St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: Her Life and Missions (2)

As we celebrate the jubilee of the most important of these apparitions (350 years, from December 2023 to June 2025), it seems worthwhile to look back at the little-known figure of this saint, her life, and the missions entrusted to her by Heaven. This is the second article in this series.

Apparitions—St. Margaret Mary's Universal Mission [1]

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was blessed with mystical graces. Not all were apparitions. Some were “simply” strong feelings of God's presence and locutions. She was also able to see or hear not only Our Lord, but also the Virgin Mary, saints, souls in Purgatory, angels, and even demons.

We will focus on the three great apparitions of the Sacred Heart, whose message is, to a certain extent, universal. They took place between 1673 and 1675, and it is the jubilee of these that we are currently celebrating. As the full text is not often available, it is worth quoting the visionary's account in extenso [2] and briefly outlining the main points.

The First Apparition [3]

On December 27, 1673, the feast of St. John, Margaret Mary had the same privilege as the Lord's beloved Apostle: (I found myself) “completely invested with this divine presence, but so strongly that I forgot myself and the place where I was, and I abandoned myself to this divine Spirit, surrendering my [heart] to the strength of his love.

“He made me rest for a very long time on His divine breast, where He revealed to me the marvels of His love and the inexhaustible secrets of His Sacred Heart, which He had always kept hidden from me until He opened it to me for the first time, but in such an effective and sensitive way, that He left me no reason to doubt it, by the effects that this grace produced in me, who nevertheless fears to be mistaken in all that I say is happening within me. This is how it seems to me that it happened. He said to me:

“’My divine Heart is so passionate with love for men, and for you in particular, that no longer able to contain within itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must spread them by means of you and manifest itself to them to enrich them with its precious treasures which I am discovering to you, and which contain the sanctifying and saving graces, necessary to pull them back from the abyss of perdition.

“And, I have chosen you as an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance for the accomplishment of this great purpose, so that all may be done by Me.” Afterward, He asked me for my heart, which I begged Him to take, which He did and placed it in His adorable one, in which He showed it to me as a small atom that was consumed in this ardent furnace, from which, withdrawing it as a blazing flame in the shape of a heart, He put [it] back in the place from which He had taken it, saying to me:

“’Here, my beloved, is a precious token of My love, which contains in your side a small spark of its vivid flames, to serve as your heart and consume you to your last moment, and whose ardor will not be extinguished, nor will find refreshment but somewhat in the bleeding, with which I will so mark the blood of My Cross that it will bring you more humiliation and suffering than relief [4].

“This is why I want you to ask for it simply, both to practice what you are commanded, and to give you the consolation of shedding your blood on the cross of humiliations. And to show that the great grace I have just given you is not an imagination, and that it is the foundation of all those I have yet to give you, even though I have closed the wound in your side, the pain will remain with you forever, and if until now you have only taken the name of my slave, I give you that of the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart. [5]’”

In the tradition of many saints, particularly St. Francis of Assisi, St. Margaret Mary was thus given a kind of stigmata, albeit invisibly. This same apparition is reported in other terms by the saint in a letter in which we learn certain details:

“But to return to what you desire on the subject of the Sacred Heart, the first particular grace I seem to have received for it, was one day from St. John the Evangelist, that after having made myself rest several hours on this sacred breast, I received from this lovable Heart graces the memory of which puts me out of myself; and I do not think it is necessary to specify them, although the memory and impression of them will remain with me all my life.

“After this, this divine Heart was presented to me as in a throne of flame, more radiant than a sun and transparent as a crystal, with this adorable wound, and it was surrounded by a crown of thorns, which signified the stings our sins made in it, and a cross above it which signified that, from the first moments of His Incarnation—that is, from the moment this sacred Heart was formed—the Cross was planted in it.

