Margaret Mary Alacoque

Who they were

Margaret was born in Burgundy in 1647 to a well-off Catholic family. At five she vowed herself to God, but only at 24, overcoming her family's resistance, could she enter the Order of the Visitation. Doubted and mocked by some sisters and superiors for her visions, she bore it with a smile. Her director, the Jesuit St Claude de la Colombière, recognised her gifts and told her to write her experiences.

From 1673 Jesus appeared to her, showing His Sacred Heart 'blazing like a sun, with its adorable wound, surrounded by thorns and topped by a cross', and asked for a feast of the Sacred Heart eight days after Corpus Christi. He promised that whoever received Communion on the first Friday of nine consecutive months would not die without the sacraments. She died on 17 October 1690.

The miracles

The miracles examined for her causes are not described in the sources we have used. The basilica of the Sacré-Coeur at Montmartre was built in response to her message.

Why that counted as sanctity

Margaret Mary, humble and misunderstood, received and spread Christ's revelation of His Heart burning with love for mankind, and so gave the Church the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Connected on this site

• Claude de la Colombière Saint
  “Claude La Colombière, sometimes referred to as Claude de la Colombière, was a French Jesuit priest best known as the confessor of Margaret Mary Alacoque.” — Wikipedia