Canonization: May 13, 1920
Feast day: October 16

In Christian history, focus on the Heart of Jesus originates with the Gospels and is subsequently developed by the Church Fathers, mystics, and spiritual writers, including the founders of the Salesian spiritual tradition—St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) and St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641). Margaret Mary Alacoque was the heir to this rich spiritual heritage. However, the revelations of the Sacred Heart, made between December 1673 and June 1675, to this young Visitandine nun ushered in a new—liturgical—phase of devotion to the Lord’s Heart, and was also the catalyst for its spread on a global scale.

Born in 1647, just six years after the death of Jane de Chantal, Margaret Mary entered the monastery of Paray-le-Monial in 1671. Two years later, Jesus first revealed his Sacred Heart to her. This apparition took place on December 27, 1673, the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, whom tradition identifies as the Beloved Disciple who, in the words of St. Francis de Sales, “reposed […] on the lovable breast, actually in the loving heart, of the loving Savior” at the Last Supper (cf. John 13:23-25).

During this initial encounter with the Sacred Heart, the Gospel narrative and Margaret Mary’s life intersect, as the Lord invites her to take the place occupied by the Beloved Disciple: “[The Lord] made me rest a long time on His divine breast, where He showed me the marvels of His love and the unspeakable secrets of His Sacred Heart that had always been hidden before.” Next, the young Visitandine experiences a mystical exchange of hearts: Jesus asks for her heart, places it in His own heart, and then returns it to her as a burning heart-shaped flame, telling her that this expression of His love would also be a participation in His suffering. Finally, the Lord bestows a new name upon her, “Beloved Disciple of My Sacred Heart.”

In the Biblical tradition, a new name often signals the beginning of a new mission. Thus, it was also in the case of Margaret Mary. In subsequent apparitions, the Lord revealed that she was to be the “Apostle of the Sacred Heart” who was entrusted a formidable threefold mission: first, to persuade the ecclesiastical authorities to institute an annual liturgical feast in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi; second, to promote the celebration of Mass and reception of Holy Communion in honor of the Sacred Heart on the first Friday of every month, as well as the observance of an hour of Eucharistic adoration on the preceding Thursday evening to commemorate Jesus’s agony in the garden; and, finally, to remind the world of its duty of adoration and reparation to the divine Heart that burns with a tender, vulnerable, and gentle love for each and every person, suffered for that love, and continues to suffer because of human sin and bland indifference to His sacramental presence in the Eucharist.

Margaret Mary found that, as a cloistered religious, she was unable on her own to fulfill the mission of spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart. The Lord intervened, sending to help her the young Jesuit priest, St. Claude La Colombière (1641-82), whom He described as the “Faithful Servant and Perfect Friend of His Sacred Heart.” Claude authenticated the revelations to Margaret Mary, after others had judged them delusions. Following Claude’s death, several other Jesuits greatly aided Margaret Mary, both at home and at Rome.

Margaret Mary belongs to a long ecclesial tradition of women mystics-apostles, whom the Lord calls upon to expand humanity’s knowledge of His plan for salvation history. Standing at the head of this tradition is St. Mary Magdalen, who was the “first witness to the Lord’s resurrection and the Apostle to the Apostles,” receiving from the risen Lord the “apostolic office” of announcing to the Apostles the good news of His resurrection (John 20:17-18).

Similarly, the Lord commissioned Margaret Mary as the Apostle of the Sacred Heart to proclaim to the Church and the world that His Heart of flesh and blood “is not only the Heart that shows us mercy, but is itself mercy. There the Father’s love shines forth; there I know I am welcomed and understood as I am; there, with all my sins and limitations, I know the certainty that I am chosen and loved” (Pope Francis, Homily for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, June 3, 2016). In its historical context, the message of the Sacred Heart could not have been more timely or necessary: it was the antidote for the coldness and moral rigorism of Jansenism, which saw God as distant, punitive, and vindictive, and which has been described as the Catholic version of Calvinism.

Paray-le-Monial became the epicenter of the diffusion of devotion to the Sacred Heart, which first spread to other Visitation monasteries, then throughout France, and finally worldwide. In the 19th century, this devotion played an essential role in the restoration of the Salesian spirit that was at the core of the Visitation Order’s “second founding” in the aftermath of the devastation of the French Revolution.

Margaret Mary died on October 17, 1690. She was beatified in 1864 and canonized a saint in 1920. Her incorrupt body rests in the Chapel of the Apparitions, at the Visitation Monastery in Paray-le-Monial, which draws pilgrims from across the globe. Her feast day is October 16th. On December 27, 2023, a Jubilee marking the 350th anniversary of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was solemnly opened by the papal nuncio to France, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paray-le-Monial. The Jubilee, whose theme is "Render Love for Love," extends over a period of eighteen months, from the 350th anniversary of the first apparition on December 27, 2023, to June 27, 2025, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.