Acta Sanctorum: St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (Oct 16)
October 16, 2025
Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

October 16
 
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
 
Life (1647-1690)
 

Of the several saints who have popularized devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is the best known. A nun of the Order of the Visitation, it was she to whom the Lord gave the most specific instructions about encouraging reparation to His Sacred Heart for injuries done to His redemptive love. Margaret Alacque was born at L’Autecoeur, Burgundy, France, to a prominent French official named Claude Alacoque. She was the fifth of his seven children. Her education was limited by circumstances: tutoring by her godmother, and two years in a convent school. But acquaintance with the life of nuns through observing her school teachers, the Poor Clare Franciscans, made a positive impression on her naturally devout personality. A rheumatic ailment kept her abed between the ages of 11 and 15. Because of her illness she had to return to the family home. Here she and her mother Philiberte had much grief to bear, for after her father’s death one of her sisters and her brother-in-law assumed total command of the household, bore down upon her mother, and were unduly harsh with her, often forbidding her even to go to church. As might be expected, the householding couple tried to marry Margaret off. Her response was to double her prayers and acts of self-denial. But when she began to gather together the neglected children of the town to instruct them, this charity, too, won scant favor from her family.

At 22, Margaret was finally able to receive the sacrament of confirmation, taking as her additional name, Mary. Free now to choose her own destiny, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial in 1671. There she would spend the rest of her life. It is comforting to learn that Sister Margaret Mary was naturally rather quiet, slow and clumsy. Most of us are like that! But there was no doubt about her genuine piety. Christ rewarded her prayerfulness by a series of apparitions and revelations. He told her especially that He was troubled by the coldness and ingratitude of so many of those whom He had lovingly saved by His death. He asked her to help make up for this ingratitude both by her own prayers, good works and sufferings, and by persuading others to follow her example.

First, He commissioned her to spread devotion to his Sacred Heart, which He ordered to be pictured as a flaming heart, wounded and crowned with thorns. Next, He urged her to promote frequent Holy Communion, especially on the first Friday of each month, and a holy hour of Eucharistic adoration on the previous evening. (Frequent communion was rare in her day.) Finally, He asked that she work towards the establishment of a liturgical feastday of the Sacred Heart. He also instructed her to become a sacrificial victim for the shortcomings of the nuns of her own community, and to tell the nuns she had been assigned such a task. Understandably, the Visitation sisters were not all pleased to learn God’s will in this matter; however, they became more accepting. Indeed, the convent became, and still remains, a center for propagating that public and private devotion to the Sacred Heart that we are still familiar with today.

The special calling of St. Margaret Mary to warn the faithful against coldness and ingratitude towards Jesus makes me wish that she might be living among us today. More Catholics receive frequent Holy Communion now than did in 17th-century France, but one can wonder how well prepared they are to do so, and therefore how respectful they really are towards their Eucharistic King. One can ask, too, how many Catholics make a practice nowadays of paying regular visits to the Blessed Sacrament, or taking part in Eucharistic adoration, and how they dress and behave in church. Do they display due reverence for the Real Presence, or a cavalier neglect? We adore the “Heart that has so loved men.” May we therefore renew constantly our resolution to atone for the world’s irreverence towards It by our own deep and demonstrated devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament!   --Father Robert F. McNamara

Scripture (Eph 3:14-19)
 
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
 
Writings
 
(Year C) It is a sweet consolation to me, dearest brother, that the goodness of the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ deigns to make His will agree with ours in keeping you here below a little while longer, in this vale of misery and tears, where one must confess with the Apostle, all is vanity and affliction of spirit, except only to love and serve God alone. Here is what I promised Him you would do should He let you live for sometime still.
 
