Apparition of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was a religious sister in a convent of the Visitation nuns, in Paray-le-Monial. This convent was founded in 1626 and was part of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, founded in 1610 in Annecy by the bishop Francis de Sales and Mother Jane of Chantal. This congregation is linked to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Moreover, their emblem is a heart surmounted by a cross, encircled by a crown of thorns and pierced by two arrows, and engraved with the names of Jesus and Mary. The founders of the Order said: “Our little congregation is a work of the Heart of Jesus and Mary. The Savior, in dying, gave birth to us by the opening of His Sacred Heart.” It was therefore within one of its convents that Saint Margaret Mary had three apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and received messages.
Margaret Mary, a young religious in a Visitation convent
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was born on July 22, 1647, in Verosvres, in the Charolais, into a very devout family. From the age of five, she felt called by the Lord, for she once declared, “My God, I consecrate my purity to you and make a vow of perpetual chastity.” Some time later, Margaret began to mortify herself and spent more and more time in prayer. She had visions of Christ on the Cross or during his Passion. On June 20, 1671, Margaret entered the Visitation convent after hearing Christ say to her, “This is where I want you.”
Sister Margaret experienced mystical graces and ecstasies that made her feel the Savior’s presence. She began to receive messages from Jesus. One day, for example, she was praying and the Lord came to visit her. He revealed to her how his Passion had been the testimony of his immense love for humankind. He asked her to become an apostle of his love by uniting herself to him in his Passion.
Sister Margaret became Margaret Mary after professing her vows on November 6, 1672.
Between 1673 and 1675, Margaret Mary had three great apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The religious sister’s spiritual father, the Jesuit Father Claude de la Colombière, while awaiting the account of these apparitions, advised her to surrender herself humbly to the Lord and to write down absolutely everything that happened during these apparitions.
Sister Margaret Mary gave her soul back to the Lord on October 17, 1690. She was beatified by the pope Pius IX and canonized by Pope Benedict XV. She is commemorated on October 16.
The 3 apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Sister Margaret Mary
December 27, 1673
On December 27, the feast day of Saint John the Evangelist, Jesus granted a grace to Saint Margaret Mary by entrusting to her his first message: “My divine Heart is so passionate in 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 abroad by your means.” The religious sister recounted in her account: “After making me rest for several hours upon this sacred breast, I received from that lovable Heart graces whose memory transports me out of myself.” She said she saw the Sacred Heart of Christ “encircled by a crown of thorns which signified the pricks that our sins inflict upon it. And a Cross above, 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.”
A Friday in 1674
Saint Margaret Mary relates in her work that one day Christ came to see her: “Jesus Christ, my gentle Master, presented himself to me all resplendent with glory, with his five wounds shining like five suns.” She explains that from his body “flames went forth on all sides,” and that the heart of Jesus was “the living source.” She then explains: “He disclosed to me the inexplicable wonders of his pure love,” to which the only response is: “the ingratitude of men. They have only coldness and rejection for all my eagerness to do them good.”
In June 1675
Here is the message that Christ delivered to her, while showing her his Heart: “Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, to testify to them its love; and in return I receive from most of them nothing but ingratitude, by their irreverences and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this Sacrament of love.” The Savior then asked Sister Margaret Mary to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart, notably through the Holy Hour (this consists in keeping Jesus company from eleven o’clock to midnight on Thursday evening, in remembrance of his agony in the Garden of Olives) and that a feast of the Sacred Heart be established (celebrated three weeks after Pentecost; it was instituted in 1765): “by making him reparation of honor through an act of amende honorable, to make reparation for the indignities he received during the time he was exposed upon the altars.” In return, he promised: “with abundance the outpourings of his divine love upon those who will render him this honor.” This was the last time the saint saw the Lord.
Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Saint Margaret Mary
“O most loving Heart of my only love Jesus, being unable to love, honor, and glorify you according to the extent of the desire you give me for it, I invite Heaven and Earth to do it for me; and I unite myself to those ardent seraphim to love you.
O Heart all burning with love, why do you not inflame Heaven and Earth with your purest flames to consume all that they contain, so that all creatures breathe nothing but your love!
Change me entirely into a heart to love you, by consuming me in your most intense ardors.
O divine fire, O pure flames of the Heart of my only love Jesus, burn me without pity, consume me without resistance!
O love of Heaven and Earth, come, come wholly into my heart to reduce me to ashes!
O devouring fire of the Divinity, come, come down upon me! Burn me, consume me in the midst of your most vivid flames, which give life to those who die in them.
Amen.”
Here are other beautiful prayers to the Sacred Heart of Christ:
The novenas: the novena to the Sacred Heart, the novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Padre Pio
The litanies of the Sacred Heart
The prayer of consecration to the Sacred Heart
The prayer of reparation to the Sacred Heart
The prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in difficult times
Continue your prayer with the Sacred Heart of Jesus thanks to Hozana!
Discover wonderful prayer communities thanks to Hozana!
Take part in this in order to pray especially for families. A priest will guide you each day with a short video meditation.
and present your intentions to his Sacred Heart!
