Saints of the Sacred Heart

Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in 1647 in Burgundy, France. From childhood she experienced a deep attraction to prayer and the Blessed Sacrament. After a prolonged illness in her youth, she made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to enter religious life, and was healed.

She entered the Visitation monastery at Paray-le-Monial in 1671. Her mystical experiences began almost immediately, but it was the series of great revelations between 1673 and 1675 that would define her mission: to make known the love of the Sacred Heart and establish the devotion throughout the Church.

She faced years of opposition, doubt, and humiliation from her superiors and fellow religious. Only the support of her confessor, St. Claude de la Colombière, sustained her through these trials. She was eventually vindicated, and the devotion she championed spread throughout the world.

She died on October 17, 1690, whispering: "I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the Heart of Jesus." She was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Claude de la Colombière was born in 1641 near Lyon, France. A brilliant student, he entered the Society of Jesus at age seventeen and quickly distinguished himself as a preacher and spiritual director.

In 1675, he was appointed superior of the small Jesuit residence at Paray-le-Monial, where Providence brought him into contact with Sister Margaret Mary. Recognizing the authenticity of her revelations, he became the first to consecrate himself to the Sacred Heart and began quietly promoting the devotion.

Sent to England as chaplain to the Duchess of York, he was arrested during the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Titus Oates plot, imprisoned, and eventually expelled from the country. His health broken by imprisonment, he returned to France and died at Paray-le-Monial on February 15, 1682, at the age of forty-one.

His personal writings reveal a man of extraordinary faith and trust in God's providence. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1992.