You see, my dear brother, I had to make some promises to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord in order to be able to obtain this, knowing that you would carry them out and not give me the lie. Otherwise it would be better not to recover, for God is not mocked. I shall tell you quite simply what I have obliged you to, making the use of the liberty you gave me in your letter, so that you may do what I think Our Lord wants of you.  This I have on the word of a person much favored with the gifts of God, and who loves you very much. This person was asking Our Lord, if it were His will, to allow you to live some years longer so that you might fulfill the great desire He gave you of belonging wholly to Him by consecrating to Him every moment of your life and by employing yourself unreservedly in His service with that purity of heart and sanctity of life your calling demands. Then this person seemed to hear the answer: "Yes, I grant you this, on the conditions you yourself propose. I would make him a saint, if only He would cooperate with My plans and with the graces I shall give him for this." Now it is absolutely necessary to eliminate three things. The first, attachment to earthly things, especially the love of pleasure. Gambling is including in this.   The second every superfluous in your dress and in your personal habits. What you save in this way you must give to the poor. Thirdly, be as little mixed up in the things of the world as you can, not allowing yourself any wilful self-indulgence. All this has been promised to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, provided you agree and consecrate yourself entirely to this adorable Heart to give and obtain for It all the love, honor, and glory in your power. And this not only from yourself but also from all those who will come under your care.
 
I think I have already spoken to you about this devotion so very recently introduced. But since you did not answer I do not know whether you liked what I told you about it. I am convinced there is no shorter way to perfection, no surer way to salvation, than to be consecrated to this divine Heart and to render It all the homage of love, honor and praise which we are capable. This is what you have been pledged to do. I hope to speak to you about it more in detail when I have the pleasure of seeing you, should God will to give me that consolation.  Furthermore, we have promised, that for a period of nine days you would swallow the little written notes I am sending you. Take one each day, fasting. Also you will say or have said nine Masses on nine Saturdays in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and the same number of Masses of the Passion on the nine Fridays in honor of the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
This, my dear brother, is the sum of your obligations. I leave out of account the promises I myself have made, not only to ask Our Lord to restore you to health, but also to do a years penance if He had taken you out of this life before you had fulfilled what you promised during your illness. See to what lengths the union of holy friendship, with which the Sacred Heart of Jesus has joined our hearts, has gone, since, forgetting the sins of so criminal a life as I have always led, I thought of doing penance for your sins. See how good Our dear Master is!
 
Knowing full well that I am in much greater need of penance than you, He has spared you in order to help me make satisfaction for my sins. They are so great I tremble at the very thought of them. Yet I hope for everything from the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He loves you so tenderly that He wants you to make yourself a saint at any cost. That is why He leaves you in this world, that is why He sent you this sickness, in order to rouse you and to make you redouble your fervor. O, how grieved I shall be if you nullify the plans this Sacred Heart has made for you, if you do not do what He has clearly showed you to be His will!
 
Love Him, then, if you want me to love you, for I can only love what He loves. O, if you could only understand how wonderful it is to love Him and to be loved by Him in return! I am convinced that not one of those especially devoted and consecrated to Him will perish. I could talk to you about this forever.  Finally, belong wholly to God. do everything for Him, in Him. Remember that He wants you to lead and exemplary life, a life pure and altogether angelic. If today we hear the voice of the Lord, let us not harden our hearts, let us not hesitate a moment longer to remove every obstacle to grace. Pardon me, my dear brother, for saying all this. It comes from a heart that loves you and earnestly wants you to become holy. I ask this of the Sacred Heart of our good Master. May He consume us in the most ardent flames of that pure love of His which makes me devotedly yours. (To her brother, the parish priest at Bois-Sainte-Marie; January 22, 1687.)
 
Musical Selection (Benedictines of Mary)
 
 
O Heart of Jesus, Heart of God
O source of boundless love,
By Angels praised, by Saints adored,
From their bright thrones above.
The poorest, saddest heart on earth
May claim T hee for its own,
O burning, throbbing Heart of Christ,
Thou art too little known.
 
A mother may forsake her child,
A father prove untrue;
But for my soul and for my love
Was Thy Heart piercèd through.
The purest, deepest earthly love,
What is it, Lord, to Thine?
O grant a spark of that great fire
To this cold heart of mine.
 
In Thee, dear Jesus, I confide
For Thou hast called to me,
That I should learn Thy meekness
And sweet humility.
Upon the Sacred Heart of God
Shall I cast all my care!
For in Thy gracious Heart I find
My refuge from despair.
 
The world is cold and life is sad;
I crave the blessed rest Of those
who lay their weary heads
Upon Thy sacred Breast.
But love is stronger far than death,
And who can love like Thee,
O Savior, whose most loving Heart
Broke on the cross for me?
 
Collect
 
Lord God,
pour out on us that spirit
with which you so remarkably endowed Saint Margaret Mary;
grant that we may know the love of Christ,
which surpasses all knowledge,
and be filled with all the fullness of the divine life.
We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

 

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