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Margaretha
Maria Alacoque. Kath. Pfarrkirche St. Gordian und Epimachus, Merazhofen, Stadt
Leutkirch im Allgäu, Landkreis Ravensburg. Chorgestühl, 1896, Bildhauer: Peter
Paul Metz
Margaret
Mary Alacoque. Catholic parish church of St. Gordian and Epimachus, Merazhofen.
Sculptor: Peter Paul Metz, 1896
Małgorzata
Maria Alacoque. Rzeźba z kościoła parafialnego pw. św. Gordona i Epimachusa w
Merazhofen (Niemcy). Autor dzieła: Peter Paul Metz, 1896
MARIE ALACOQUE.
Quand l’homme veut agir, il choisit l’instrument le
plus capable de la fin qu’il se propose. Si un souverain souverain choisit un
ministère, il le prend ou essaye de le prendre tel que ses fonctions le réclament.
Si un homme veut faire son portrait, il s’adresse à un peintre, pas à un
cordonnier.
Quand Dieu veut agir, il prend le procédé directement
contraire. Il choisit l’instrument le plus absolument incapable. Il est jaloux
de montrer qu’il agit seul et va chercher la faiblesse la plus extrême pour que
nous ne soyons tentés d’attribuer la force à l’instrument. Déjà du temps de
saint Paul, il avait choisi la faiblesse pour confondre la force, Saint
Pierre, qui devait le représenter, lui à qui la puissance allait être donnée, la
puissance officielle, le gouvernement, Saint Pierre qui allait lier et délier,
saint Pierre, le maître des clefs, chargé d’ouvrir et de fermer le ciel, saint
Pierre est désigné par une faiblesse incalculable : il renie trois fois, par
peur d’une servante, celui dont il avait vu la face resplendir sur la montagne
du Thabor. II faut scruter cette faiblesse et pénétrer dans cet abîme, si l’on
veut savoir à quel point saint Pierre représente la force ; car l’abîme appelle
l’abîme, et il représente la force avec une réalité divine d’autant plus grande
que sa faiblesse humaine fut plus incommensurable.
Un jour saint François d’Assise rencontra un religieux
qui lui dit : - Pourquoi donc, pourquoi donc ce concours de monde vers vous ?
Pourquoi cette foule ? Pourquoi ce respect ? Pourquoi se presse-t-on sur vos
pas ?
Saint François répondit :
-Dieu a regardé le monde, cherchant par quel misérable
il pourrait bien manifester sa puissance. Ses yeux très saints, en tombant sur
la terre, n’ont rien trouvé de si vil, de si bas, de si petit, de si ignoble
que moi. Voilà la raison de son choix.
Vous voyez que c’est toujours le même procédé.
Cependant il restait dans Pierre et dans François de
grands dons naturels. C’étaient des âmes élevées. François avait quelque chose
de naturellement sublime dans l’esprit et de naturellement héroïque dans le
coeur.
Mais si nous regardons Marie Alacoque, qui fut
chargée d’une grande oeuvre, nous contemplerons un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la
misère humaine sans compensation. Ce n’est pas une grande nature égarée par de
grandes passions ; c’est une petite nature, étroite, sans attrait, sans lumière
naturelle, sans style, sans parole. Elle n’avait qu’une chose, l’amour, le
dévouement. Mais telle est la pauvreté de ses moyens naturels que l’amour même
la rend rarement éloquente. Elle bégaye, elle ânonne, elle hésite. Elle ne sait
pas. Seulement, elle aime et elle obéit. La voilà dans la gloire. Elle est
choisie.
« Je t’ai choisie, lui dit Jésus-Christ, comme un abîme
d’indignité et d’ignorance pour l’accomplissement de ce grand dessein, afin que
tout soit fait par moi. »
En fait d’ignorance, il est difficile d’aller plus
loin
M. Louis Veuillot a fait le parallèle de Dante et
d’Angèle de Foligno.
Même comme oeuvre humaine et comme poésie, il préfère
infiniment Angèle de Foligno, et il a raison.
Les foudres du coeur éclatent dans Angèle.
« Si un ange, dit-elle, me prédisait la mort de mon
amour, je lui dirais : C’est toi qui est tombé du ciel Et si quelqu’un,
n’importe qui, me racontait la Passion de Jésus-Christ, comme je la sens, je
lui dirais ; C’est toi qui l’as soufferte (Visions
et révélations d’Angèle de Foligno). »
Ses anéantissements, quand le nom de Dieu est prononcé
devant elle, dépassent les transports des plus grands poètes anciens ou
modernes.
Sainte Thérèse, quoique très inférieure à Angèle, est
cependant une femme hors ligne. Renan l’admire beaucoup. L’imagination de
sainte Thérèse est ardente et son esprit est subtil.
Mais Marie Alacocque est un défi jeté à l’esprit
humain. Personne n’eût songé à la choisir, personne excepté Dieu, qui voulut
priver ici son instrument de toutes les splendeurs humaines, sans en excepter
une. Aussi pauvre d’intelligence que de fortune, elle ne sait comment rendre
compte de ce qui se passe en elle. Son dévouement est sans bornes, son amour
est généreux jusqu’au plus complet et au plus déchirant sacrifice d’elle-même
tout entière. Et cependant son biographe, le R. Père Giraud, supérieur des
missionnaires de la Salette, dit à propos d’une de ses révélations :
« Ce langage paraîtra peut-être au pieux lecteur peu
digne de Notre-Seigneur. Il faut l’éclaircir sur ce point, afin de dissiper en
lui toute impression défavorable...
« Ce qui a paru petit et puéril dans l’expression, au
jugement de quelques censeurs, ne sera pas attribué à Jésus-Christ, mais à la
simplicité de la personne qui fait parler Jésus-Christ, et on n’attribuera au
divin Maître que le fond et la substance des pensées et des sentiments. »
Pour les détails de sa vie, nous renvoyons le lecteur
au livre du père Giraud (1), qui, s’effaçant autant que possible, a laissé parler
la Bienheureuse elle-même, s'appliquant seulement à expliquer et à commenter sa
vie et ses paroles. Il serait difficile de rencontrer un plus digne
commentateur ; car l’esprit de la Bienheureuse le pénètre si parfaitement que
c’est à peine si elle cesse de parler, quand le père Giraud parle.
Cette pauvre fille, absolument dépourvue
d'imagination, voit Jésus-Christ et l’entend lui dire :
« Mon divin Coeur est si passionné d’amour pour les
hommes et pour toi en particulier, que ne pouvant contenir en soi les flammes
de son ardente charité, il faut qu’il les répande par ton moyen. »
Quelques-uns croiront que la pauvre religieuse
travaillait à s’exalter et qu’on travaillait autour d’elle à l’exalter ; c’est
le contraire qui arrivait.
Ses voies extraordinaires ne convenaient pas, lui
disait-on à la Visitation de Sainte-Marie, et il fallait y renoncer.
On lui donne à garder une ânesse et son ânon, pour
occuper et distraire son esprit. Elle répond : « Puisque Saül, en gardant des
ânesses, a trouvé le royaume d’Israël, il faut que j’acquière le royaume du
ciel en courant après de tels animaux. »
Suivant la remarque intéressante du père Giraud, cette
pauvre fille, qui ne sait rien, cite sans cesse l’Écriture. Elle en a même une
intelligence tout à fait au-dessus de sa nature.
On attribue tantôt à la nature, tantôt au démon les
phénomènes qui se passent en elle. On lutte par tous les moyens possibles
contre elle et contre eux. Elle se fait, par obéissance, la complice des
erreurs que l’on commet sur elle. Tout conspire contre elle, y compris elle-même.
Elle n’a ni talent, ni intelligence, ni autorité, ni prestige. On intéresse sa
conscience à lutter contre ses visions.
Contre elle, elle a tout. Pour elle, elle n’a rien. Cependant
elle a triomphé, elle triomphe et surtout elle triomphera. Sans armes, sans
industrie, sans génie, sans allié, elle a conquis la gloire, qu’elle fuyait. La
gloire la fuyait ; elle fuyait la gloire, et cependant les voilà unies l’une à
l’autre dans le temps et dans l’éternité.
Son nom est connu partout ; beaucoup s’en moquent, il
est vrai. Mais ceux-là même le connaissent. Leur moquerie, comme leur colère,
est un hommage d’autant plus frappant qu’il est involontaire. C’est un hommage
rendu de force à cette inconcevable
célébrité, qui n’a pas d’explication humaine. Si ce n’est pas Dieu qui l’a
glorifiée, qui donc l’a glorifiée, et par quel prodige une telle petite fille,
si parfaitement dépourvue de dons naturels, par sa pauvreté intellectuelle, par
sa pauvreté sociale, par sa pauvreté religieuse, incapable de toutes les
manières, désirant en outre l’obscurité, qui semblait à tous les points de vue
lui être assurée ; comment cette pauvre fille, dont nous ne devrions pas savoir
le nom, est-elle à la fois glorieuse et célèbre, glorieuse dans l’Église,
célèbre dans le monde ? On se moque d’elle, bien entendu. Mais, si elle eût été
livrée à l’oubli naturel qui l’attendait nécessairement, il serait aussi
impossible de s’en moquer que de la vanter. Car on ne se moque pas, après deux
siècles, dans le monde entier, de la première petite fille venue. On l’ignore,
et voilà tout. Si Marie Alacocque eût cherché, par une maladresse insigne, la
réputation, jamais elle ne l’eût rencontrée. Par dessus toutes les disgrâces
réunies de la nature et de la société, elle porte un nom qui dit lui-même une
disgrâce. Ce mot : Alacocque, prête à la plaisanterie.
Toute la vie de la bienheureuse Marguerite-Marie
Alacocque est une lutte entre la grossièreté de sa nature et l’élévation qui
lui est conférée. Un jour, elle veut faire une pénitence corporelle sur la
nature de laquelle elle ne s’explique pas, mais qui lui donnait, dit-elle, grand
appétit par sa rigueur. Jésus-Christ le lui défend ; car, dit-elle, étant Esprit,
il veut aussi les sacrifices de l’Esprit.
C’est simple et clair ; mais elle était incapable de
penser cela naturellement.
Une autre fois, Jésus-Christ lui dit : « Je te rendrai
si pauvre, si vile et si abjecte à tes yeux, et je te détruirai si fort dans la
pensée de ton coeur, que je pourrai m’édifier sur ce néant ».
Remarquez ce mot : dans
la pensée de ton coeur ; c’est le style de l’Écriture. Voilà Marguerite-Marie
qui parle admirablement. Comment donc s’y prend-elle ? Et qui donc lui apprend
à penser comme saint Paul ?
Mais qui donc lui apprend aussi à penser comme Moïse ?
Jésus-Christ lui montre un jour les châtiments qu’il
réserve à certaines âmes, ennemies de Marguerite-Marie.
« Je me jetai, reprend Marguerite-Marie, à ses pieds
sacrés, en lui disant : - O mon Sauveur ! déchargez sur moi toute votre colère,
et m’effacez du livre de vie plutôt
que de perdre ces âmes qui vous ont couté si cher ! Et il me répondit : - Mais
elles ne t'aiment pas et ne cesseront pas de t’affliger. - Il n’importe, mon
Dieu ! pourvu qu’elles vous aiment, je ne veux cesser de vous prier de leur
pardonner. - Laisse-moi faire, je ne les peux souffrir davantage. - Et l’embrassant
encore plus fortement : Non, mon Seigneur, je ne vous quitterai point que vous
ne leur ayez pardonné. - Et il me disait : Je le veux bien si tu veux répondre
pour elles. - Oui, mon Dieu, mais je ne vous paierai toujours qu'avec vos
propres biens, qui sont les trésors de votre Sacré Coeur. - C’est de quoi il se
tint content. »
Ne reconnaissez-vous pas Moïse? « Lâche-moi ? - Non je
ne vous lâcherai pas. »
La vie de la bienheureuse Marguerite-Marie, commencée
par elle, est terminée par le P. Giraud. Il n’eût pas été facile de choisir un
plus digne historien. On pourrait croire que le P. Giraud a été le directeur de
la Bienheureuse, tant il la connaît profondément. Il ne la connaît pas seulement
avec la pensée de son esprit, il la connaît avec
la pensée de son coeur. Il a puisé aux mêmes sources. Il ne faut pas
insister plus longtemps sur lui, dans la crainte de lui déplaire, car il est de
ceux qui aiment le secret.
1. (1) La Vie de la bienheureuse Marguerite-
Marie, religieuse de la Visitation, écrite par elle-même. Texte authentique de ce précieux écrit, accompagné de notes historiques et
théologiques, et suivi du récit des dernières années de la vie de la Bienheureuse
et d’une neuvaine en son honneur, par le Père S. M. Giraud.
Ernest
HELLO. Physionomies de saints.
SOURCE : https://archive.org/stream/PhysionomiesDeSaintsParErnestHello/physionomies%20de%20saints_djvu.txt
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Sainte
Marguerite Marie, église Saint Augustin de Paris
Sainte Marguerite Marie
Alacoque
Morte le 17 octobre 1690.
Canonisée en 1920, fête en 1929
Leçons des Matines (avant
1960)
Quatrième leçon.
Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, née d’une famille honorable dans un bourg du diocèse
d’Autun, donna dès son enfance des signes de sa sainteté future. Brûlant
d’amour pour la Vierge Mère de Dieu et pour l’auguste sacrement de
l’Eucharistie, la jeune adolescente voua à Dieu sa virginité ; Avant toute
chose, elle s’efforce de réaliser dans sa vie l’exercice des vertus
chrétiennes. Elle a le plaisir de dépenser des heures dans les prières et dans
la méditation sur les choses du ciel. Elle était humble et patiente dans
l’adversité. Elle a exercé la pénitence physique. Elle a montré sa charité
envers son prochain, en particulier les pauvres. Par tous les moyens dans les
limites de son pouvoir, elle s’employa avec diligence à imiter les plus saints
exemples a laissé par notre divin Rédempteur.
Cinquième leçon. Entrée
dans l’Ordre de la Visitation, elle commença aussitôt à resplendir du
rayonnement de la vie religieuse. Elle fut gratifiée par Dieu d’un don
d’oraison très élevée, d’autres faveurs spirituelles et de visions fréquentes.
La plus célèbre fut celle où, tandis qu’elle priait devant le Saint-Sacrement,
Jésus se présenta lui-même à sa vue, lui montra, sur sa poitrine ouverte, son
Divin Cœur tout embrasé et entouré d’épines et lui ordonna de faire en sorte,
en raison d’un tel amour et pour réparer les outrages des hommes ingrats, qu’un
culte public fût institué en l’honneur de son Cœur ; il promettait en retour de
grandes récompenses puisées dans le trésor céleste. Lorsque, par l’humilité,
elle a hésité d’entreprendre une telle tâche, son Sauveur très aimant l’a
encouragé. En même temps, il a désigné Claude de la Colombière, un homme de
grande sainteté, comme celui qui pourrait la guider et l’aider. Notre Seigneur
l’a également conforté avec l’assurance qu’une très grande bénédiction
s’étendrait sur l’Église grâce au culte de son divin Coeur.
