St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: Her Life and Missions (4)

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 fourth article in this series.

Spiritual Marriage

The love of God is like a flame that longs to ignite souls, as Our Lord said: “I have come to kindle a fire on the earth, and what do I desire but that it should be kindled?” This love has two effects on the soul that surrenders itself to it: it purifies it of dross and innumerable imperfections, and it takes possession of it so as to become one with it.

Spiritual marriage, which theologians also call transforming union, is the final step on the path of holiness. The soul cannot yet see God, which will only be possible in Heaven, but the knowledge that faith gives it is the most perfect possible. Like a spouse, God gives Himself to the soul in a superabundant way, and like a bride, the soul gives itself totally and unreservedly to God's action.

It was in the autumn of 1684, during a retreat, that Margaret Mary was thus taken by God. This “Heaven on earth” (which did not yet exclude suffering) was preceded by a Purgatory. “On the first day (of the retreat), He presented His Sacred Heart to me as a burning furnace into which I felt myself thrown and at first penetrated and set ablaze by its brilliant ardors, which seemed to be reducing me to ashes.

“These words were spoken to me: 'This is the divine purgatory of My love, where you must purify yourself during this purgative life; then I will make you find there a sojourn of light and then of union and transformation.'”

The mystical marriage took place three days later: “I was placed in a sojourn of glory and light where I, a wretched nothing, was showered with so many favors that one hour of this enjoyment is enough to reward the torments of all the martyrs. (...)

“He married my soul in the excess of His charity, but in a way and union inexplicable, changing my heart into a flame of fire devouring His pure love, so that it would consume all earthly loves that would come near it; making me understand that since I was destined to render continual homage to His state as Host and Victim in the Blessed Sacrament, I should, in these same qualities, continually immolate my being to Him out of love of adoration, annihilation, and conformity to the life of death that He has in the Holy Eucharist. [1]”

Novice Mistress—The Triumph of the Sacred Heart at Visitation Monastery

The year 1684 marked a turning point in Margaret Mary's life, not only in terms of her interior life (we have already spoken of her spiritual marriage), but also in terms of the place she took in the community. For six years, she had been under the guidance of Mother Greyfié, who admired her deeply...but hid it well!

Like her novice mistress in the past, but in an even clearer way, this superior wanted to ensure the authenticity of the saint's mystical life and prevent her from falling into pride. So she did not hesitate to make her eat abundantly “the bread of humiliation.”

This year, Mother Melin was elected superior and exercised her authority in a much more maternal manner. Recognizing Margaret's great value, she first took her on as an assistant, then appointed her Novice Mistress.

Although devotion to the Sacred Heart had not yet been officially adopted at Paray-le-Monial (it had already been in other monasteries) due to opposition from a large part of the community, Margaret's position meant that she was at least more respected.

She exercised her role as Novice Mistress with great prudence, kindness, and firmness. On one occasion, she was not afraid to oppose a forced vocation, creating a veritable uproar both inside and outside of the monastery.

She instilled in her novices a deep sense of their religious vocation, demanding an unreserved response to the preferred love of which they were the object. She knew them all personally, and gave each of them sound and precise advice. Naturally, she turned them toward the Sacred Heart.

However, the rest of the community was not yet won over to the devotion of the Sacred Heart. This was despite the fact that Fr. La Colombière's writings on the apparitions had been read at table. Surprisingly, one of the main opponents was a very good nun, a friend of Margaret, Sister des Escures.

For the feast of their Mistress, the novices had set up an altar in honor of the Heart of Jesus and, at Margaret's invitation, decided to devote themselves to it. Invited to attend the little ceremony, Sister des Escures curtly replied: “Go and tell your Mistress that good devotion is the practice of our rules and constitutions, and that this is what she must teach you and what you must practice well.”

But Providence would use this nun to bring about the triumph of the reign of the Sacred Heart in the community. In a completely unexpected way, on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi in the year 1686, Sister des Escures prepared a small altar in the choir in honor of the Sacred Heart. Seeing such opposition reversed in an almost miraculous manner, the rest of the community soon followed the lead of Sister des Escures.

According to Archbishop Languet, Margaret Mary's first biographer, “the superior, the officers, the nuns, the elders and the novices, the fervent and the lukewarm, Sister Margaret's enemies and her critics, all hastened to adore throughout the day the holy love of the Heart of Jesus...and to celebrate among themselves the first feast dedicated, in this monastery, to the adorable Heart of Jesus Christ. [2]”

As mentioned above, it was from this moment onward that fervor and charity returned to the monastery.

The Final Years

Margaret had only four years left to live. She would still have apparitions and locutions of the Heart of Jesus, including the “great promise” about the first Fridays of the month.

“One Friday, during Holy Communion, He said these words to His unworthy slave, if she is not mistaken [3]: I promise you, in the excessive mercy of My Heart, that his almighty love will grant to all those who receive Communion on nine first Fridays of the month, in succession, the grace of final penitence, not dying in My disgrace and without receiving their sacraments, My divine Heart making itself their assured refuge at the last moment.”

It was also during these years that she was entrusted with the message to the king, which we have already covered.

Having left responsibility for the novitiate to another, she was again appointed assistant to the superior. Her sisters often came to see her for light and courage.

In February 1690, she fell ill. The superior therefore forbade her any extraordinary mortification, leading her to claim that she was no longer suffering. In reality, she was still overwhelmed by suffering, both physical and moral. Sensing her impending death, she made a forty-day retreat.

Looking back on her life, she saw nothing but the abuse of divine graces, which forced her to take refuge in the bosom of divine mercy, as we read in an admirable prayer, a summary of her disposition of humility, love, and trust.

“Do not deprive me, O my God, of loving You eternally for not having loved You in time! Do with the rest of me whatever You please. I owe You everything that I have, everything that I am...I am insolvent, as You can see, but put me in prison, I consent to it, as long as it is in Your Sacred Heart.

“And hold me there captive, and bind me with the chains of Your love, until I have paid You all that I owe You; and as I shall never be able to do so, I also desire never to leave. [4]”

She finally surrendered her soul to God on October 17, receiving Extreme Unction. The news of her death spread like wildfire in Paray-le-Monial: “The Saint of Holy Mary is dead!” Those who could get close to her body—especially priests—had no qualms about taking relics...

Despite popular fervor, it was not until 1865 that she was beatified, and not until 1920 that she was canonized... In addition to the Church's cautious reserve in recognizing heroic sanctity, it was necessary to wait until devotion to the Sacred Heart, of which the saint of Paray was the messenger, had been recognized and triumphed over the numerous oppositions that arose.

Her body, covered in wax, is now buried in the chapel of the Visitation Monastery in Paray-le-Monial, where the great apparitions took place.

Everyone can therefore come and venerate the messenger of the Sacred Heart. Her life may not have been materially imitable; but, in essence, it illustrates the message she had to convey: that of the mad love of Our Lord, awaiting an unreserved response, made up of humility and abandonment, in the likeness of Christ crucified. 

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[1] Contemporaines [Contemporaries], no. 295.
[2] Quoted by Fr. Jean Ladame, La Sainte de Paray [The Saint of Paray], p. 248.
[3] This expression, frequently used by Margaret Mary, should not cast doubt on what she reports—on the contrary, one might say. She used it out of obedience and humility.
[4] Quoted in La Sainte de Paray [The Saint of Paray], p. 330.