“And it was filled, from those very first moments, with all the bitterness that the humiliations, poverty, pain, and contempt must have caused it, that His sacred humanity had to suffer, over the course of His life and in His holy Passion. And He made me see that the ardent desire He had to be loved by men, and to draw them back from the path of perdition, where Satan precipitates them in droves, had made him form this design to manifest His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, mercy, grace, sanctification, and salvation that it contained;

“So that all those who wished to render to Him and procure for him all the honor, love and glory that would be in their power, He would enrich them with the abundance and profusion of these divine treasures of the Heart of God, which was their source, which was to be honored under the figure of this Heart of flesh, whose image He wished to be shown to and carried by me, on my heart, to imprint His love on it and fill it with all the gifts of which it was full and to destroy in it all disordered movements.

“And that wherever this holy image was exposed to be honored, He would pour out His graces and blessings.

“And that this devotion was like a final effort of His love, which wanted to favor men, in these last centuries of this loving redemption, to withdraw them from the empire of Satan, which He meant to ruin, to place us under the sweet freedom of the empire of His love, which He wanted to reestablish in the hearts of all those who would embrace this devotion.

“And after this, this Sovereign of my soul said to me: 'These are the purposes for which I have chosen you and done you so many favors as to have taken very particular care of you from the cradle; I have only made myself your master and director to dispose you to the accomplishment of this great purpose, and to entrust to you this great treasure which I show you here uncovered.’

“Then, prostrating myself on the ground, I said to him with St. Thomas: ‘My Lord and my God!’ Not being able to express myself of what I felt at the time, and I did not know whether I was in heaven or on earth. [6] ”

The Second Apparition

This apparition took place in 1674, during an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. It is thought to have taken place during the Octave of Corpus Christi, or on the Feast of the Visitation.

“After I had felt myself entirely withdrawn within myself, through an extraordinary recollection of all my senses and powers, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me, all bursting with glory with His five wounds, shining like so many suns, and from this sacred humanity came out flames on all sides, but especially from His adorable breast, which resembled a furnace; and having opened Himself, He revealed to me His all-loving and all-lovable Heart, which was the source of these flames.

“It was then that He discovered to me the inexplicable wonders of His pure [love], and to what excess He had carried it, of loving men, from whom He received only ingratitude and disregard. ‘Which I feel much more,’ He tells me, ‘than all that I have suffered in My passion; all the more so that if they made [Me] some return [of] love, I would esteem as little all that I have done for them and would like, if it could be, to do still more.

“‘But they have nothing but coldness and scorn for all my eagerness to do them good. But, at least, give Me this pleasure of making up for their ingratitude, as far as you may be able.’—And pointing out to Him my powerlessness, He answered me: ‘Here, here is something to make up for all that you lack.’

“And at the same time, this divine Heart having opened, there came out of it a flame so ardent that I thought I was consumed by it; for I was all penetrated by it, and could no longer sustain it, when I asked Him to have pity on my weakness. ‘I will be your strength,’ He said to me; ‘fear nothing, but be attentive to My voice and to what I ask of you for the accomplishment [of] My designs.

“‘First, you will receive Me in the Blessed Sacrament as much as obedience will allow you, whatever mortifications and humiliations may befall you, which you must receive as a token of my love.

“‘You will also receive Holy Communion on the first Friday of every month; and on all nights from Thursday to Friday, I will make you partake of that mortal sadness I was willing to feel in the Garden of Olives, which will reduce you to a sorrow you will not be able to understand, a kind of agony more difficult to bear than death.

“‘And to accompany Me in this humble prayer which I then presented to My Father amidst all My anguish, you will rise between eleven and midnight, to prostrate yourself for an hour with Me, your face on the ground, so as to appease the divine wrath, by asking for mercy for sinners, as well as to soften in some way the bitterness I felt at the abandonment of my Apostles, which obliged Me to reproach them for not having been able to watch one hour with Me, and during this hour, you will do what I will teach you.