Sixième leçon. Marguerite s’est ardemment dépensée à accomplir l’ordre du Rédempteur. Vexations, insultes ne lui manquèrent pas de la part de certains qui maintenaient qu’elle faisait l’objet d’aberrations mentales. Elle a non seulement porté ces souffrances patiemment, elle a même tiré profit, s’offrant elle-même dans l’angoisse et les douleurs comme une victime agréable à Dieu, supportant toute ces choses comme un moyen plus sûr de réaliser son but. Très estimée pour la perfection de sa vie religieuse et chaque jour plus unie au céleste Époux par la contemplation des réalités éternelles, elle s’envola vers lui, en la quarante-troisième année de son âge, l’an 1690 de la Rédemption. Elle fut glorifiée par des miracles ; Benoît XV l’inscrivit parmi les saints et Pie XI étendit son Office à l’Église universelle.
SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/17-10-Ste-Marguerite-Marie
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Hombourg
Kirche St. Brice, Fenster von 1892 mit Darstellung der Heiligen Margareta-Maria
Alacoque, Begründerin des Festes zu Ehren des “Heiligsten Herzens Jesu”
Hombourg
church window from 1892 showing Holy Marguerite-Marie Alacoque
Hombourg,
eglise Saint Brice, vitrail datent de 1892: le “Sacré-cœur” et Ste
Marguerite-Marie Alacoque
Sainte Marguerite-Marie
Alacoque (1647-1690)
Sainte Marguerite-Marie
Alacoque (1647-1690) est née à Verosvre en Charolais et elle se fit visitandine
à Paray le Monial (1672) et y fut maîtresse des novices.
Elle fut canonisée le 13
mai 1920.
Sainte Marguerite Marie
Alacoque et la Vierge Marie.
Durant son enfance,
Marguerite fut guérie après quatre années de grave maladie par l'intercession
de Marie. En remerciement, le jour de sa confirmation, elle ajouta alors le nom
de « Marie » à « Marguerite ».
« J'allais à elle avec
tant de confiance qu'il me semblait n'avoir rien à craindre sous sa protection
maternelle. Je me consacrai à Elle pour être à jamais son esclave, la suppliant
de ne pas me refuser en cette qualité. Je lui parlais comme une enfant, avec
simplicité, tout comme à ma bonne Mère pour laquelle je me sentais pressé dès
lors d'un amour tendre. Si je suis entrée à la Visitation, c'est que j'étais
attirée par le nom tout aimable de Marie. Je sentais que c'était là ce que je
cherchais. »[1]
Religieuse, elle tombe
malade, et c'est encore la Vierge Marie qui la guérit : la sainte Vierge
apparut à Marguerite-Marie, lui « fit de grandes caresses, » l'entretint
longtemps et lui dit : « Prends courage, ma chère fille, dans la santé que je
te donne de la part de mon divin [Fils], car [tu as] encore un long et pénible
chemin à faire, toujours dessus la croix, percée de clous et d'épines, et
déchirée de fouets ; mais ne crains rien, je ne t'abandonnerai et te promets ma
protection. »[2]
La dévotion au Sacré-Cœur
existait déjà[3].
La dévotion au Sacré Cœur
était déjà chère au XII° siècle à saint Antoine de Padoue, saint Bonaventure,
saint Claire d'Assise, ou encore, au XVII° siècle, à Bérulle et à saint Jean
Eudes. Au milieu du XVII° siècle existent déjà des images du Christ montrant
son cœur dans son corps entrouvert.
L'idée centrale de la
dévotion au Sacré Cœur se résume ainsi : « Quel bonheur d'être uni à
Jésus-Christ dans le Sacré Cœur qui a été continuellement uni à Dieu ».
Chez certaines personnes
(dont Marguerite-Marie), la dévotion au Sacré-Cœur devient une prière pour les
pécheurs ou une prière de réparation.
Un nouvel élan pour la
dévotion au Sacré-Cœur.
Sœur Marguerite-Marie
évoque plusieurs apparitions du Christ.
- C'était le 27 décembre
1673, fête de saint Jean l'Évangéliste. Sœur Marguerite-Marie, ayant un peu
plus de loisir qu'à l'ordinaire, priait devant le saint Sacrement.
« Il me dit : - Mon divin
Cœur est si passionné d'amour pour les hommes, et pour toi en particulier, que,
ne pouvant plus contenir en lui-même les flammes de son ardente charité, il
faut qu'il les répande par ton moyen, et qu'il se manifeste à eux, pour les enrichir
de ses précieux trésors que je te découvre, et qui contiennent les grâces
sanctifiantes et salutaires nécessaires pour les retirer de l'abîme de
perdition ; et je t'ai choisie comme un abîme d'indignité et d'ignorance pour
l'accomplissement de ce grand dessein, afin que tout soit fait par moi. »
Après, il me demanda mon
cœur, lequel je le suppliai de prendre, ce qu'il fit, et le mit dans le sien
adorable, dans lequel il me le fit voir comme un petit atome, qui se consommait
dans cette ardente fournaise, d'où le retirant comme une flamme ardente en
forme de coeur, il [le] remit dans le lieu où il l'avait pris, en me disant
:
« Voilà, ma bien-aimée,
un précieux gage de mon amour, qui renferme dans ton côté une petite étincelle
de ses plais vives flammes, pour te servir de cœur et te consommer jusqu'au
dernier moment [...] »
« J'ai une soif ardente
d'être honoré des hommes dans le saint Sacrement, et je ne trouve presque
personne qui s'efforce, selon mon désir, de me désaltérer, usant envers moi de
quelque retour. » [4]
- Un premier vendredi
d'un mois de 1674, le Christ demande la réparation des offenses envers le Saint
Sacrement par l'heure sainte (le jeudi de 23h à minuit) et la communion du
premier vendredi du mois.
- Un jour de l'octave du
Saint Sacrement 1675, le Christ demande la fête annuelle du Sacré-Cœur. [5]
- Un jour de l'année
1689, le Christ lui dit qu'il désire du roi (Louis XIV) une consécration à son
Sacré-Cœur, la représentation du Sacré-Cœur sur le drapeau français et un sanctuaire
national dédié au Sacré-Cœur dans lequel il consacrerait la France Sacré-Cœur.
Mais Louis XIV n'en fera rien et la basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre ne
sera inaugurée qu'en 1919...
[1] Marquis de la
Franquerie, La Vierge Marie dans l'Histoire de France, Éditions Saint Rémi, p.
174
[2] Cf.
http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/saints/margueritemarie.
[3] Cf. E. Préclin et E. Jarry,
Histoire de l'Église, tome 19 , Bloud & Gay, Paris 1955, p. 288-289. Lire
aussi : H. De Barenton, La dévotion au Sacré-Coeur. Ce qu'elle est et comment
les saints la pratiquèrent, Paris 1914. L. Garriguet, Le Sacré-coeur de Jésus.
Exposé historique et dogmatique de la dévotion au Sacré Coeur de Jésus, Paris
1920.
[4] Cf.
http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/saints/margueritemarie. Citation de
l'Autobiographie, p. 75.
[5] Cf. E. Préclin et E. Jarry,
Histoire de l'Eglise, tome 19 , Bloud & Gay, Paris 1955, p. 288-289
Synthèse Françoise
Breynaert
SOURCE : http://www.mariedenazareth.com/17415.0.html?&L=0
Also known as
Margarita Mary Alacoque
Margherita Mary Alacoque
Marguerite Mary Alacoque
Profile
Healed from
a crippling disorder
by a vision of the Blessed
Virgin, which prompted her to give her life to God.
After receiving a vision of Christ fresh from the Scourging, she was moved to
join the Order
of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial in 1671.
Received a revelation from Our Lord in 1675,
which included 12 promises to her and to those who practiced a true to devotion
to His Sacred
Heart, whose crown
of thorns represent his sacrifices. The devotion encountered violent
opposition, especially in Jansenist areas,
but has become widespread and popular.
Born
22 July 1647 at
L’Hautecourt, Burgundy, France
17
October 1690 of
natural causes
body incorrupt
18
September 1864 by Pope Blessed Pius
IX
13 May 1920 by Pope Benedict
XV
woman wearing
the habit of
the Order
of the Visitation and holding a flaming heart
woman wearing
the habit of
the Order
of the Visitation and kneeling before Jesus who exposes His heart to
her
Readings
What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when
He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not
true love. Thouse who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all
their heart. – Saint Margaret
Mary Alacoque
The Twelve Promises of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary
for those devoted to His Sacred Heart
I will give them all the graces necessary for their
state of life.
I will establish peace in their families.
I will console them in all their troubles.
They shall find in My Heart an assured refuge during
life and especially at the hour of their death.
I will pour abundant blessings on all their
undertakings.
Sinners shall find in My Heart the source of an
infinite ocean of mercy.
Tepid souls shall become fervent.
Fervent souls shall speedily rise to great perfection.
I will bless the homes where an image of My Heart
shall be exposed and honored.
I will give to priests the power of touching the most
hardened hearts.
Those who propagate this devotion shall have their
names written in My Heart, never to be effaced.
The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all
those who shall receive Communion on
the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they
shall not die under my displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My
heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour.
– from Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s vision of Jesus
Look at this Heart which has loved men so much, and
yet men do not want to love Me in return. Through you My divine Heart wishes to
spread its love everywhere on earth.” – from Saint Margaret Mary
Alacoque’s vision of Jesus
The sacred heart of Christ is an inexhaustible
fountain and its sole desire is to pour itself out into the hearts of the
humble so as to free them and prepare them to lead lives according to his good
pleasure. From this divine heart three streams flow endlessly. The first is the
stream of mercy for sinners; it pours into their hearts sentiments of contrition
and repentance. The second is the stream of charity which helps all in need and
especially aids those seeking perfection in order to find the means of
surmounting their difficulties. From the third stream flow love and light for
the benefit of his friends who have attained perfection; these he wishes to
unit to himself so that they may share his knowledge and commandments and, in
their individual ways, devote themselves wholly to advancing his glory. This
divine heart is an abyss filled
with all blessings, and into the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an
abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of
lowliness to counteract our foolishness, an abyss of mercy for the wretched, an
abyss of love to meet our every need. Are you making no progress in prayer? The
you need only offer God the prayers which the Savior has poured out for us in
the sacrament of the altar. Offer God his fervent love in reparation for your
sluggishness. In the course of every activity pray as follows: “My God, I do
this or I endure that in the heart of your Son and according to his holy
counsels. I offer it to you in reparation for anything blameworthy or imperfect
in my actions.” Continue to do this in every circumstance of life. But above
all preserve peace of heart. This is more valuable than any treasure. In order
to preserve it there is nothing more useful than renouncing your own will and
substituting for it the will of the divine heart. In this way his will can
carry out for us whatever contributes to his glory, and we will be happy to be
his subjects and to trust entirely in him. – from a letter by Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque
MLA Citation
“Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque“. CatholicSaints.Info. 17 August 2020. Web. 16 October 2020. <https://catholicsaints.info/saint-margaret-mary-alacoque/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-margaret-mary-alacoque/
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Eglise Saint-Martin de Lamballe, Côtes d'Armor, baie 5
St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque
St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque – Religious of the Visitation Order. Apostle of the Devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour, France, 22 July, 1647; died at
Paray-le-Monial, 17 October, 1690.
Her parents, Claude
Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less for temporal possessions
than for their virtue, which gave them an honourable position. From early
childhood Margaret showed intense love for the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred
silence and prayer to childish amusements. After her first communion at the age
of nine, she practised in secret severe corporal mortifications, until
paralysis confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having
made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she
was instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father and the
injustice of a relative plunged the family in poverty and humiliation, after
which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed Sacrament, and
Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection. He usually appeared to
her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and this did not surprise her, as she
thought others had the same Divine assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the
family property was recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself
in the world. Her filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood
was not binding, and that she could serve God at home by penance and charity to
the poor. Then, still bleeding from her self-imposed austerities, she began to
take part in the pleasures of the world. One night upon her return from a ball,
she had a vision of Christ as He was during the scourging, reproaching her for
infidelity after He had given her so many proofs of His love. During her entire
life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this time–the wearing of
some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please her brothers.
On 25 May, 1671, she
entered the Visitation Convent at Paray, where she was subjected to many trials
to prove her vocation, and in November, 1672, pronounced her final vows. She
had a delicate constitution, but was gifted with intelligence and good
judgement, and in the cloister she chose for herself what was most repugnant to
her nature, making her life one of inconceivable sufferings, which were often
relieved or instantly cured by our Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to
her frequently and conversed with her, confiding to her the mission to establish
the devotion to His Sacred Heart. These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her
the adverse criticism of the community, who treated her as a visionary, and her
superior commanded her to live the common life. But her obedience, her
humility, and invariable charity towards those who persecuted her, finally
prevailed, and her mission, accomplished in the crucible of suffering, was
recognized even by those who had shown her the most bitter opposition.
Margaret Mary was
inspired by Christ to establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying prostrate with
her face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of the first Friday
of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when abandoned by His
Apostles in His Agony, and to receive holy Communion on the first Friday of
every month. In the first great revelation, He made known to her His ardent
desire to be loved by men and His design of manifesting His Heart with all Its
treasures of love and mercy, of sanctification and salvation. He appointed the
Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of the
Sacred Heart; He called her “the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart”, and the
heiress of all Its treasures. The love of the Sacred Heart was the fire which
consumed her, and devotion to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of all her
writings. In her last illness she refused all alleviation, repeating
frequently: “What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee
alone, O my God”, and died pronouncing the Holy Name of Jesus.
The discussion of the
mission and virtues of Margaret Mary continued for years. All her actions, her
revelations, her spiritual maxims, her teachings regarding the devotion to the
Sacred Heart, of which she was the chief exponent as well as the apostle, were
subjected to the most severe and minute examination, and finally the Sacred
Congregation of rites passed a favourable vote on the heroic virtues of this
servant of God. In March, 1824, Leo XII pronounced her Venerable, and on 18
September, 1864, Pius IX declared her Blessed. When her tomb was canonically
opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took place. Her body rests under
the altar in the chapel at Paray, and many striking favours have been obtained
by pilgrims attracted thither from all parts of the world. St. Margaret Mary
was canonized by Benedict XV in 1920. Her feast is celebrated on 17
October.
