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
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.
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/sainte_marguerite-marie_alacoque.html
Le Sacré-Coeur de Jésus et Marguerite-Marie Alacoque. Vitrail
datant de 1916. Maitre-verrier : Charles Champigneulle, Eglises d'Ivry sur
Seine
16 octobre
Sainte Marguerite Marie Alacoque
Armand Cambon, Vision de Margaruerite Marie Alacoque, sœur de la Visitation, 1863,
Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Montauban
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
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
SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/17-10-Ste-Marguerite-Marie
Sainte Marguerite Marie, église Saint Augustin
de Paris
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/
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
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Revelation of the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie Alacoque,
Ballylooby Church of Our Lady and St. Kieran South Transept South Window
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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/
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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/
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/
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
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
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
.jpg)
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