“‘But listen, my daughter, do not lightly believe any spirit and do not trust it; for Satan is furious to disappoint you; therefore do nothing without the approval of those who lead you, so that, having the authority of obedience, he cannot deceive you; for he has no power over the obedient. [7]’”

The Third Apparition

The most famous of the apparitions at Paray-le-Monial took place in June 1675. It was this apparition which revealed to the general public the devotion to the Sacred Heart. It was recounted by Fr. La Colombière, Margaret Mary's confessor, who received the confidence from her.

“Being,” says this holy soul [8], “before the Blessed Sacrament, one day of its octave, I received from my God excessive graces of His love. Touched by the desire for some return, to give love for love, He said to me: ‘You can give Me no greater return than by doing what I have asked of you so many times.’

“‘And revealing His divine Heart to me: ‘This is the Heart that has so loved mankind, that it has spared nothing, to the point of exhausting itself and consuming itself to show them its love. And for gratitude, I receive nothing but ingratitude from most, through the contempt, irreverence, sacrilege and coldness they have for Me in this sacrament of love. But what I feel even more keenly is that these are hearts that are consecrated to Me that treat me in this way.

“‘This is why I ask you that the first Friday after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament be dedicated to a particular feast to honor My Heart, making reparation of honor to it by an honorable amends, communicating on that day to make reparation for the indignities it has received in the time it has been exposed on the altars; and I promise you that My Heart will expand to pour out abundantly the influences of this divine love on those who will render it this honor and who will obtain that it be rendered to it.”

“‘But, my Lord, to whom do You address Yourself?’” she said to Him, “‘to such a wretched creature and poor sinner, that her unworthiness would even be capable of preventing the accomplishment of your design. You have so many generous souls to carry out Your plans!

“‘Indeed!’ said this divine Savior to her, ‘do you not know that I use the weakest subjects to confound the strong, and that it is usually on the smallest and poorest of spirits that I make My power shown with greater brilliance, so that they attribute nothing to themselves.’

“‘Give me then,’ she said to Him, ‘the means to do what You command me.’ Then He added: ‘Address yourself to my servant, Fr. Claude La Colombière, Jesuit, and tell him on My behalf to do his utmost to establish this devotion and give this pleasure to My divine Heart. Let him not be discouraged by the difficulties he will encounter, for there will be no lack of them. But he must know that he is all-powerful who defies himself to entrust himself inwardly to me.’ [9]”

As we can observe, there is a gradation in these three apparitions: in the first, the Sacred Heart reveals His immense love for mankind and announces to Margaret that she will be His instrument to make this love known, in order to draw mankind away from perdition; He asks to be honored “under the figure of His Heart of flesh.”

In the second, He complains that His love has been insulted and asks the visionary to make reparation by offering the Sacred Heart's own merits, to which she will add certain special practices. In the third, Our Lord once again expresses His love and complains again of the ingratitude of mankind. He then calls for a special feast in honor of the Sacred Heart, emphasizing the aspect of reparation that it should entail.

This was Margaret Mary’s great mission: to convey to the world the message of love of the Incarnate Word, the complaint that accompanies it, the need for reparation, and the opportuneness of the devotion of the Sacred Heart.

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[1] When we use the expression “universal,” we mean it in a relative sense, insofar as we do not intend to substitute a private revelation—even a recognized one—for Revelation as contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition.
[2] The account of the first two is taken from St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s autobiography; the third could have been, but we have chosen the one reported by Fr. La Colombière.
[3] The reference to “first” is to be understood in accordance with the remark made above. It refers to the first of the great apparitions.
[4] This request from Our Lord is to be understood in the light of what was said above about suffering in the life of St. Margaret Mary.
[5] Autobiographie [Autobiography], no. 52.
[6] Lettre 133, au Père Croiset [Letter 133, to Father Croiset]– November 3, 1689.
[7] Autobiographie [Autobiography], no. 55.
[8] Fr. La Colombière relates St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s account.
[9] Contemporaines [Contemporaries], no. 151.