SOURCE : http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/st-margaret-mary-alacoque/
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Revelation
of the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie Alacoque, Ballylooby Church of Our
Lady and St. Kieran South Transept South Window
St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque
Religious of
the Visitation
Order. Apostle of the Devotion
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour, France,
22 July, 1647; died at Paray-le-Monial,
17 October, 1690.
Her parents,
Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less for temporal
possessions than for their virtue,
which gave them an honourable position.
From early childhood Margaret showed intense love for
the Blessed
Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to
childish amusements. After her first communion at
the age of nine, she practised in secret severe corporal
mortifications, until paralysis confined her to bed for four years. At the
end of this period, having made a vow to
the Blessed
Virgin to consecrate herself
to religious
life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father
and the injustice of
a relative plunged the family in poverty and
humiliation, after which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed
Sacrament, and Christ made
her sensible of His presence and protection. He usually appeared to
her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and this did not surprise her, as
she thought others had the same Divine assistance. When Margaret was seventeen,
the family property was
recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself in the world. Her
filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of
childhood was not binding, and that she could serve God at
home by penance and charity
to the poor. Then, still bleeding from her self-imposed austerities,
she began to take part in the pleasures of the world. One night upon her return
from a ball, she had a vision of Christ as
He was during the scourging, reproaching her for infidelity after He had given
her so many proofs of
His love.
During her entire life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this
time--the wearing of some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to
please her brothers.
On 25 May, 1671, she
entered the Visitation Convent at Paray,
where she was subjected to many trials to prove her vocation,
and in November, 1672, pronounced her final vows.
She had a delicate constitution, but was gifted with intelligence and good
judgement, and in the cloister she
chose for herself what was most repugnant to her nature, making her life one of
inconceivable sufferings, which were often relieved or instantly cured by our
Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to
her frequently and conversed with her, confiding to her the mission to
establish the devotion
to His Sacred Heart. These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her the
adverse criticism of the community,
who treated her as a visionary, and her superior commanded her to live the
common life. But her obedience,
her humility,
and invariable charity towards
those who persecuted her, finally prevailed, and her mission, accomplished in
the crucible of suffering, was recognized even by those who had shown her the
most bitter opposition.
Margaret Mary was
inspired by Christ to
establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying
prostrate with her face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of
the first Friday of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when
abandoned by His Apostles in
His Agony,
and to receive holy
Communion on the first Friday of every month. In the first great revelation,
He made known to her His ardent desire to be loved by men and
His design of manifesting His Heart with
all Its treasures of love and
mercy, of sanctification and salvation.
He appointed the Friday after the octave of
the feast of Corpus
Christi as the feast of
the Sacred
Heart; He called her "the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred
Heart", and the heiress of all Its treasures. The love of
the Sacred
Heart was the fire which consumed her, and devotion
to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of all her writings. In her last
illness she refused all alleviation, repeating frequently: "What have I
in heaven and
what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God",
and died pronouncing the Holy
Name of Jesus.
The discussion of the
mission and virtues of
Margaret Mary continued for years. All her actions, her revelations,
her spiritual maxims, her teachings regarding the devotion
to the Sacred Heart, of which she was the chief exponent as well as the
apostle, were subjected to the most severe and minute examination, and finally
the Sacred Congregation of rites passed a favourable vote on the heroic
virtues of this servant of God.
In March, 1824, Leo
XII pronounced her Venerable, and on 18 September, 1864, Pius
IX declared her Blessed.
When her tomb was
canonically opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took place. Her body
rests under the altar in
the chapel at Paray,
and many striking favours have been obtained by pilgrims attracted
thither from all parts of the world. Her feast is
celebrated on 17 October. [Editor's Note: St. Margaret Mary was canonized by
Benedict XV in 1920. Her feast is
now 16 October.]
Doll, Sister Mary
Bernard. "St. Margaret Mary Alacoque." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1910. 16 Oct.
2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09653a.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Paul T. Crowley. Dedicated to
Mrs. Margaret McHugh and Mrs. Margaret Crowley.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin
Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09653a.htm
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Monument
of the Sacred Heart, Cerro de los Ángeles, Getafe, Madrid, Spain: "The
church in triumph"
Monumento
al Sacro Cuore, Cerro de los Ángeles, Getafe, Madrid, Spagna: "La Chiesa
trionfante"
Monumento
al Sagrado Corazón, Cerro de los Ángeles, Getafe, Madrid, Spain: "Iglesia
triunfante".
Están
representados: San Agustín, San Francisco de Asís, Santa Margarita María de Alacoque, Santa Teresa de Jesús, Santa Gertrudis y el Venerable Padre Bernardo de Hoyos
Margaret Mary Alacoque V
(RM)
Born July 22, 1647, at
L'Hautecourt, Burgundy; died at Paray-le- Monial, 1690; canonized 1920.
"Love triumphs, love
enjoys, the love of the Sacred Heart rejoices!"
Saint Margaret Mary is
nearly the antithesis of yesterday's saint, Teresa of Ávila. As joyful as
Teresa was; Margaret Mary was dour and humorless. Teresa was gregarious;
Margaret Mary self- contained. Both were sickly, but dealt with it differently.
Both were visionaries. This proves once again that no personality precludes
sanctity.
Margaret Mary was the
daughter of the respected notary Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn. Her
father died when she was around eight, leaving her family in a precarious
financial situation, so that for several years they were at the mercy of some
domineering and rapacious relatives.
She was sent to school
with the Poor Clares at Charolles. She fell ill with a painful rheumatic
condition at 12 and was bedridden until she was 15. The family home had been
taken over by her sister, and her mother and she were treated with undeserved
severity and almost like servants. Her sister often refused her permission to
attend church. "At that time," she wrote later, "all my desire
was to seek happiness and comfort in the Blessed Sacrament.
At 20, she was pressed to
marry but after a long struggle with herself decided to fulfill the vow she had
made earlier to the Virgin and entered the Order of the Visitation. She was
confirmed at 22 and took the name Mary. Her brother furnished her dowry and she
joined the convent at Paray-le-Monial. During her retreat before her
profession, which she made on November 6, 1672, she had a vision of Jesus in
which he said, "Behold the wound in my side, wherein you are to make your
abode, now and forever."
She worked in the
infirmary, and the slow-moving, awkward Margaret Mary suffered much under the
active and efficient infirmarian, Sister Catherine Marest.
On December 27, 1673, the
feast of Saint John the Evangelist, as she knelt at the grill before the
exposed Blessed Sacrament, she experienced a vision in which the Lord told her
to take the place that Saint John had occupied at the Last Supper, and that she
would act as His instrument. Jesus revealed His Sacred Heart as a symbol of His
love for mankind, saying:
"My divine Heart is
so inflamed with love for mankind . . . that it can no longer contain within
itself the flames of its burning charity and must spread them abroad by your
means."
Then it was as if He took
her heart and placed it next to his own, and then returned it burning with
divine love into her breast.
She had three more
visions over the next year and a half in which he instructed her in a devotion
that was to become known as the Nine Fridays and the Holy Hour, and in the
final revelation, the Lord asked that a feast of reparation be instituted for
the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi.
The Wisdom of God also
told her, "Do nothing without the approval of those who guide you, so
that, having the authority of obedience, you may not be misled by Satan, who
has no power over those who are obedient."
She told her superior,
Mother de Saumaise, about the visions, was treated contemptuously and was
forbidden to carry out any of the religious devotions that had been requested
of her in her visions. She became ill from the strain, and the superior,
searching for a divine sign of what to do, vowed to believe the visions if
Margaret Mary was cured. Margaret Mary prayed and recovered, and her superior
kept her promise.
A group within the
convent remained skeptical of her experiences, especially when, in 1677, she
told them that Jesus had twice asked her to be a willing victim to expiate
their shortcomings. The superior ordered Margaret Mary to present her
experiences to theologians. They were judged to be delusions, and it was
recommended that Margaret Mary eat more.
Blessed Claude La
Colombière, a holy and experienced Jesuit, arrived as confessor to the nuns,
and in him Margaret Mary recognized the understanding guide that had been
promised to her in the visions. He became convinced that her experiences were
genuine and adopted the teaching of the Sacred Heart the visions had
communicated to her. He departed not long after for England.
During the next years,
Margaret Mary experienced periods of both despair and vanity, and she was ill a
great deal. In 1681 Claude returned; in 1682 he died. In 1684 Mother Melin
became superior and elected Margaret Mary her assistant, silencing any further
opposition.
Her revelations were made
known to the community when they were read aloud in the refectory in the course
of a book written by Blessed Claude. Margaret Mary became novice mistress and
was very successful.
Her revelations in the
open now, she encouraged devotion to the Sacred Heart, especially among her
novices, who observed the feast in 1685. The family of an expelled novice
accused her of being unorthodox, and bad feelings were revived, but this passed
and the entire house celebrated the feast that year.
A chapel was built in
1687 at Paray in honor of the Sacred Heart, and devotion began to spread in the
other convents of the Visitidines, as well as throughout France.
Margaret Mary became ill
while serving a second term as assistant to the superior and died during the
fourth anointing step of the last rites. As she received the Last Sacrament,
she said, "I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of
Jesus."
(She actually died on
October 17, but the Church celebrates her today.) She, Saint John Eudes, and
Blessed Claude are called "saints of the Sacred Heart."
Margaret Mary's patience
and trust during her trials within the convent contributed to her canonization
in 1920. The devotion was officially recognized and approved by Pope Clement
XIII in 1765, 75 years after her death. Her visions and teachings have had
considerable influence on the devotional life of Catholics, especially since
the inauguration of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Roman calendar
in 1856 (Attwater, Delaney, Kerns, White).
Depicted as a nun in the
Visitation habit holding a flaming heart; or kneeling before Jesus, who exposed
his heart to her (White).
In art, Saint Margaret
Mary is portrayed as a nun to whom Christ offers His Sacred Heart
(Roeder).
Illustrated
Catholic Family Annual – Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque
Article
The Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque was born at Terrau,
in the province of Burgundy, France, on the 22d of July, 1647. Her family was
highly respectable; her father having held the office of judge for Terrau, as
well as for several of the neighboring towns. From an early age little Margaret
showed great devotion towards the Blessed Virgin. When eight years old she lost
her father, and, as she was the only daughter living, she was placed at school
with the Dames Urbanistes, a title given the Religious of Saint Clare who
followed the mitigated rule sanctioned by Pope Urban VIII. At the end of two
years her mother had to remove her, as she was visited with a severe illness
which lasted four years. The bones pierced her skin, and she almost lost the
use of her limbs. She says, in her own Life, that a promise was made that, if
she was cured, she would belong to the Blessed Virgin and be one of her
daughters. She had no sooner made the vow than she was cured.
In her twenty-third year she entered the little
convent of the Order of the Visitation at Paray, on 25 May 1671. It contained
at that time thirty-three choir sisters, three lay sisters, and three novices.
To go into the details of her convent life would take up too much space. A
valuable biography has been written by Father Tickell, S.J. Her whole life was
devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotion founded by her. All through
her life she was particularly favored by our divine Lord. She died in the odor
of sanctity, on 17 October 1690, in the forty-fourth year of her age, in the
arms of the two sisters to whom she had herself predicted this several years
before. Her body was deposited in the burial-place of the community, but in 1703
the coffin was opened, and the precious bones collected and placed in an oak
case near the same spot, where they remained until the expulsion of the Sisters
by the Revolutionists of 1792.
Paray-le-Monial has lately attracted much attention in
consequence of pilgrimages being made to the Blessed Margaret Mary’s shrine. On
16 June 1823, the present monastery was dedicated, and the relics of the
Blessed Margaret Mary placed in an oratory adjoining the choir, but were
afterwards put in a tomb, where they remained until her beatification. The
decree establishing her heroic character was prepared in May 1S46, by the
present Pope, Pius IX, who visited the monastery in August of the same year,
Orders were given for the prose cution of the cause in April 1864, and on 24
June the decree of beatification was published; on 6 September 1866 His
Holiness signed the order for resuming the cause of canonization. A pilgrimage
from England, under the lead of the Duke of Norfolk, and with the sanction of
the hierarchy of England, to Paray-le-Monial, took place in September 1873, and
attracted special attention everywhere.
MLA Citation
“Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque”. Illustrated Catholic Family Annual, 1874. CatholicSaints.Info.
17 January 2017. Web. 16 October 2020.
<https://catholicsaints.info/illustrated-catholic-family-annual-blessed-margaret-mary-alacoque/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/illustrated-catholic-family-annual-blessed-margaret-mary-alacoque/
_-_stained_glass%2C_Christ_appearing_to_Saint_Margaret_Mary.JPG)
Christ appearing to Saint Margaret Mary, Church of the Sacred Heart, Coshocton, Ohio, stained glass
Pictorial
Lives of the Saints – Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque
Margaret Mary was born at Terreau in Burgundy, on the
22nd July, 1647. During her infancy she showed a wonderfully sensitive horror
of the very idea of sin. In 1671 she entered the Order of the Visitation, at
Paray-le-Monial, and was professed the following year. After purifying her by
many trials, Jesus appeared to her in numerous visions, displaying to her His
Sacred Heart, sometimes burning as a furnace, and sometimes torn and bleeding
on account of the coldness and sins of men. In 1675 the great revelation was
made to her that she, in union with Father de la Colombiere, of the Society of
Jesus, was to be the chief instrument for instituting the feast of the Sacred
Heart, and for spreading that devotion throughout the world. She died on the
17th October, 1690.
Reflection – Love for the Sacred Heart especially
honors the Incarnation, and makes the soul grow rapidly in humility,
generosity, patience, and union with its Beloved.
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-blessed-margaret-mary-alacoque/
Bleiglasfenster
in der katholischen Kirche Saint-Rémy (Recey-sur-Ource) in Recey-sur-Ource im
Département Côte-d’Or (Burgund/Frankreich), Darstellung: Herz Jesu und
Marguerite Marie Alacoque
Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque, by Father Henry A. Johnston, S.J.
In the baptismal register of the parish of Verosyres
can still be read the following entry: ‘Margaret, daughter of Monsieur Claude
Alacoque, royal notary, and his wife, Philiberte Lemain, was baptized by me,
the undersigned Cure of Verosyres, Thursday, 25th of July, 1847.’ – This is the
beginning of the story of a wonderful life of grace. The child’s birth had
taken place three days previously, on July 22nd. It was in the pleasant land of
Burgundy, in the small town of Lautecour, that Margaret Alacoque was born and
grew up. She had four brothers and two sisters, one brother and one sister
being younger than herself. Two sisters died young, so she was left an only
sister among four brothers. We have very few of those details about her home,
her early years and later, about her surroundings when she was a religious,
which gave such a human interest to the life of Saint Therese of Lisieux, for
instance. In the account of her life, which she wrote when she was 38, at the
command of Pere Rolin, S.J., her director, she confined herself almost entirely
to the relations between her soul and God.
