Who is Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque?
Margaret Mary was born in July 22nd in 1647, French burgundy from a modest Alacoque family. Margarida had a difficult youth at her parents' side, because of the excess of affection traced the life of the daughter, based on her own worldly ambitions.
He has had a cultural and religious background since childhood. The difficulties began to arise, Margarida Maria's father passed away, Margarida was subsequently diagnosed with an illness that left her in bed for a long time. Nothing in medicine cured her illness, so Marguerite promised Our Lady to surrender all her days of service to God if she regained her health and so it was. Margarida Maria, convinced of the intervention of the Divine providence in favor of her recuperated health, at the age of twenty-four entered the Order of the Visitation, founded by Francis de Sales. Praying and contemplating the Eucharistic Jesus began to dialogue with Christ himself, who exposed his broken heart and made revelations about the Eucharist.
Poor Margarida has been tested in all her possible ways, several times to prove her narratives. At that time humanity was plagued by the plague and trembled before the eminence of death. His heart was led to a "hard God of punishment." But the visions and messages of Margaret Mary did not, as they pointed to the "God of love and salvation", which generated strong opposition.
Father Jesuit Claudius de la Colombière, however, respected scholar of the manifestations of the signs of God, found that the message she conveyed was true. With her support and spiritual guidance, the mystical experiences of Margaret Mary began to be seen in another way.
Slowly, this message was assimilated by all the convents of the Visitation, as well as by the Clergy.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus began to spread among the faithful as well.
Before her death she was able to see many critics worshiping and propagating the devotion of the Sacred Heart. And so it was after a while that the message spread throughout the Catholic world.
Saint Margaret died on October 17, 1690, at the age of only forty-three, on 17 October 1690 at Paray-le-Monial in France. It was canonized in 1920, by Pope Benedict XV. Saint Margaret Mary had the date of her liturgical feast anticipated for a day not to coincide with that of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. The day of Saint Margaret Mary is celebrated on October 16.
Prayer to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Blessed Saint Margaret, the honor and glory of the Order of the Visitation of Our Lady, an outstanding propagator of the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who better than you can achieve this devotion so holy and so salutary?
You have been declared Jesus and a beloved disciple of his Most Holy Heart, heir to him and to all his treasures in time and in eternity.
You wanted rather to suffer in this world, spreading its glories, than to enjoy it in the sky among the seraphim; and with what joy, when you still lived, you see the Sacred Heart of Jesus everywhere venerated. If you were here on earth, you were so charitable with those who opposed your zeal to promote the glories of the Sacred Heart, to the extent that you may obtain prodigies of grace, which you will not do now for those who ask you for love flaming for power with love to repay who has loved us so much?
I pray that this holy fervor may grow in us, and that this devotion may spread throughout the world, so that the brokenhearted may return to the right path and calm days of peace will reappear on earth. So Be It!
