Mosaic in the Chapel of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, in the Basilica
Born on July 22, 1647 in Burgundy in the village of Verosvres, in the diocese of Autun, into a family of five children.
Orphaned at the age of twelve, she was sent to the boarding school of the Urbanist Sisters in Charolles. There she made her first communion and was filled with a desire for solitude so that she could pray in silence (A5).
Stricken with illness for four years, she was miraculously cured by the Virgin Mary at the age of thirteen after making a vow to enter an order dedicated to Our Lady (A6).
Finally, after much inner struggle, on June 20, 1671, at the age of twenty-four, she entered her beloved convent of the Visitation of Holy Mary in Paray-le-Monial, which had been founded forty-five years earlier. There she found the certainty of being where the Lord wanted her to be (A35).
NOVENA TO SAINT MARGUERITE-MARIE FROM OCTOBER 8 TO 16
From October 8 to 16, the celebration day of saint Marguerite-Marie, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre invites you to recite this prayer every day to entrust yourself to her intercession:
Lord Jesus, You who placed in the heart of saint Marguerite-Marie the desire to love and serve You, give us, like her, the ardor to spread Your love and console Your offended Heart. You revealed to her the secrets of your heart burning with love for mankind and you said to her: “If you are faithful to me, I will not leave you, I will teach you to know me and I will reveal myself to you.” Grant that, following her example and through Your grace, we may remain faithful to You every day of our lives and deign to hear our prayers through her intercession. We ask this of You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen
Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, pray for us
The apparitions
Very quickly she developed a strong spiritual life punctuated by encounters with the Lord. These encounters are usually grouped into three major apparitions. The first took place on December 27, 1673, the second at the beginning of 1674, before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, and the third around the celebration of Corpus Christi in 1675, when she received this message: “This is the heart that has loved mankind so much, that has spared nothing, even to the point of exhaustion and consumption, to show them its Love.”
To summarize, the spirituality of saint Marguerite-Marie, which can be called the Parodian Spirituality of the Heart of Christ, is organized around three major realities:
the spirit of consecration (giving oneself, surrendering oneself to Christ),
the Eucharistic importance of Devotion (experiencing the Love of Christ through the Sacrament of the Eucharist and Adoration),
the aspect of reparation (uniting oneself with Christ suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, who offers himself to his Father).
First beatified by popular opinion because of all the miracles obtained through her intercession, Jansenist pressures and then the Revolution delayed her beatification until 1864 and her canonization until 1920. Several popes have emphasized the importance of her message: the immensity of God’s love revealed in a human heart and offered to all.
It was in 1899 that Pope Leo XIII consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
BEGINNING OF WORSHIP
Inspired by Christ, Marguerite-Marie established the practice of the Holy Hour, which for her consisted of praying, lying on the floor from 11 p.m. until midnight on the first Thursday of each month, in order to share in the mortal sorrow that Christ had endured when he was abandoned to his agony by his Apostles, and then receiving Communion the next day.
Christ entrusted her with his desire that a celebration be held in honor of his Heart on the Friday following the octave of the celebration of the Corpus Christi, and he called the saint:
Heir to all his treasures.
During her final illness, she refused any relief, repeating over and over:
“What I have in Heaven and what I desire on earth is you alone, O my God.”
Saint Marguerite-Marie
She died pronouncing the name of Jesus on October 16, 1690.
Saint Marguerite-Marie