CHILDHOOD’S HAPPY HOURS
She was a happy and lively child. But God early showed
that He had special designs in her regard. Our Lord, when on earth, had special
affection for little children, and He remains the same always. Children seem
often to be in close touch with God and the supernatural. So it was with little
Margaret. Sin appeared to her something horrible, as indeed it really is. An
ebullition of natural high spirits on the part of the child could always be
checked by telling her that she would offend God. When she was quite small, she
repeated one day at Mass the words, ‘My God, I consecrate to You my purity, and
I make a vow to You of perpetual chastity.’ Where the child got the idea, we do
not know. She tells us herself that she did not know the meaning of ‘vow’ or
‘chastity’ at the time. It may have been the result of some pious conversation
which she listened to in the family circle, or an echo of her catechism; but,
more likely still, God was speaking to her heart in secret.
Her godmother, a great lady who lived in the castle of
Corcheval, four miles away, often had Margaret with her between her fourth and
eighth year. The pine-clad hills, the rocky gorges, the music-making streams
about Corcheval, must all have had an effect on the child’s bright
intelligence. The castle contained a chapel, and the facilities this gave for
prayer tended to strengthen the bonds, which were being woven between her soul
and God. ‘O my only Love,’ she wrote twenty-five years later, ‘how much I owe
You for having granted me Your benedictions from my most tender years, making
Yourself the master and owner of my heart.’
When she was eight and a half years of age, her father
died. He had been a thoroughly good Christian man; even today, we can see a
cross traced at the head of all the documents written by him as judge and Royal
Notary. His death necessitated a change in the family. The mother could not
look after the property and give proper attention to her five surviving
children. Margaret was sent to school to the Urbanists at Charolles. Her close
contact with religious naturally strengthened the ideals of piety when she already
possessed. She was found sufficiently developed spiritually to make her First
Communion at the then early age of nine. Like many another little girl, she
begins to plan to be a nun. But she does not lose her gaiety. She is full of
fun and fond of amusement. Then God begins to work out His plans in her. She is
good; more, she is holy. But unless God intervenes in a special way, she is not
likely to love Him with her whole heart and her whole soul. And He wants the
whole of her heart. When she is eleven she falls ill, and for four years, she
is unable to walk. She is worn away nearly to a skeleton.
This was a hard cross for one of her years. Suffering
later became a joy to her, but it was not so at the age of eleven. It is only
through the virtues of later years that we can estimate the change it worked in
her soul.
Margaret had during her early years a real child’s
love for Mary, Mother of God. She tells us that Mary saved her from ‘very great
dangers’ during her girlhood. When her illness persisted in spite of all
remedies, a vow was made that if the child recovered she would be ‘one of
Mary’s daughters.’ This brought about her cure, and gave Our Blessed Lady an
even more important place in her life. ‘She made herself so entirely mistress
of my heart that she took upon herself the absolute government of me; she
reproved me for my faults, and taught me to do the will of God.’
The restoration of her health had another effect,
however, on Margaret. At fourteen, the memory of pain is soon effaced, and the
girl’s natural vivacity and love of enjoyment quickly asserted themselves. She
felt the attraction of pleasant things around her, and the affection, which her
mother and brothers had for her, encouraged her in giving herself a good time
(her own. words: A me donner du bon temps). In later life, she reproached
herself bitterly for levity and especially for once, in company with some of
her young friends, appearing disguised during the time of carnival. It was not
a great crime, but it was resistance to the urging of grace. God was not yet
master of the heart He had made for Himself. Bodily suffering had not
succeeded; suffering of mind and spirit was to follow.
THE HAND OF GOD
Some of the property of Monsieur Alacoque had not
passed entirely to his widow. His mother, who lived with the family, and a
married sister had an interest in it. This sister and her husband, Toussaint
Delaroche, were hostile to the Alacoques, and seem to have been of a coarse and
bitter disposition. They usurped all authority in the Alacoque household, and
the life of mother and daughter became a misery. The Saint’s own words portray
it clearly enough. ‘My mother and I were soon reduced to hard captivity. . . .
We had no longer any power in the house, and we dare not do anything without
permission. It was a state of continual war. Everything was kept under lock and
key, so that I could not even dress myself in order to go to Holy Mass. . . . I
acknowledge that I felt keenly this state of slavery. . . .
‘I should have thought myself happy to go and beg my
bread rather than live as I was living.’ Continual nagging went on in the
house, and it was not easy to escape. She could not leave the house without
permission of three persons, and when she wanted to go to the church to Mass or
Benediction and was refused, the tears, which sometimes followed, were
attributed to vexation at not being able to keep some secret appointment. She
was not given enough to eat; she worked like a servant. And God’s design in it
all? ‘Jesus Christ gave me to understand when I was in this state that He
wished to make Himself the absolute Master of my heart.’ Such suffering would
have embittered many a young girl. But earnest prayer and constant meditation
on the sufferings, which Our Lord had to endure for her enabled Margaret
Alacoque to drive every unkind thought from her mind. – In the end, she came to
look upon her persecutors as real benefactors.
Gradually things changed. Her brothers grew up and
acquired more authority. Margaret herself was eighteen, her mother looked
forward to a good marriage for her, which would help still further towards
their emancipation. It was a new trial of a different kind. The love of
pleasure, so long suppressed, revealed itself once more. – The world began to
smile on Margaret, and she quickly responded. She began to pay more attention
to dress. She mixed more in society. Eligible young men were encouraged to come
to the Alacoque house. The girl felt she was being unfaithful to God’s call and
a struggle raged in her soul. She had made a vow of chastity; but then she had
not understood what she was doing. She had decided to become a nun but now she
felt that she could not persevere. True, she had made a promise to the Blessed
Virgin during her illness, but her mother was ill now and wanted her to settle
in the world. Could she break her mother’s heart?
Then she tried to compromise. She increased her
mortifications, but at the same time, she did not give up the round of
pleasure. She inflicted cruel sufferings on herself, but she would not give Our
Lord what He wanted. His grace pursued her, however, and just when she seemed
likely to yield to her mother’s wishes, and agree to be married, He spoke so
strongly to her one day after Communion, representing how unworthy it would be
if, after all His favours, she would turn her back on Him and give herself to
another, that she was finally conquered. It was like the snapping of a chain,
like the dawning of the day after a troubled night.
The story of the struggle between God and the world in
the heart of Saint Margaret Mary during the early part of her life has its
counterpart in the heart of many a young girl at the present day here in our
own country. God is near her in childhood, and she gives her young heart to
Him. She passes to a convent school, and opportunities for frequent Communion
lead to more intimate friendship with Our Lord. Vacations sometimes bring
forgetfulness and carelessness, but Our Lord wins her heart once more to
Himself. Fifteen or sixteen comes, and the beauty and worth of religious life
make a strong appeal. She becomes conscious, with a little surprise and perhaps
fear, that she has a vocation, that Our Lord is calling her to follow Him. But
the dangerous years are at hand. She begins to feel more strongly the
attraction of pleasure and amusement. Admiration and flattery bring new and
exhilarating sensations. The Voice of God is not heard so clearly. Perhaps, she
thinks, she was mistaken in thinking she had a vocation.
If she ventures to mention the idea, her friends
pooh-pooh it. At any rate, she must wait for a few years and enjoy herself
first. Intercourse with the world does the rest and often, very often, Our Lord
has lost a friend, the Church an apostle, and a soul the grandest opportunity
in this life, and a crown of wondrous beauty in life everlasting.
THE SNARE IS BROKEN
Margaret Alacoque was not twenty years of age. Her
mind was fully made up, and she began to live as devoted a life as she could in
preparation for her entry into religion. She prayed much, knowing her own
weakness; she gave herself to works of charity; she went to extremes, having no
one to guide her in the matter of mortification. Not that her troubles were
over.
Four years were to pass before she could give herself
to God in religious life. Her mother, and still more her brother, Chrysostom,
opposed her wish. The Delaroche family resumed their rough treatment. Her
relative and godfather, the cure of the parish, who seems to have been infected
with Jansenism, was a further obstacle to her, instead of being a help, in the
way of God. Then pressure was brought to bear on her to force her against her judgement
and God’s wish into a convent where she had a cousin. ‘I am going to be a
religious solely for love of God,’ she said. She prayed earnestly that God
would send her help. ‘Is it possible,’ was the reply, ‘that a child so fondly
loved as you are should be lost in the arms of an all-powerful Father?’
In 1669, when she was twenty-two, she was confirmed
and took the name of Mary. The following year, God sent a Franciscan Father to
Verosyres, and Margaret Mary opened her heart to him. He checked her extravagances,
as, for instance, when she naively transcribed whole pages of sins from manuals
of the examinations of conscience and accused herself of them all; but with
regard to her vocation, he took her side at once, and spoke strongly to her
brother Chrysostom. So the path was cleared at last, and she entered the
Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial in June, 1671. She was then 24 years of
age.
She tells us herself of the joy with which she left
her home. Even her mother’s tears did not sadden her. But when she was on the
point of entering the convent, sadness and fear assailed her, and she felt as
if she would die. It had often been thus, before and since, with those who were
giving themselves completely to God. The great Saint Teresa, writing later in
life, says: ‘I can remember, as if it were today, how, as I was leaving my
father’s house, I felt in such a state that I think if I had been at the point
of death I could not have felt greater pain.’ But the pain soon passed, and the
joy which followed was lasting.
A NOVICE
Emphasis has been laid on the difficulties Saint
Margaret Mary had to contend with, in order to correct the common opinion that
saints are turned out as if ready-made. Through the sufferings and trials to
which she had been subjected, she had already reached high sanctity. Her spirit
of prayer, her union with God, and her love of suffering, were remarkable. God
had already conferred very special marks of His favour upon her. Naturally,
therefore, she began her religious life with great fervour. There were things
she found hard at first, but these were a small price to pay for so great a
treasure. She made the mistakes of a beginner, as when she thought she could
please God by doing penance for which she had no permission. (This is
intelligible in a postulant; but it is surprising to find her love of suffering
leading her into this same mistake even after her profession. ‘That was for
Me.’ Our Lord said to her once, when she prolonged ‘an act of penance’ beyond
the time for which leave had been given, ‘What you are doing now is for the
devil.’)
She had not always the courage to ask for explanations
when she did not understand the instructions of her novice-mistress.
About two months after her entrance into the convent,
she received the habit. This event brought to Sister Margaret Mary intense joy
and consolation. God drew her to Himself at first by sweetness, but only in
order that she might be strengthened for the perfect sacrifice of self which He
desired of her. . . . Naturally enough, she became a little attached to this
interior consolation for its own sake, and complained at its withdrawal. Out
Lord pointed out her mistake to her. Sanctity does not consist in pious feeling
or interior consolation, but in giving up self-love and in loving God for His
own sake. ‘Everyone that does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be My
disciple.’ Sister Margaret Mary, then, had to learn to give up all seeking for
her own interest, her own convenience, her own honour, her own will. This did
not come easy to her. The young religious on her entrance does not leave human
nature at the convent gate.
The new novice, prompted by God, asked for
humiliations from her novice-mistress. She was refused those she asked, but
received others she felt much more keenly. When she had entered the convent,
her brother, Chrysostom, had stipulated that she was never to be asked to eat
cheese. One day it happened, probably by accident, that cheese was served to
her along with the others at table. She felt impelled to make the sacrifice of
her dislike. She could not. Her novice-mistress coldly told her she was not
worthy to make the sacrifice. Three days of prayer and tears followed, and she
succeeded in overcoming herself. Another struggle went on for a long time.
Naturally of an affectionate disposition, she became unduly attached to another
Sister. Our Lord let her know that this displeased Him, but still she could not
give up the satisfaction the attachment yielded her. She tried to love God and
indulge herself at the same time. After some months, Our Lord delivered an
ultimatum, we might say. He let her understand that He did not want a divided
heart. If she did not give up creatures, He would leave her. Then her good will
asserted itself, and she gave herself entirely to God.
Through her superiors and her companions could not but
be struck by the fervour of Sister Margaret Mary, her charity, her ready
obedience, her joyfulness under humiliation, still the extraordinary union with
God which even now she enjoyed during her prayer, and the special graces she
received, which she could not hide, seemed to make her unsuitable for the
Visitation Order. The year of her novice-ship passed, and she was not allowed
to take her vows. She was told she would not be useful to the Congregation; her
ways were too extraordinary. The novice complained to Our Lord, and was assured
she would be more useful than anyone imagined. ‘Tell your superior that I will
answer for you.’ So, after further tests of her obedience and humility, she was
told to prepare for her profession.
CONSECRATED TO GOD
During her retreat before profession, she may be said
to have lived in heaven. She was a little too anxious about her General
Confession, and Our Lord said to her: ‘Why are you worried? Do what is in your
power and I will supply for what is wanting. I require nothing so much in the
Sacrament as a contrite and humble heart which, with a sincere wish never to
offend Me, accuses itself without pretence.’ After that, wonderful joy in God
took possession of her soul. But then she was shown all she had to suffer
during life, and she shuddered at the thought of it. She was told not to fear,
however, and Our Lord conferred on her the great grace of being always
conscious of His presence. Sometimes this presence of God was to lift her up in
transports of love, and she would cry; ‘O my Love, my Life, my All; You are all
mine, and I am all Yours.’ At other times, it was to make her sink down into
her own nothingness, and to feel confusion at the thoughts of her own
unworthiness in God’s sight.
Her sentiments at the end of the retreat before her
profession may be best understood from what she wrote herself: ‘I, poor,
miserable nothing, protest to God that I will offer and sacrifice myself in all
that He asks of me, offering my heart wholly to the accomplishment of His will
without any other desire than that of His greater glory and His pure love to
which I consecrate my whole being and every moment of my life. I belong forever
to my Beloved as His slave, His handmaid, His creature, since He is everything
to me and I am His unworthy spouse, Sister Margaret Mary, dead to the world.
All from God, and nothing from myself; all in God and nothing in myself; all
for God and nothing for myself.’ In those dispositions, she consecrated herself
to God by the three vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, on the 6th
November, 1672.
The period which followed her profession was still a
time for probation, and Our Lord still kept preparing her for the work to which
He had called her.
