Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Margaret Alacoque was born on July 22, 1647, at L’Hautecour, a hamlet now in the commune of Verosvres in the Charolais, and was baptized on July 25. Her parents were Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn. After her father’s death the family fell into poverty and lived with relatives of harsh temper. After her First Communion at nine she was kept in bed for four years by illness. She vowed to the Virgin to enter religious life, recovered, and added the name Mary to her own.

In 1671 she entered the monastery of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, and she made her profession on November 6, 1672. On December 27, 1673, the feast of Saint John, she had the first of the great apparitions, in which, as she wrote, Christ let her rest her head on his Heart. According to her account he asked for Communion on the first Friday of each month and for an hour of prayer from eleven to midnight in the night between Thursday and Friday. Between June 13 and 20, 1675, during the octave of Corpus Christi, he asked that the Friday after the octave be kept as a feast in honor of his Heart.

Her community at first took her for a visionary, and her superior ordered her to keep to the common life. In 1675 the new superior of the Jesuits, Claude La Colombière, examined her experiences, judged them to be graces and told her to write them down; from 1676 he guided her by letter from England. She later served as mistress of novices. In 1686 the community kept the feast of the Sacred Heart for the first time, and on September 7, 1688, a chapel in its honor was blessed in the monastery garden. She died on October 17, 1690, pronouncing the names of Jesus and Mary.

Further reading: Paray-le-Monial: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Sacred Heart; Sacred Heart in France: Paray-le-Monial to Montmartre.

Pope Leo XII declared her Venerable in March 1824. When her tomb was opened in July 1830, two sudden cures were reported. Pius IX beatified her on September 18, 1864, and Benedict XV canonized her on May 13, 1920. Her feast entered the General Roman Calendar in 1929 on October 17 and has been kept on October 16 since 1969. The feast of the Sacred Heart, approved in 1765, was extended to the whole Church in 1856 and is kept on the Friday after the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. In 2024 Pope Francis quoted her autobiography in Dilexit nos, his encyclical on the Sacred Heart.

Her relics rest at Paray-le-Monial in the Chapel of the Apparitions of the Visitation monastery, built in 1633 and remodeled in 1854. To the right of the choir a small chapel holds her reliquary, made for her beatification in 1864, in which a wax figure covers her bones. The sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial receives pilgrims throughout the year.

She is shown in the habit of the Visitation, kneeling before Christ, who shows her his Heart crowned with thorns and surmounted by a cross, as she described it. Her image appears in the stained glass of many churches, among them the church of Saint-Germain at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the cathedral of Montauban has a painting of her by Armand Cambon.

• Paray-le-Monial, Chapel of the ApparitionsThe chapel of the Visitation monastery on the rue de la Visitation, where Christ appeared to her between 1673 and 1675; her reliquary is in the small chapel to the right of the choir.
• Paray-le-Monial, Basilica of the Sacred HeartThe Cluniac Romanesque basilica, the main church of the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart.
• Paray-le-Monial, Chapelle La ColombièreThe Jesuit chapel on the rue Pasteur with the relics of her confessor, Saint Claude La Colombière.
• VerosvresThe hamlet of L’Hautecour, where she was born and where her birthplace house stands.

On our ways: Paray-le-Monial.

• Via SanctorumThe Way of the Saints, nine daysDay V, Paray-le-Monial
• Via GratiaeThe Great Shrines of France, thirteen daysDay VII, Nevers to Paray-le-Monial
  Day VIII, Paray-le-Monial to Ars
• Via RomanicaThe Romanesque Way, seven daysDay IV, Paray-le-Monial
  Day V, Paray-le-Monial to Orcival