Early life Alacoque was born in 1647 in
L'Hautecour, Burgundy, France, now part of the
commune of
Verosvres, then in the
Duchy of Burgundy. She was the fifth of seven children, and the only daughter of Claude and Philiberte Lamyn Alacoque. Her father was a well-to-do notary. Her godmother was the Countess of Corcheval. Margaret was described as showing intense love for the Blessed Sacrament from early childhood. When Margaret was eight years old, her father died of pneumonia. She was sent to a convent school run by the
Poor Clares in Charolles, where she made her
First Communion at the age of nine. She later contracted
rheumatic fever which confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having made a vow to the
Blessed Virgin Mary to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. A fellow novice described Margaret Mary as humble, simple and frank, but above all kind and patient. She was finally admitted to profession on 6 November 1672. It is said that she was assigned to the infirmary and was not very skillful at her tasks.
Visions At the monastery, Alacoque reportedly received several apparitions and
private revelations of
Jesus Christ between 27 December 1673 and June 1675. Among other things, these visions revealed to her different forms of devotion to the
Sacred Heart. On 27 December 1673, the feast of St. John, Margaret Mary said that Jesus had permitted her to rest her head upon his heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of his love, telling her that he desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of his goodness, and that he had chosen her for this work. Between 1674 and 1675, other apparitions followed. From the second apparition onwards, a theme of
sadness was present in her visions:The apparitions also revealed practices expressing the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The
First Fridays Devotion, which is the reception of
Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of each month as an act of reparation, was asked to Margaret Mary and a "Great Promise" was given to those who accomplish it: "I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who shall receive communion on the First Friday in nine consecutive months the grace of final penance; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving their sacraments; My Divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment." In an other vision, Margaret Mary also stated that she was instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night in prayer and meditation on Jesus'
Agony in the Garden of
Gethsemane : "and on each night of Thursday to Friday, I will make you participate in the mortal sadness that I have accepted to feel in the Garden of Olives, (...), you will get up from eleven until midnight, to prostrate yourself during an hour with Me...". That practice later became widespread among Catholics, known as the
Holy Hour, also frequently performed during an hour of
Eucharistic adoration on Thursdays. Between 13 and 20 June 1675, she had a vision of Jesus in which he asked her "that the first Friday after the octave of the
Blessed Sacrament be dedicated to a particular feast to honor my heart, by receiving communion on that day and making
reparation to it by honorable amends..." That vision later led to the institution of the
Feast of the Sacred Heart, which is now a
solemnity in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church, celebrated eight days after the
Feast of Corpus Christi. On 16 June 1675, Alacoque reported three specific requests for France, directly from her spiritual talks. These would have political and religious repercussions and would successively be realized under the royal, imperial and republican French regimes: • The first message was addressed to kings: "He desires to enter pompously and magnificently into the house of princes and kings, to be honored, as much as he has been outraged, despised and humiliated in his passion ... that the adorable Heart of his divine Son was received ... to establish his empire in the heart of our Great Monarch, from which he wants to serve for the execution of his designs." • The second message was: "to build a building where the painting of this divine Heart will be, to receive the consecration and the homage of the King and of the whole court ..." • The third message asked the King: "to be painted on his standards and engraved on his weapons to make him victorious over all his enemies, by bringing down at his feet the proud and superb heads, in order to make him triumphant to all the enemies of the Holy Church". Initially discouraged in her efforts to follow the instruction she had received in her visions, Alacoque was eventually able to convince her superior, Mother de Saumaise, of the authenticity of her visions. She was unable, however, to convince a Benedictine and a Jesuit, whom Saumaise had consulted. Nor was she any more successful with many of the members of her own community. Sometime around 1681, Alacoque felt compelled to write a personal testament, passionately donating her life completely to Jesus with her own blood. With the permission of her superior she used a pocket knife to carve the name of Jesus into her breast and used the blood to sign the document. The following account recalls this event: Upset by the fact that the wounds which she had cut into her breast were beginning to fade, she attempted to reopen the original wounds on more than one occasion using a knife. But, having failed to open them to her liking, she decided to burn her chest with fire. This incident placed her in the infirmary: "Trembling and humbled, she went to acknowledge her fault. Mother Greyfie, true to her custom, apparently paid little attention to what Margaret said, but ordered her in a few dry words to go to the infirmary and show her wound to Sister Augustine Marest, who would dress it." In 1689, Alacoque received a private request from Jesus to urge the King of France,
Louis XIV, to
consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart, so that he may be "triumphant over all the enemies of the Holy Church".
Henri Ghéon alludes to a letter she sent to Louis XIV, but notes that "either [he] never received the letter or he refused to reply". Louis XIV's grandson, Louis XVI, had vowed to publicly consecrate himself to the Sacred Heart when he was restored to power, but he and his wife,
Marie Antoinette, were executed by guillotine in 1793 before he could do so. Alacoque died on 17 October 1690. == Veneration ==