Through her, He was to spread the fire of His love;
her own heart must, therefore, be wholly set on fire. Her daily prayer drew her
even closer to God. ‘I often present myself before Him,’ she wrote, ‘as a sick
person before an all-powerful Physician. I place myself before Him as a living
victim, whose only desire is to be offered as a holocaust in the pure flames of
His love.’ She was more and more drawn by the presence of Our Lord in the
Blessed Sacrament, and in her hours of adoration, His love took fuller possession
of her heart. At the same time, she was tried by humiliations and
contradictions, lest spiritual joys should beget selfishness. She was still
told that she was not walking the safe road of the daughters of Saint Francis
de Sales. She was sent to do household tasks during the hour of prayer. On
Easter Sunday, a feeling of discontent rose in her mind on this account, but
Our Lord reproved her and said: ‘The prayer of submission and sacrifice is more
agreeable to Me than contemplation and every other kind of meditation, however
holy it may appear.’ Her sanctity was to be solidly built from the foundations.
Sister Margaret Mary, like the other nuns of the
convent, was given different offices or charges at different times. First, she
was assistant infirmarian, and was not a great success outwardly. She was
awkward and timid, apparently, quite unlike the active and competent
infirmarian, and frequently fell and broke things. She twice had charge of the
children, an office for which she felt a great repugnance. But the difficulties
and the apparent want of success were doing their work of making her more
useful. When she fell into faults of vanity or self-seeking, Our Lord did not
allow her to have peace in them. He would be gentle to weakness, but severe to
infidelity. He made known to her how much He suffered through the sins of men,
and He told her He wanted her, by her unselfish love, to atone for them. Thus
Our Lord led her on, step by step, till she could write: ‘My Beloved has
consumed in me every desire but that of receiving His divine love, and has left
me without fear of anything except sin.’ The preparation was complete, and Our
Lord could now go on to the accomplishment of His wonderful designs.
GOD’S WAY
If an observer had cast his eye around France towards
the end of the year 1673 and considered what events of the day were most likely
to have permanent effects on later history, his attention might have fastened
on the figure of Louis XIV playing the grand part of Grand Monarque (the Great
Monarch) to such perfection; or on Conde and Turenne, winning brilliant
victories on the eastern frontier; or on the poets and litterateurs of the
time, La Fontaine, Racine, Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux; or on the pulpits where
Bossuet and Bourdaloue moved vast congregations by their eloquence. But he
would have known nothing of a Visitation Convent in Paray-le-Monial, or an
insignificant member of its community; or if by chance he had known, his
thoughts would not have rested there. It is the old story of the diversity
between God’s ways and thoughts and man’s ways. The devotion to the Sacred
Heart has had an immense influence in the Church. From it sinners have drawn
hope and grace of repentance, while the just have found in it a source of
fervour. It has brought countless numbers to the confessional and the altar
rail, and has given to the Blessed Sacrament the position in the hearts of
Catholics, which is Its due. All this can be traced back to Saint Margaret
Mary. It is true she had her forerunners; but if devotion to the Sacred Heart
and the treasure of grace it contains are no longer the possession of a few
privileged souls, but of all the faithful, this is due to the revelations made
by Our Lord to the Visitation nun of Paray-le-Monial.
It was most appropriate that on the feast of Saint
John the Evangelist, December 27, 1673, Our Lord began His great revelations.
When Sister Margaret Mary was before the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord appeared
to her. (Footnote: Whether these appearances were exterior, perceived by the
external senses, or interior and intellectual, we have no means of
determining.)
Our Lord, having given her remarkable proofs of His
love and tenderness, He made known to her, she writes, the marvels of His love
and inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart which He had hidden until then.
‘My Divine Heart,’ He said, ‘is so inflamed with love
for men, and for you in particular, that, not being able to restrain within
itself any longer the flames of its ardent charity, it must spread them
everywhere by means of you and manifest itself to men that they may be enriched
with its precious treasures.’
‘Behold the designs for which I have chosen you.’
THE SACRED HEART
Little by little, during the course of the next two
years, 1674 and 1675, Our Lord unfolded the full meaning of devotion to His
Sacred Heart. At the next appearance of Our Lord, Sister Margaret Mary saw the
divine heart ‘as if on a throne of flame, more radiant than a sun and
transparent as crystal, with its adorable wound. It was surrounded by a crown
of thorns, which signified the pain which our sins inflicted on it, and was
surmounted by a cross, which signified that from the first moment of His
Incarnation, when the Sacred Heart was formed, the cross was planted there, and
His Heart felt all the bitterness which would be caused by the humiliations,
poverty, grief, and dishonour which the Sacred Humanity would suffer through
the course of His life and during His Passion. He made me see that the ardent
desire which He had of being loved by men, and of rescuing them from the path
of perdition along which Satan drives them in crowds, had made Him form this
design of manifesting His Heart to me, with all the treasures of love, of
mercy, of grace, of sanctification and of salvation which it contains.’ He
asked that He should be honoured under the figure of this heart of flesh, and
promised that He would scatter His graces and blessings wherever that holy
image should be exposed and honoured. ‘This devotion was, as it were, a last
effort of His love for men in these latter ages.’
Some time later the Saint again saw Our Lord, this
time with His five wounds shining like five suns, and flames bursting forth
from His Sacred Person, but especially from His Heart. Again He made known to
her ‘the inexplicable wonder of His pure love, and to what an excess He had
carried His love for men.’ But now He added that the ingratitude and
forgetfulness, which He had met with in return for His burning love, caused Him
more pain than all the sufferings of His Passion. He asked that Margaret Mary
should make up for this ingratitude as much as she could. What was she to do?
First, she was to receive Him in Holy Communion as often as she was permitted.
Secondly, she was in particular to receive Holy Communion as an act of
reparation on the First Friday of each month. Thirdly, she was to spend the
hour from eleven to twelve every Thursday night in His company, sharing with
Him the sorrow by which He was crushed at Gethsemane.
FEAST OF LOVE
The last of the great revelations came on a day within
the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675. The Saint knelt again before the Blessed
Sacrament, and as she expressed her desire to make some return to Our Lord for
His wonderful love for her, He told her she could do nothing greater than what
He already often asked of her. Showing His Heart, He said: ‘Behold this Heart
which has so loved men, which has spared nothing, even to being exhausted and
consumed, in order to testify to them Its love, And the greater number of them
make Me no other return than ingratitude, by their coldness and forgetfulness
of Me in this Sacrament of love. But what is still more painful to Me is that
it is hearts who are consecrated to Me that treat Me thus.’ After this Our Lord
went on to ask for something new, for the establishment of a public feast in
honour of His Sacred Heart on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi: ‘I
promise you that My Heart will pour out in abundance the effects of its divine
love on all those who will render It this honour or cause It to be so
honoured.’ When Margaret Mary very naturally put forward her powerlessness, Our
Lord first reminded her that it was customary with Him to make use of little
ones that were poor in spirit for His greatest works that His power might shine
forth more clearly. Then He told her to have recourse to His servant, Father
Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., [canonized in 1992] who would assist her.
Thus did Our Lord give to the world this treasure of
devotion to His Sacred Heart. In a sense, the devotion was not new. Even in the
Old Law, God said of His erring children: ‘I will draw them with the cords of
Adam [of kindly humanity], with the bands of love.’ (Hosea 11:4) In the
Incarnation, the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour were made manifest to
men. But even then ‘His own received Him not.’ His benefits were met by injury.
‘Many good works have I showed you from My Father,’ Our Lord said to the Jews,
‘for which of those works do you stone Me?’ ‘Watch and pray with Me,’ was the
request to the Apostles on Mount Olivet. All the elements of devotion to the
Sacred Heart were thus in the Church from the beginning. Saint John, the
beloved disciple, had expressed its spirit when he wrote, ‘God is love.’ In His
revelations, then, to Saint Margaret Mary, Our Lord was only making a fresh
effort to secure the object for which He had come among men, ‘to cast fire on
the earth.’
‘The great desire Our Lord has that His Sacred Heart
should be honoured by some particular devotion,’ we read in one of Margaret
Mary’s letters, ‘is in order to renew in souls the effect of His Redemption.’
SO AS BY FIRE
We are always inclined to pay too much attention to
the favours the Saints received from God, and to overlook the price, which they
paid for them. Sister Margaret Mary had to pay very highly for the great graces
she received. ‘He taught me first,’ she writes, ‘that His special graces would
always be accompanied by some humiliation, contradiction or contempt on the
part of creatures.’ We have seen how she was looked upon with suspicion while
she was a novice. Matters did not improve after her profession in November,
1672. As the workings of God’s grace grew manifest, she attracted more
attention. Joking grew into mockery; she was called a visionary and a
hypocrite. Even the children in the Convent noted and wondered at the unkind
things that were said and done to her. And all the time, she herself was
haunted by a terrible dread that she was being deceived. Her superior told her
to consult several learned directors; and they were unanimous in their opinion
that she was deluded. The great revelations of the Sacred Heart, which began
about a year after her profession, only increased her trials. Our Lord had told
her to keep nothing concealed from her superior. Though, as she says herself,
she would have preferred to read out her general confession in the refectory,
she told everything to Mother de Saumaise. The Reverend Mother treated with
contempt all she told her, and refused to allow her to carry out any of the
things she believed Our Lord had asked of her. A little later, a miraculous
recovery from illness, which had been asked for as a sign from God, convinced
Mother de Saumaise that Margaret Mary was led by the Spirit of God.
Nonetheless, she continued to try her by her snubs and contradictions.
The community of Paray-le-Monial was on the whole a
fervent one, but Our Lord had cause for complaint with not a few of its members
on account of their love of esteem and their want of charity. In fact, His words
about the deliberate faults of these religious are terrifying. Margaret was
called upon to make herself a victim for them. In November 1677, she was asked
for what was the greatest sacrifice of her life. At first, she could not bring
herself to yield, but Our Lord persuaded her, and at last, on the eve of the
Presentation of Our Lady, she was literally forced to do what He asked of her.
When the Sisters were assembled in the evening Margaret Mary, having obtained
her superior’s leave, knelt in the midst of them, and made known Our Lords
message, that He was angry with the community on account of certain faults, and
that He had chosen her as the victim of His injured love. We can imagine the
feelings this declaration would arouse. Sister Margaret Mary was only a few
years professed; she had excited adverse comment by her ways of acting; and now
she publicly censures the whole community. The Saint herself felt the situation
keenly. ‘I never suffered so much,’ she states simply in her account of the
incident. Matters were made worse when the superior gave orders for an act of
mortification to be performed that night by all in order to appease the anger
of God. Some of the less fervent nuns sought out Sister Margaret Mary,
questioned her, insulted her, and treated her as mad and possessed by the
devil.
THE FLESH IS WEAK
In the following year, 1678, Mother de Saumaise left
Paray-le-Monial. In her, Margaret lost a superior who had come to understand
and sympathize with her, and one for whom she herself admits, she had a special
affection. ‘I have felt our separation,’ the Saint wrote soon after, ‘although
it is only in body, more than I can tell you.’ The next superior was a Mother
Greyfie. At her coming Mother Greyfie writes, ‘I found opinion very much
divided about this true Spouse of Jesus Crucified.’ That is a good description
of her.
Margaret Mary says herself: ‘When I think of Our Lord
on the Cross, life without suffering becomes insupportable to me.’ This does
not mean that she found suffering easy to bear. When Our Lord offered her a
choice between ‘the happiest life imaginable for a religious: a life of peace,
of interior and exterior consolation, and of perfect health,’ and ‘a poor, an
abject life; crucified, despised, contradicted, always suffering both in body
and soul’, she accepted the latter: but her whole nature revolted.
‘Crosses were a real joy to her,’ wrote Mother de
Saumaise, ‘but she felt them keenly.’ She had a constant struggle with herself,
with her ‘own weakness and inconsistency,’ as she put it. ‘I am not faithful,
and I fail often,’ she sorrowfully confesses. In order to overcome herself, as
we have seen, she had to take a vow to accept any employment given to her, to
answer letters, and to go to the parlour as the rule prescribed (even when this
led to further public ridicule by the convent’s guests). But these and other
things never became easy. ‘My dislikes,’ she states in later life, ‘seem rather
to increase than diminish.’
It is, therefore, one with human feelings and human
weakness whom we must think of as bearing her cross so faithfully to the end.
If we could trace her life step by step we should find it always, till just
near the end, a life of suffering and self-sacrifice. We should find the trials
which she underwent at the hands of others continuing. We should find her
tempted to vanity and despair. We should see her going humbly to her superior
when attacked by ravenous hunger, and sometimes being told to go to the
dispenser for something to eat, at other times being coldly told to wait and
satisfy her hunger with the rest of the community. Mother Greyfie did not spoil
her. ‘I hardly ever let anyone see,’ she writes, ‘that I believed anything
extraordinary about her. I never spoke to her either inside or outside the
house. If she did anything that displeased others, even by my orders or
permission, I allowed others to blame her, and blamed her myself if it were
done in my presence.’
At the same time, Mother Greyfie was a great help to
her, and encouraged her to bear her sufferings with meekness and humility. The
following piece of advice which she wrote for Sister Margaret Mary is striking
in its common-sense, and at the same time lets us see that the task of becoming
a Saint is a very homely one after all: ‘Your most excellent practice of
mortification and penance will be to adapt your humours and inclinations to
each occasion as it comes, and not to show exteriorly what you suffer
interiorly. Be happy at recreation, always amiable and kind to your Sisters,
and to anybody you have to deal with; and be devout in all your duties to God.’
THE HIDDEN FIRE
And what of devotion to the Sacred Heart all this
time? At first, we have seen Margaret Mary’s accounts of the messages she
received from God were not credited. In January, 1675, before the last of the
great revelations, Father Claude de la Colombiere was appointed Rector of the
small Jesuit House at Paray. ‘A gifted man wasted in such a position,’ said
those who overlooked God’s providence. Margaret Mary opened her heart to him,
and, while receiving advice calculated to keep her firmly rooted in humility,
she was told to follow without fear where God led her, always being careful
about obedience. The ill-disposed declared that Margaret Mary was deceiving
Father de la Colombiere, as she had already deceived many others. She made
known to him what Our Lord had asked of her with regard to devotion to the
Sacred Heart, and was greatly edified by the humility with which he received
the message that he had been chosen by Our Lord to be the apostle of the new
devotion. Father de la Colombiere spent only a year and a half at Paray, and
then, to the sorrow of Margaret Mary, was sent to London in the middle of the
year 1676. In his parting message, he reminded her that God asked of her
everything and nothing; everything, because He wanted complete surrender to His
Will; nothing, because the work should be all His and the glory all His.
Father de la Colombiere spent two years in England,
the first apostle of the Sacred Heart. It was during these years that Saint
Margaret Mary had her greatest trial, in 1677, as described already. At the
beginning of 1679, Father de la Colombiere was driven out of England by
anti-Catholic persecutions. He paid a passing visit to Paray-le-Monial, and was
able to encourage Sister Margaret Mary in some of the painful temptations,
already alluded to, which she was suffering. He also reassured the superior,
Mother Greyfie, who had come to Paray in his absence.
