NO one can love man completely, truly and perfectly, except God his creator.
The perfect God created the best of all possible worlds for man to deserve heaven. He created an angel for everyone, graced him with the sacraments and even left Himself in the Eucharist to ensure man’s salvation.
But man, from the dawn of history, continue to offend God.
So God, through the ages predestined, chose ones to perform miracles to enhance and nurture faith, for He “loves mankind to folly and His greatest sorrow is not to find a return of love.”
Destined to spread Gods love for man, Jesus appeared to Margaret on November 6, 1672, and told her: “I will have thee now to be the sport of My love; thou must, therefore, abandon thyself blindly and without resistance, allowing me to please Myself at thy expense.”
Healed miraculously
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was born on July 22, 1647, in the diocese of Autun, France.
She is the fifth among seven children of Claude, a royal notary, and Philiberte Lamyn. Of the seven children, only three survived, a priest, a married sister and Mary Margaret.
She attended a school managed by the Urbanist Poor Clares of Charolles.
At 7, Margaret became bed-ridden because of rheumatism. Even walking was a challenge because her bones protruded through her skin. She promised the Virgin Mary that if cured, she would be a religious.
She prayed the rosary diligently on her knees. At 11, she was healed miraculously.
At 18, her mother wanted to marry her off. Caring for and pleasing her sick mother and entering a religious life was a struggle. It was resolved after her confirmation at the age of 22.
On June 20, 1671, she entered the Visitation Seminary of Paray-le-Monial. She was clothed on August 25, 1671, and was professed on November 6, 1672.
On her profession, Jesus appeared to her, disfigured and wounded, telling her to always be disposed to converse with him.
As a nun, she was not very skillful and was considered slow and clumsy, too. She was uncomfortable in the formal method of meditation, which was practiced in the community.
Great revelations
On December 27, 1673, Feast of Saint John, Jesus allowed her to rest on His heart and revealed: “My divine heart is so passionately fond of the human heart that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames any longer.”
To save men from perdition, Jesus invited her to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart to draw “all the graces of sanctification needed to snatch men from the brink of hell.”
Jesus asked for her heart, placed it on His own divine heart as a “precious proof of His love for Margaret, which was burned in a fiery furnace. Its intense heat will never diminish…I’ve closed the wound in your side, but you will always feel the pain.”
“I am giving you a new name—the Beloved Disciple of My Sacred Heart.”
On Jesus’ second apparition on the first Friday of June, 1674, He requested: “Every Thursday between 11 p.m. and 12 midnight, to keep me company in humble prayer.”
This one-hour reparation for the sins of mankind is the one hour Jesus spent in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The third revelation was on June 16, 1675, the octave of Corpus Christi. He complained of what hurt Him most—hearts consecrated to Him who act, too, with “irreverence and sacrilege, coldness and scorn.”
Mary Margaret noted in her autobiography what Jesus said: “But what I feel the most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to me that treat me, thus.”
To sisters in the community, she is an enigma with all her sickness, sudden cures and lapses. She was even taunted as possessed by the devil so when she passes, they would sprinkle holy water on her.
Mother de Saumaise, the superior of the order, did not believe her and even reprimanded Mary Margaret.
A group of theologians who discussed the revelations considered her “victim of delusions,” except for Fr. Claude de la Colombiere, SJ, the confessor of the order.
She died on October 17, 1690, at 43. Smiling like a tired child, she whispered “Jesus,” as she bowed her head.
Declared venerable on March 30, 1824, beatified on September 18, 1864, she was canonized on May 13, 1920.
Father de la Colombiere, her only ally when she was considered a victim of delusions, was canonized on May 31, 1992.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart
The devotion to the Sacred Heart started on July 20, 1685, when a “small ink etching representing the Divine Heart” was placed on the convent altar of the Community.
In 1765 Pope Clement XIII approved the solemnity of the Sacred Heart to Poland, granting indulges to devotees of the Sacred Heart.
In 1856 Pope Pius extended to the universal church the Feast of the Sacred Heart. In 1868 John Bosco was tasked by Pope Pius IX to build the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Rome.
The saint chose the set of meditation prayers on the messages of the Sacred Heart composed by de la Colombiere.
In 1873 France was consecrated to the Sacred Heart at the Basilica of Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) in Montmartre, Paris.
Fr. Joseph Gallifet, the assistant superior general of the Jesuits who was responsible for spreading the devotion to the Sacred Heart, likewise, promoted the prayers.
“Unfortunately, bishops and cardinals opposed this devotion to the Sacred Heart. It took almost 150 years before it was approved officially as a devotion in the Universal Church.”
The prayers, developed into the nine offices, was approved by the Prefect of Doctrine and Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI.
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons
1 comment
Saint Margaret Mary ora pro nobis. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.