‘Humility, simplicity, exact obedience, and
mortification,’ he said, ‘are not the fruits of the spirit of darkness.’ In the
autumn of 1681, Father de la Colombiere returned to Paray, this time to die.
Sister Margaret Mary saw him twice, but he could speak only with difficulty.
When he died in February, 1682, she spoke of him as a Saint, frequently asked
his intercession, and asserted that his prayers in heaven would do much to
spread devotion to the Sacred Heart. This devotion, Our Lord told Margaret
Mary, was to be given in a special way to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus
to propagate. The Venerable [now Saint] Claude de la Colombiere was a worthy
pioneer.
In 1684, Mother Greyfie left Paray. She had been
convinced of the true sanctity of Sister Margaret Mary, and, better still, had
been imbued with her zeal for the interests of the Sacred Heart. Two of the
Saint’s superiors, having kindled their lamps at the shrine of Paray, were now
carrying the light of devotion to other communities. This was a consolation to
Margaret Mary in her many trials.
She herself tried to do what she could to win others
to the love of the Sacred Heart, but she met with such opposition that she was
tempted to give up. She persevered, ‘for,’ as she wrote to Mother de Saumaise,
‘difficulties are an assurance that the work is God’s, and that He will be much
glorified by it.’
APOSTOLATE
In January, 1685, the new superior appointed Sister
Margaret Mary mistress of novices. The post brought both its consolations and
its trials. On the one hand, she could speak freely to the novices and
communicate to them some of her own burning love for Our Lord. ‘Our Mother,’
one of the novices said, ‘is like another Saint John, and can only speak the
language of love.’ On the other hand, some of the older nuns were upset by her
‘new’ devotions and threatened to denounce her to the Bishop. She got into
great trouble because she decided against the vocation of a postulant from a
distinguished family. The old complaints broke out afresh. Father Rolin, S.J.,
who was now her director (it is to his orders that we owe Margaret Mary’s
account of her life), bade her to be of good heart. ‘All the names people call
you, humiliating as they are, ought only to make you thank God, and pray for
those who say such things.’ On her feast day, July 20th, the novices determined
to prepare a pleasant surprise for her. They rose in the middle of the night –
let us hope with permission – and prepared an altar with a little picture of
the Sacred Heart. Then, wishing to be free in the morning, they did their work
in the refectory, but in their eagerness – novice-like – they made too much
noise and drew forth complaints from the older Sisters, who were disturbed in
their slumbers, and earned an admonition from the superior. In the morning, the
mistress and her novices consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart.
During the day, Margaret Mary sent a novice to invite
some of the rest of the community to join in the devotion. ‘Go and tell your
mistress,’ was the cold reply, ‘that the best devotion is the practice of our
rules and constitutions.’ In point of fact, there was no lack of solidity in
the training the novices were getting. Meekness, humility, charity,
self-sacrifice – these, as we might expect, were the virtues the novice
mistress laid most stress on. She did not lead these young religious by strange
and dangerous ways. ‘The way of God for us,’ she told them, ‘is by our holy
rules.’
HE MUST REIGN
But the hour of triumph was at hand. The very next
year after the events just revealed, on the octave day of Corpus Christi, 1686,
one of the Sisters who had been most opposed to the new devotion went to
Margaret Mary and asked for the picture of the Sacred Heart. The next day, the
very day Our Lord Himself had chosen as the feast of the Sacred Heart, to the
surprise of all, an altar to the Sacred Heart was prepared in the nuns’ choir.
Our Lord had conquered, and the change, which the adoption of the devotion
wrought in the spirit of fervour of the community, was observed by all. Two
years later, in 1688, a chapel erected in the garden of the convent in honour
of the Sacred Heart was solemnly blessed.
Of the remaining two years of Margaret Mary’s life
there is little to be told. ‘I can no longer occupy myself with anything but
the Sacred Heart of Jesus,’ she confessed. She was now Mother Assistant and,
though outward trials ceased, she suffered, if possible, still more interiorly.
All the time she was working and praying for the spread of the devotion. In
spite of her great repugnance, she wrote many letters. The published notes of
the retreat of Father de la Colombiere were now in circulation, a source of joy
to the Saint, and at the same time of ‘frightful shame and confusion,’ because
of some references in them to herself. Various Visitation convents had taken up
the devotion warmly. A Jesuit, Father Croisset, had published a little book on
the subject. Margaret Mary said it was time for her to die. Indeed, she was
worn out by suffering and love.
COME LORD JESUS
The year 1690 came, and with it the end of suffering.
Margaret Mary could not understand the calm she experienced. The temple of God
was finished, the noise of hammer and chisel ceased, and the scaffolding was
cleared away. The love of Christ had overcome everything that could oppose it,
and perfect peace ensued. The venturesome and perilous voyage was over, and the
vessel had come under lee of the shore. On the 8th of October, the Saint was
taken ill. Though the doctor said there was no danger, she knew the end was
come.
Nine days of preparation were given her; then one last
struggle, as the thought of God’s purity came over her, and finally peace
again, never to be broken, as she gave up her soul to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. ‘How sweet it is to die,’ she had once written, ‘after having had a
constant devotion to the Heart of Him who is to be our Judge!’ Her birthday
into eternal life was October 17th, 1690. She was beatified by Pius IX in 1864
and canonized by Benedict XV in 1921.
THE TWELVE PROMISES of the Sacred Heart to Saint
Margaret Mary concerning all who practise devotion to the Sacred Heart.
1. I will give them all the graces necessary for their
state of life.
2. I will give peace in their families.
3. I will console them in all their troubles.
4. They will find in my Heart an assured refuge during
life and especially at the hour of death.
5. I will pour abundant blessings on all their
undertakings.
6. Sinners will find in my Heart the source and
infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
8. Fervent souls will speedily rise to great
perfection.
9. I will bless the homes in which the image of my
Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured.
10. I will give to priests the power to touch the most
hardened hearts.
11. Those who spread this devotion will have their
name written in my Heart, never to be effaced.
12. The all-powerful love of my Heart will grant to
all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive
months, the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under my displeasure,
nor without receiving the Sacraments; my Heart will be their assured refuge at
that last hour.
– from the pamphlet Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque, by Father Henry A. Johnston, S.J.,
Australian Catholic Truth Society, #458, 1948
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-margaret-mary-alacoque-by-father-henry-a-johnston-s-j/
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque, ,
monaca dell'Ordine della Visitazione di Santa Maria, Monastero di
Paray-le-Monial (Francia)
Santa
Margarida Maria Alacoque, monja da Ordem da Visitação de Santa Maria, Mosteiro
de Paray-le-Monial (França)
Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque, religious of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, Monastery
of Paray-le-Monial (France)
Sainte
Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, moniale de l'Ordre de la Visitation de Sainte-Marie,
Monastère de Paray-le-Monial (France)
Santa
Margarita María Alacoque, monja de la Orden de la Visitación de Santa María, Monasterio
de Paray-le-Monial (Francia)
Santa Margherita Maria
Alacoque Vergine
16
ottobre (e 17 ottobre) - Memoria Facoltativa
Verosvres, Autun,
Francia, 1647 - Paray-le-Monial, 17 ottobre 1690
Nata in Borgogna nel
1647, Margherita ebbe una giovinezza difficile, soprattutto perché dovette
vincere la resistenza dei genitori per entrare, a ventiquattro anni,
nell'Ordine della Visitazione, fondato da san Francesco di Sales. Margherita,
diventata suor Maria, restò vent'anni tra le Visitandine, e fin dall'inizio si
offrì «vittima al Cuore di Gesù». Fu incompresa dalle consorelle, malgiudicata
dai superiori. Anche i direttori spirituali dapprima diffidarono di lei,
giudicandola una fanatica visionaria. Il beato Claudio La Colombière divenne
preziosa guida della mistica suora della Visitazione, ordinandole di narrare,
nell'autobiografia, le sue esperienze ascetiche. Per ispirazione della santa,
nacque la festa del Sacro Cuore, ed ebbe origine la pratica dei primi Nove
Venerdì del mese. Morì il 17 ottobre 1690.
Etimologia: Margherita
= perla, dal greco e latino
Emblema: Giglio
Martirologio
Romano: Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque, vergine, che, entrata tra le
monache dell’Ordine della Visitazione della beata Maria, corse in modo mirabile
lungo la via della perfezione; dotata di mistici doni e particolarmente devota
al Sacratissimo Cuore di Gesù, fece molto per promuoverne il culto nella
Chiesa. A Paray-le-Monial nei pressi di Autun in Francia, il 17 ottobre, si
addormentò nel Signore.
(17 ottobre: A Paray-le-Monial
nel territorio di Autun in Francia, transito di santa Margherita Maria
Alacoque, vergine, la cui memoria si celebra il giorno precedente a questo).
La memoria di Santa
Margherita Maria Alacoque, francese, è legata alla diffusione della devozione
del Sacro Cuore, una devozione tipica dei tempi moderni, e promossa infatti
soltanto tre secoli fa, quando soffiò sulla Francia il vento gelido del
Giansenismo, foriero della tormenta dell'Illuminismo.
All'origine della
devozione al Cuore di Gesù si trovano due grandi Santi: Giovanni Eudes e
Margherita Maria Alacoque. Del primo abbiamo già parlato il 19 agosto. dicendo
come questo moschettiere dell'amore di Gesù e Maria fosse il primo e più
fervido propagatore del nuovo culto.
Santa Margherita Maria
Alacoque, da parte sua, fu colei che rivelò in tutta la loro mirabile
profondità i doni d'amore dei cuore di Gesù, traendone grazie strepitose per la
propria santità, e la promessa che i soprannaturali carismi sarebbero stati
estesi a tutti i devoti del Sacro Cuore.
Nata in Borgogna nel
1647, Margherita ebbe una giovinezza difficile, soprattutto perché non le fu
facile sottrarsi all'affetto dei genitori, e alle loro ambizioni mondane per la
figlia, ed entrare, a ventiquattro anni, neII'Ordine della Visitazione, fondato
da San Francesco di Sales. Margherita, diventata suor Maria, restò vent'anni
tra le Visitandine, e fin dall'inizio si offrì " vittima al Cuore di Gesù
". In cambio ricevette grazie straordinarie, come fuor dell'ordinario
furono le sue continue penitenze e mortificazioni sopportate con dolorosa
gioia. Fu incompresa dalle consorelle, malgiudicata dai Superiori. Anche i
direttori spirituali dapprima diffidarono di lei, giudicandola una fanatica
visionaria. " Ha bisogno di minestra ", dicevano, non per scherno, ma
per troppo umana prudenza.
Ci voleva un Santo, per
avvertire il rombo della santità. E fu il Beato Claudio La Colombière, che
divenne preziosa e autorevole guida della mistica suora della Visitazione,
ordinandole di narrare, nella Autobiografia, le sue esperienze ascetiche,
rendendo pubbliche le rivelazioni da lei avute.
"Ecco quel cuore che
ha tanto amato gli uomini", le venne detto un giorno, nel rapimento di una
visione: una frase restata quale luminoso motto della devozione al Sacro Cuore.
E poi, le promesse: "Il mio cuore si dilaterà per spandere con abbondanza
i frutti del suo amore su quelli che mi onorano". E ancora: "I
preziosi tesori che a te discopro, contengono le grazie santificanti per trarre
gli uomini dall'abisso di perdizione".
Per ispirazione della
Santa, nacque così la festa del Sacro Cuore, ed ebbe origine la pratica pia dei
primi Nove Venerdì del mese. Vinta la diffidenza, abbattuta l'ostilità, scossa
la indifferenza, si diffuse nel mondo la devozione a quel Cuore che a Santa
Margherita Alacoque era apparso "su di un trono di fiamme, raggiante come
sole, con la piaga adorabile, circondato di spine e sormontato da una
croce". E’ l'immagine che appare ancora in tante case, e che ancora
protegge, in tutto il mondo, le famiglie cristiane.
Autore: Piero
Bargellini
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/29650
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Armand
Cambon (1819–1885), Vision de Marguerite-Marie, religieuse de la
Visitation, Cathédrale
Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Montauban, Huile sur toile dans le bras droit
du transept
Margherita Maria Alacoque
(1647-1690)
Beatificazione:
- 18 settembre 1864
- Papa Pio IX
Canonizzazione:
- 13 maggio 1920
- Papa Benedetto XV
- Basilica Vaticana
Ricorrenza:
- 16 ottobre (e 17
ottobre, memoria facoltativa)
Vergine che, entrata tra
le monache dell’Ordine della Visitazione della beata Maria, corse in modo
mirabile lungo la via della perfezione; dotata di mistici doni e
particolarmente devota al Sacratissimo Cuore di Gesù, fece molto per
promuoverne il culto nella Chiesa
"Il mio cuore si
dilaterà per spandere con abbondanza i frutti del suo amore su quelli che mi
onorano"
Marguerite Alacoque nasce
in una famiglia benestante nella Borgogna il 22 luglio 1647. I suoi genitori
sono ferventi cattolici, ma non abbastanza da consentire che una loro figlia
diventi suora. Eppure Margherita già a cinque anni si consacra al Signore con
voto di castità, ma solo a 24, vincendo le resistenze dei suoi, riesce a
entrare nell’Ordine della Visitazione fondato da San Francesco di Sales.
Tra le sue consorelle
Margherita – che prendendo i voti ha aggiunto al proprio il nome di Maria – non
si trova bene: lei da sempre ha visioni della Madonna, ma non ne parla mai. Le
voci, però, girano, e molte tra le suore e tra i suoi superiori non le credono
o addirittura si prendono gioco di lei, lasciando intendere che sia malata o
pazza. Tra le Visitandine, però resterà oltre vent’anni, sperimentando grazie
straordinarie ma anche enormi penitenze e mortificazioni che affronterà sempre
con il sorriso.
Sarà il suo padre
spirituale, il gesuita Claude de la Colombière, a riconoscere in lei il carisma
dei Santi e a ordinarle di raccontare le sue esperienze mistiche in quella che
diventerà la sua autobiografia, giunta fino a noi. Lei all’inizio resiste, poi
per obbedienza acconsente, ma mentre scrive resta convinta di farlo solo per
sé, non si rende conto del valore di ciò che sta raccontando in quelle pagine.
Dal 1673 Margherita Maria
inizia a ricevere anche le visite di Gesù che le chiede di avere particolare
devozione al Suo Sacro Cuore, che le appare “raggiante come un sole, con la
piaga adorabile, circondato di spine e sormontato da una croce, adagiato sopra
un trono di spine”. Dal suo racconto verrà fuori l’iconografia che conosciamo
oggi, e dal suo impegno l’istituzione della festa liturgica del Sacro Cuore di
Gesù, fissata all’ottavo giorno dopo il Corpus Domini.
Gesù appare a Margherita
Maria per 17 anni, fino al giorno della sua morte, quando sarà ancora Lui a
venire a prenderla per mano. La chiama la “discepola prediletta”, le comunica i
segreti del suo cuore e la fa partecipe della scienza dell’amore.
Da Gesù la religiosa
riceve anche una grande promessa: a chi avesse ricevuto la comunione per nove
mesi consecutivi il primo venerdì del mese, sarebbe stato fatto il dono della
penitenza finale, cioè di morire ricevendo i sacramenti e in assenza di
peccato. Gesù le chiede anche di appellarsi al re di Francia Luigi XIV affinché
consacri il Paese al Sacro Cuore, ma la Santa non ottiene risposta dal sovrano.
Margherita Maria muore il
17 ottobre 1690; grazie a lei nel quartiere di Montmartre a Parigi tra il 1875
e il 1914 viene costruito un santuario dedicato proprio al Sacre Coeur,
consacrato nel 1919.
Beatificata da Pio IX nel
1864, viene canonizzata da Benedetto XV nel 1920.
SOURCE : https://www.causesanti.va/it/santi-e-beati/margherita-maria-alacoque.html
.jpg)
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Vision du saint Cœur à Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Embrun, toile anonyme de la fin du XVIIe siècle ou du début du XVIIIe.
Questa la preghiera di
consacrazione al Sacro Cuore di Gesù che recitava la Santa:
Dono e consacro al Cuore adorabile di Gesù la mia persona e la mia vita,
le mie azioni, pene e sofferenze per non più servirmi di alcuna parte del mio essere, se non per onorarlo, amarlo e glorificarlo.
È questa la mia irrevocabile volontà: essere tutto suo e fare ogni cosa per suo amore, rinunciando a tutto ciò che può dispiacergli.
Ti scelgo, Sacro Cuore di Gesù, come unico oggetto del mio amore, custode della mia vita, pegno della mia salvezza, rimedio della mia fragilità e incostanza, riparatore di tutte le colpe della mia vita e rifugio sicuro nell’ora della mia morte.
Sii, o Cuore di bontà e di misericordia, la mia giustificazione presso Dio Padre e allontana da me la sua giusta indignazione.
Cuore amoroso di Gesù, pongo in te la mia fiducia, perché temo tutto dalla mia malizia e debolezza, ma spero tutto dalla tua bontà.
Distruggi in me quanto può dispiacerti. Il tuo puro amore s’imprima profondamente nel mio cuore in modo che non ti possa più dimenticare o essere separato da te.
Ti chiedo, per la tua bontà, che il mio nome sia scritto in te, poiché voglio vivere e morire come tuo vero devoto.
Sacro Cuore di Gesù confido in te!
SOURCE : https://www.causesanti.va/it/santi-e-beati/margherita-maria-alacoque.html
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Iglesia de San Andrés (Sevilla). Capilla del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, pintura mural de Virgilio Mattoni de la Fuente (1904).
NON VA LUNGI
6 gennaio 1918
Non va lungi dal vero chi
nella beata Margherita Maria Alacoque crede doversi considerare di preferenza
la missione, che le fu affidata, di propagare la devozione al Cuore Santissimo
di Gesù. Forse il nome di quell’umile figlia del Salesio non sarebbe uscito
oltre la breve cerchia del Monastero di Paray le Monial, se Gesù non l’avesse
degnata della sua apparizione e delle soavi parole: «Vedi quel Cuore che ha
tanto amato gli uomini! ». Noi perciò facciamo plauso all’egregio Prelato
che dalla solenne approvazione di due miracoli attribuiti alla intercessione
della beata Margherita Maria ha tratto motivo di sperare che la devozione al
Cuore Santissimo di Gesù sia per prendere nuovo e maggiore incremento.
L’encomiato oratore parlava a nome della Postulazione della causa di
canonizzazione della beata Margherita; epperò nelle sue parole, quando pur non
ve ne avesse inserito il cenno di chiusa, Noi avremmo ravvisato l’eco di
un’anima che affretta il momento di veder cinta dell’aureola dei Santi la
Vergine di Paray. Oh! gli accresca fiducia la certezza che è innumerevole la
schiera di coloro che partecipano ai sentimenti e ai desideri dell’anima sua.
Ma, poiché andrebbe
errato colui, il quale dall’approvazione dei miracoli attribuiti alla
intercessione di un Servo di Dio credesse, non diciamo agevolata, ma ormai
fatta sicura la canonizzazione di quello stesso Servo di Dio, a Noi piace ora
prescindere dal vincolo che l’odierna cerimonia può avere coll’appagamento dei
suindicati desiderii. E, tornando col pensiero alla prima parte del nobile
discorso indirizzatoCi dal prelodato Postulatore, preferiamo invece insistere
sulla speranza che l’odierna pubblicazione del decreto, relativo ai due
miracoli attribuiti alla intercessione della beata Alacoque, sia per dare nuovo
e maggiore sviluppo alla devozione dei fedeli verso il Sacro Cuore di Gesù.
Non è da tacere che
molti, forse anche tra i più devoti figli della Chiesa, partecipavano ad un
senso di dolorosa meraviglia, perché ancora non appariva che Iddio volesse
eleggere la beata Alacoque a strumento di prodigi. È lungi dall’animo Nostro
qualunque, sia pur lieve, sospetto che a quel senso di dolorosa meraviglia non
fosse in tutti congiunto l’ossequio dovuto all’imperscrutabile volere di Dio.
Ma non sappiamo astenerCi dal domandare, se si è abbastanza riflettuto che
l’Apostolato dell’Alacoque non ha ancora trovato, nella generalità dei fedeli,
quella corrispondenza e quel favore, che avrebbero dovuto assicurargli e la sua
stessa eccellenza e la santità della vita di chi lo compiva. Oh! con quale
audacia, e con quanta frequenza, da tanti e tanti cristiani si è continuato a
ripetere, almeno nella vita pratica, la parola di quei malvagi sudditi, dei
quali San Luca riferisce l’aperta ribellione al proprio Sovrano: «Non vogliamo
che costui venga a regnare su di noi » (Luc. XIX, 14). Invano si è
adoperata la pia Vergine di Paray le Monial, prima direttamente e poi per mezzo
dei continuatori della sua opera, a persuadere al mondo l’eccellenza di « quel
Cuore che ha tanto amato gli nomini »; invano ha ricordato la molteplicità
dei beneficii; scaturiti da quella fonte inesausta di grazie che è il Cuore
deifico. Ah! pur troppo le iniquità degli uomini hanno proseguito per molto
tempo a confermare il doloroso lamento, che nella cella di Paray le Monial si
sprigionava dal labbro divino: « Eppure questo Cuore è così poco riamato
dagli uomini ». Se l’apostolato di Margherita Maria Alacoque non ha ancora
conseguito il desiderato frutto nella misura di cui per sé sarebbe capace, non
nella natura di esso o nella insufficienza delle doti di chi lo esercitava è da
ricercarsene la cagione. Ma, anche senza pretendere di alzare il velo dei
divini decreti, che veneriamo « con le ginocchia della mente inchine »,
a Noi sembra che possa non apporsi al falso chi suppone che la piena
glorificazione dell’Alacoque sia da Dio riservata a quel tempo in cui la
missione a lei affidata, di propagare il culto al Sacro Cuore, apparirà più
estesa, meglio accolta nel mondo, epperò più feconda di frutti. Alla semplice
espressione di questo Nostro pensiero crediamo che, nelle anime ansiose di
onorare in Margherita Maria Alacoque la corona dei santi, debba nascere
spontaneo, e crescere sollecito, il desiderio di veder presto moltiplicati i
frutti della missione affidata alla pia alunna del chiostro salesiano. Oh! come
è bello ed opportuno un cotale desiderio: auguriamo però che chiunque lo
accoglie vi aggiunga anche il proposito di indirizzare l’opera propria ad
agevolare la desiderata molteplicità dei frutti, che dalla devozione al Cuore
Santissimo di Gesù possiamo attendere.
Ma a voi, o dilettissimi
figli, non vogliamo celare che oggi l’animo Nostro si apre alla cara speranza
che l’età nostra, fin qui oppressa da infinite miserie, trovi la sua salvezza
in una più docile corrispondenza a chi prosegue l’apostolato dell’Alacoque.
Diamo lode a Dio, e riconosciamo ormai caduti nel comune disprezzo gli strali
che in addietro i pretesi savi ardivano scagliare contro la dottrina che
rivendica pel Cuore di Gesù il culto dovuto a qualunque membro di una Persona
divina: diamo lode a Dio, e riconosciamo straordinariamente accresciuto il
numero dei sodalizi che dal Sacro Cuore di Gesù si intitolano: a Dio salga la
nostra lode e riconosca i prodigi di carità che, in unione e per i meriti del
Cuore Deifico, compiono intrepidi missionarii in lande lontane o timide
religiose in vicini ospedali. Ma in maniera specialissima, e con accenti della
più viva gratitudine diamo lode a Dio e riconosciamo la mirabile diffusione che
oggi ha preso l’opera santissima della Consacrazione delle famiglie cristiane
al Sacro Cuore di Gesù. Ah! se tutte le famiglie si consacrassero al Divin
Cuore, e se tutte di una tale consacrazione adempissero gli obblighi, il regno
sociale di Cesù Cristo sarebbe assicurato! E non dovremmo Noi rallegrarci di
veder posta la cagione di un così desiderabile effetto? Ce ne rallegriamo tanto
che Ci piace argomentarne meno lontano il giorno della canonizzazione della
beata Alacoque. Se questa infatti deve seguire una più conveniente diffusione
del culto al Sacro Cuore chi non affretterà col desiderio e coll’opera
l’estensione di questo eccellentissimo culto? Dall’alba si argomenta il
meriggio, e Noi, nella bene auspicata pratica della consacrazione delle
famiglie al Sacro Cuore salutiamo l’alba di quel desideratissimo meriggio in
cui la sovranità di Gesù Cristo sarà da tutti riconosciuta. Noi ripetiamo con
fiduciosa esultanza la parola di Paolo: « Bisogna che Egli regni ». (I
Cor., XV, 25).
Fin da principio abbiamo
detto che l’odierna cerimonia concorre anch’essa ad alimentare la Nostra
speranza di un nuovo e maggiore sviluppo nella devozione dei fedeli al Sacro
Cuore di Gesù. Si è infatti pubblicato un decreto che riconosce la verità di
due instantanee guarigioni attribuite alla intercessione della beata Margherita
Maria Alacoque. Nei due prodigi è manifesto il premio dato alla devozione al
Cuore Santissimo di Gesù.
Da oltre un anno Luisa
Agostini Coleschi era afflitta da morbo giudicato insanabile: invano avea più
volte implorato l’intercessione di parecchi Santi. Ma non fu la vigilia della
festa del Sacro Cuore, che soavemente impressionata dal racconto di molte grazie
ottenute per mezzo dell’Alacoque, a questa fece appello esclusivo in tutto il
dì della festa? non fu al domani della festa del Sacro Cuore che ottenne la
sospirata grazia? Ai parenti e agli amici che primi si recarono a visitarla
dopo la guarigione, Luisa Coleschi disse: « Il Cuore Santissimo di Gesù mi
ha fatto la grazia », e soggiunse, quasi a prevenire e a sciogliere un
possibile dubbio: «Nella mia mente non ho mai disgiunta la Beata dal Cuore
Santissimo di Gesù, talché, nominando il Santissimo Cuore, ho inteso sempre di
includervi la Beata ». Pare a Noi che il prodigio, di cui in Valle di
Pompei fu termine avventurato la pia Luisa Coleschi, debba indubbiamente
attribuirsi alla intercessione della beata Alacoque; ma chi non lo direbbe
ordinato altresì a propagare la devozione dei fedeli al Sacro Cuore di Gesù?
Altrettanto crediamo
debba dirsi della grazia toccata alla Contessa Astorri, vedova Pavesi, perché
questa pia dama, quando apprese la gravità del suo male, e pensando che correva
l’ottava della festa della beata Margherita, a questa si rivolse fiduciosa, e,
insieme colla figliuola, le consacrò una novena di preghiere; ma l’Astorri non
ebbe poscia a dichiarare nella deposizione giurata che all’Alacoque si era
rivolta, perché « sapeva dell’amore con cui la Beata avea zelato la gloria
del Cuore di Gesù »?
Or da questa immediata
connessione dei prodigi oggi solennemente riconosciuti colla devozione al Sacro
Cuore, perché non deduciamo noi che l’Onnipotente adopera anche la virtù dei
miracoli per persuadere i mortali della necessità di accogliere, anzi di
secondare l’apostolato della pia Vergine di Paray le Monial? Oh! la « nuova
manifestazione » dell’amor suo che Gesù fa nell’odierna solennità
dell’Epifania, destinata a commemorare la « prima manifestazione »
che l’Incarnato Verbo fece di sé ai nostri primi padri nella fede! In quella
prima Epifania furono gettate le basi del regno sociale di Gesù Cristo: oh!
l’Epifania che oggi celebriamo assicuri l’estensione e la saldezza di un cotal
regno!
A conseguire un così
desiderabile effetto deve ognuno indirizzare le proprie forze. Noi vorremmo che
ciascuno ve le indirizzasse, specialmente col promuovere e coll’agevolare la
già encomiata consacrazione delle famiglie cristiane al Divin Cuore di Gesù; e
crediamo che i postulatori della causa di canonizzazione della beata Margherita
Maria Alacoque non tarderanno a riconoscere il vincolo stretto, che
coll’appagamento dei loro voti può avere l’ulteriore e più decisiva efficacia
dell’apostolato commesso alla loro Beata. Ciò che diciamo dei « postulatori
officiali » può estendersi a tutti i devoti dell’Alacoque, i quali coi
loro desiderii e con le loro aspirazioni « quasi postulano » i
supremi onori per la privilegiata figlia del Salesio. Epperò a tutti Noi
rivolgiamo calda esortazione di concorrere, prima col proprio esempio e poi con
ogni migliore industria, ad estendere in ogni angolo della terra il regno del
Sacro Cuore di Gesù. Niuno paventi l’arduità dell’impresa; a niuno scemi
coraggio il ricordo della propria debolezza, perché la benedizione di Dio
agevola anche le cose difficili, e rende forti anche i deboli.
Noi perciò invochiamo
l’abbondanza delle celesti benedizioni sopra tutti coloro che santamente si
adoperano a promuovere la maggior gloria di Margherita Maria Alacoque. Entrano
primi a fruire del Nostro augurio coloro che hanno assistito all’odierna
cerimonia. Ma il Nostro cuore in questo momento va più lontano del Nostro
sguardo, e incontrandosi, sia coi fedeli oggi convenuti insieme al degnissimo
Vescovo di Autun nel Santuario di Paray le Monial, sia colle devote alunne di
tutti i Monasteri della Visitazione in quest’ora medesima strette intorno ai
sacri altari, così agli uni come alle altre il Nostro cuore vuole estesa
l’Apostolica Benedizione. Oh! sia benedizione veramente salutare, che tutti
induca a preparare la nuova gloria dell’Alacoque col concorrere a renderne
efficace la sublime missione di promuovere e propagare la devozione al Cuore
Santissimo di Gesù.
Copyright © Libreria
Editrice Vaticana
Copyright © Dicastero per
la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
_-_vault_fresco%2C_St._Margaret_Mary_Alacoque.jpg)
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Saint
Rose Church (Perrysburg, Ohio) - vault fresco, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
SANTA MARGHERITA MARIA
ALACOQUE
Margherita nacque a
Lautecour, nel dipartimento della Saone e Loira (Francia) il 22 luglio 1647, da
Claudio Alacoque e Filiberta Lamyn, ferventi cristiani di buona situazione
sociale ed economica. Fin da piccola Margherita avversava ogni cosa che
sembrasse offesa di Dio e fece il suo voto di verginità a soli quattro anni,
senza intendere il pieno significato. Ma la sua attrazione verso la preghiera,
il ritiro e il silenzio, nonostante la sua indole vivacissima, il suo amore
verso l'Eucarestia, il suo interessamento dei poveri e sofferenti, dei quali
cercava di alleviare le pene con ogni mezzo a sua disposizione manifestavano la
strada scelta per lei dal Signore. A otto anni perse il padre e venne a
trovarsi, insieme alla mamma, alle dipendenze di alcuni parenti egoisti ed
esosi, i quali, con continui e molteplici maltrattamenti le procurarono grandi
sofferenze, in aggiunta alle malattie da cui era spesso colpita e alle
penitenze che vi aggiungeva di suo. Margherita sopportava tutto con pazienza e
in atteggiamento di rispetto e di benevolenza verso i persecutori suoi e della
mamma. Crescendo cedette alle attrattive della società che la circondava e che
la sua posizione economica le permetteva di frequentare, quali ricevimenti,
feste e ricercatezza nell'abbigliamento, ma, ciò che poteva essere naturale e
scontato in qualsiasi altra ragazza, non era ammissibile in lei, chiamata ad
essere soltanto del Signore, perciò fu ricondotta alla vita semplice e
fervorosa di prima. Nel 1669, a 22 anni, ricevette il sacramento della Cresima,
che non poté ricevere prima per mancanza di chi glielo amministrasse. Fu in questa
occasione che prese anche il nome di Maria, in onore alla Madonna di cui fu per
tutta la vita ferventissima confidente. Intanto, la mamma e i parenti più
stretti pensavano alla sua sistemazione con proposte concrete di matrimonio. Da
principio la cosa non dispiacque a Margherita; ma dopo qualche tentennamento,
rifiutò decisamente tali proposte e fece conoscere la sua risoluzione
irreversibile di farsi religiosa. Superate le difficoltà, soprattutto con la
madre, seguì l'indicazione espressa del Signore di entrare nell'Ordine della
Visitazione (fondato da S. Francesco di Sales e da S. Giovanna Fremiot di
Chantal) e il 20 giugno 1671, a 24 anni, entrò nel monastero di S. Maria di
Paray-le-Monial. Nel monastero di Paray-le-Monial Margherita Maria visse 19
anni, fino alla morte, avvenuta il 17 ottobre dell'anno 1690, a 43 anni di età.
SOURCE : http://www.enrosadira.it/santi/m/alacoque.htm
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Antonio Ciseri (1821–1891), Apparizione del sacro Cuore a Santa Maria Alacoque, 1880, Chiesa del Sacro Cuore, Florence
S. Margherita Maria
Alacoque (1647-1690)
Autore: Giacometti, Giulio - Sessa, Piero
Fin da fanciulla è attirata verso le penitenze più dure.
L'Ecce Homo le è sempre presente.
Gesù flagellato la richiama da una vita giovanile mondana e superficiale alla vocazione religiosa visitandina e ad essere la confidente e la vittima del suo Sacro Cuore che si serve di lei per diffonderne la devozione.
Soffre il dolore della coronazione di spine e del peso della croce e partecipa alle amarezze del Cuore di Gesù per l'insensibilità dei cuori.
Non descrive i momenti della flagellazione e della coronazione di spine, ma
contempla l'Ecce Homo soffrendo con lui.
Egli mi era sempre presente, sotto la figura del Crocifisso dell'Ecce Homo sotto il peso della croce; ciò imprimeva in me tanta compassione, tanto amore alla sofferenza, che tutte le mie pene mi diventarono leggere in paragone al desiderio che sentivo di soffrirne per conformarmi a Gesù sofferente.
La sera, quando lasciavo quelle maledette vanità di Satana, voglio dire quei vani abbigliamenti, strumenti della sua astuzia, il mio sovrano Maestro si presentava a me, come era durante la flagellazione, tutto sfigurato, e mi dava dei rimproveri strani: che le mie vanità l'avevano ridotto in quello stato, e che perdevo un tempo prezioso di cui mi avrebbe chiesto un conto rigoroso nell'ora della morte; che lo tradivo e lo perseguitavo, dopo che mi aveva dato tante prove del suo amore e del suo desiderio che io mi rendessi conforme a lui. Tutto ciò s'imprimeva così fortemente in me, e faceva sì dolorose ferite nel mio cuore, che io piangevo amaramente, e mi sarebbe ben difficile esprimere tutto ciò che soffrivo e ciò che accadeva in me.
Per natura ero portata all'amore del piacere e del divertimento. Non potevo più gustarne alcuno, ancorché spesso facessi il possibile per cercarne. La dolorosa figura che mi si presentava, quella del mio Salvatore flagellato, m'impediva di prendervi parte; mi faceva infatti il rimprovero che mi trafiggeva il cuore: "Vorresti questo piacere, e io che non ne ho mai avuto alcuno e mi sono abbandonato a ogni specie di amarezza, per amor tuo e per guadagnare il tuo cuore! E tuttavia tu vorresti ancora contendermelo!".
Una volta, accostandomi alla santa comunione, la santa ostia mi apparve splendente come un sole di cui potevo sopportare lo splendore: e, in mezzo, Nostro Signore, con una corona di spine in mano, me la mise in testa dicendomi poco dopo che l'avevo ricevuta: "Prendi, figlia mia, questa corona, in segno di quella che ti sarà presto data perché tu assomigli a me. Non capii allora che cosa volesse dire; ma lo seppi ben presto, dagli effetti che ne seguirono, per due terribili colpi che ricevetti sulla testa, in tal maniera che, dopo, mi sembrava di avere tutta la testa circondata di pungentissime spine, le cui dolorose punture finiranno con la vita. Ne rendo grazie infinite a Dio che fa grandi grazie alla sua misera vittima. Ma, ohimé! Come gli dico spesso, le vittime devono essere innocenti, e io sono una criminale. Lo confesso: mi sento più debitrice al mio Sovrano per questa corona preziosa, che se mi avesse regalati tutti i diademi dei più grandi monarchi della terra; tanto più che nessuno me la può togliere, e mi mette spesso nella fortunata necessità di vegliare e di conversare con l'unico oggetto del mio amore, non potendo appoggiare la testa sul cuscino, a imitazione del mio buon Maestro, che non poteva appoggiare la sua testa adorabile sul letto della croce.
Provavo gioie e consolazioni inconcepibili, quando trovavo qualche somiglianza con lui. Con quel dolore voleva che io chiedessi a Dio Padre, per i meriti delle sua incoronazione di spine, alla quale univo la mia, la conversione dei peccatori, e l'umiltà per quelle teste orgogliose, il cui inalberarsi gli era spiacevole e ingiurioso.
Un'altra volta, in tempo di carnevale, cioè cinque settimane prima del mercoledì delle ceneri, egli si presentò a me, dopo la santa comunione con l'aspetto dell'"Ecce homo" sotto il peso della Croce, coperto di ferite e di lividure. Il sangue adorabile scendeva da ogni parte ed egli diceva con voce dolorosamente triste: "Non ci sarà nessuno che abbia pietà di me e voglia compatire e prender parte al mio dolore nel pietoso stato in cui i peccatori mi mettono, soprattutto ora? ". Mi presentai a lui, mi prostrai ai sacri piedi, piangendo e gemendo; e presi sulle spalle quella pesante croce tutta irta di punte di chiodi.
Il mio Signore mi fece vedere un giorno, dopo la santa comunione, un'ispida corona composta di diciannove spine, pungentissime che gli bucavano il sacro capo: mi causò un così vivo dolore che non potevo parlargli che con lacrime. Mi disse che era venuto a trovarmi perché gli strappassi quelle dolorose spine che gli erano state conficcate così addentro da una sposa infedele "che mi trafigge il cervello di tante spine, quante volte, per orgoglio, si preferisce a me". Non sapevo come fare per toglierle; avevo quell'oggetto continuamente davanti agli occhi e ciò mi faceva molto soffrire. La Superiora mi disse di chiedere a Nostro Signore cosa dovevo fare per estrarle. Mi rispose che ciò sarebbe stato possibile con tanti atti di umiltà, per onorare le sue umiliazioni. Siccome io sono un'orgogliosa, pregai la Superiora di offrire a Nostro Signore le pratiche di umiltà della comunità, che egli gradì molto. Trascorsi cinque giorni, me ne fece vedere tre che gli avevano procurato un gran sollievo. Le altre restarono ancora per lungo tempo.
Un'altra volta, sentendomi presa da viva apprensione nell'avvicinarmi alla santa comunione, per il timore che avevo di disonorar il Salvatore - ma non avendo potuto ottenere il permesso di astenermene dalla superiora - mi avvicinai con un dolore così straordinario che tutto il mio corpo fremeva di apprensione come quella che il mio Salvatore stava per sentire in alcune anime che lo dovevano ricevere. Dopo la santa comunione egli si presentò a me come un "Ecce Homo" lacerato e sfigurato e mi disse: "Non ho trovato nessuno che abbia voluto darmi un luogo di riposo in questo stato sofferente e doloroso". Questa vista mi impresse un così vivo dolore che la morte sarebbe stata mille volte più dolce che vedere il Salvatore in quello stato. Egli mi disse: "Se tu sapessi chi mi ha ridotto in questo stato, il tuo dolore sarebbe molto più grande. Cinque anime consacrate al mio servizio mi hanno trattato così; perché sono stato tirato a forza di corde in luoghi molto angusti, irti da tutti i lati di punte di chiodi e di spine che mi hanno lacerato in questo modo".
Sentii un gran desiderio di conoscere la spiegazione di queste parole. Nostro Signore mi fece capire che la corda era la promessa che ci aveva fatta di darsi a noi; la forza era il suo amore; quei luoghi stretti erano i cuori maldisposti; quelle punte erano l'orgoglio. Io gli offrii il cuore che mi aveva dato perché vi riposasse.
Nei miei dolori si presentava a me appena avevo un momento disponibile dicendomi di baciare le sue ferite per addolcirne il dolore.
In un giorno di carnevale, dopo la santa comunione, lo sposo divino si presentò
a me, sotto l'aspetto di un Ecce Homo, carico della croce, tutto coperto di
piaghe e di lividure: il sangue adorabile grondava da tutte le parti. Con voce
triste e dolorosa mi disse: 'Proprio nessuno avrà pietà di me; nessuno vorrà
compatire e condividere il mio dolore nello stato pietoso in cui mi riducono i
peccatori, soprattutto ora?' Prostrandomi ai sacri piedi, con lacrime e con
gemiti, mi presentai a lui. Subito mi trovai caricata di una pesante croce,
tutta irta di acutissimi chiodi. Sentendomi schiacciata sotto quel peso,
cominciai a capire meglio la malizia del peccato: lo detestai tanto fortemente
nel cuore che avrei voluto mille volte precipitarmi nell'inferno, piuttosto che
commetterne uno volontariamente. Mi mostrò che non era sufficiente portare la
croce, ma dovevo inchiodarmici insieme con lui, per tenergli fedele compagnia,
partecipando ai dolori, ai disprezzi, agli obbrobri e agli altri indegni
trattamenti. Mi abbandonai a tutto ciò che egli avrebbe voluto fare di me e in
me, lasciandomi configgere sulla croce, secondo il suo desiderio: ciò egli fece
per mezzo di una grave malattia, che mi fece soffrire le punte acuminate di cui
quella croce era munita. Questo stato di sofferenza mi durava di solito per
tutto il tempo del carnevale.
Maria
di Gesù d'Agreda (1602-1665)S.
Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727)La Passione del Signore vista dai mistici
Manoppello:
faccia a faccia con il Messia Crocifisso 1 - Face to face
Manoppello
2 - L’apostasia silenziosa e i segni di invito alla conversione
Manoppello
3 - Il culto del Sacro Cuore e della Divina Misericordia
"Il
tempo prima della fine di questo mondo è il tempo della Divina
Misericordia"
Le
piaghe del Messia - Introduzione
Anna
Caterina Emmerick (1774-1824)
S.
Angela da Foligno (1248-1309)
S.
Margherita da Cortona (1247-1297)
S.
Gertrude di Helfta (1256-1301 o 1303)
S.
Brigida di Svezia (1302-1373)
S.
Giuliana di Norwich (1342-1416)
S.
Giovanni della Croce (1542-1591)
Maria
Gujart dell'Incarnazione (1599-1672)
Maria
di Gesù d'Agreda (1602-1665)
S.
Margherita Maria Alacoque (1647-1690)
S.
Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727)
Maria
Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)
B.
Mariàm Baouardy di Gesù Crocifisso (1846-1878)
S.
Teresa di Gesù Bambino e del Volto Santo (1873-1897)
Antonietta
Prevedello (1876 - 1945)
Alexandrina
Maria da Costa (1904-1955)
S.
Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938)
Maria
Cecilia Baij O.S.B. (1694-1766)
È
stata la mano di Dio: tutte le coincidenze che comprovano il culto della Divina
Misericordia
Santa
Faustina Kowalska e Fatima: unico messaggio di speranza
L'Immacolata
a Roma: Madre della Misericordia
Il
fuoco segreto della Polonia: San Massimiliano Kolbe e San Giovanni Paolo II
.jpg)
Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque
Stahlstich auf gestanzter Spitze. Verlag L. Turgis, Paris, circa 1880
Jesus appearing to Marguerite Marie Alacoque .Relief
polichromed wood sculpture by Johann Baptist Moroder-Lusenberg about 1910 in
the Parish Church of Urtijëi
Erscheinung Jesu vor der Nonne Margareta Maria Alacoque in Holz
geschnitzt von Johann Baptist Moroder um 1910 in
der Pfarrkirche St. Ulrich in Gröden
