Three saints revitalized French spirituality in the seventeenth century by focusing on the love and mercy of Jesus through the symbol of his Sacred Heart: St. John Eudes, St. Claude de la Colombiere, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

The most famous of these three “saints of the Sacred Heart,” Margaret Mary Alacoque, was born in 1647 in the Burgandy region of France. Her father died when she was only eight years old, and the family was plunged into poverty, as their father’s estate was withheld from them by his trustee. Margaret Mary was sent to receive her education from a nearby community of sisters.

The young Margaret Mary fell ill with a painful rheumatic fever that rendered her an invalid until she was fifteen. When she recovered, her family, who had experienced a reversal of fortune, introduced Margaret Mary to the glamor of worldly life. While at first tempted by the glamorous life of a young socialite, Margaret Mary fulfilled her childhood vow to become a religious sister and joined the nearby Visitation Convent.

As a nun, she was assigned work in the infirmary of the convent, and her prayer life, already vivid and rich, began to blossom even more fully. Margaret Mary had a special devotion to Jesus’ passion and death, and in 1673, she began to receive apparitions of Jesus crowned with thorns.

In December 1673, while she was praying in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, Margaret Mary heard Jesus speaking to her. He told Margaret Mary that he wanted to spread the love of his heart through her and that she would reveal to many people the grace he desires always to bestow on humanity. In her vision, Margaret Mary saw Jesus take her heart and place it within his, setting it aflame with divine love that continued to burn in her heart as it returned to her body.

Over the next eighteen months, Jesus continued to appear to Margaret Mary to further explain his desire for his heart to be honored in the devotion and image that we now know as the Sacred Heart. What does devotion to the Sacred Heart mean? Christ described his heart, according to Margaret Mary, as “the heart that has so loved humanity that it has spared nothing, even exhausting and consuming itself in testimony of its love.” Thus, the Sacred Heart represents the fullness of God’s love for humanity and the overflowing generosity of Christ’s gift of self in the act of salvation. In a letter, Margaret Mary described the Sacred Heart as “an abyss of all blessings, and into it the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of lowliness to counteract our foolishness, an abyss of mercy for the wretched, an abyss of love to meet our every need.” In his Theological Investigations, twentieth-century German theologian and Jesuit priest Karl Rahner wrote a beautiful essay on devotion to the Sacred Heart, exploring the rich theology of love presented in this simple devotion to Christ’s heart and meditating on the rich symbol of God’s love contained in Christ’s flaming heart.

Margaret Mary endured many trials after her visions—mostly from within her own community. Many of her fellow sisters did not believe her and accused her of hypocrisy and putting on airs. Margaret Mary bore the verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse with charitable patience.

Claude de la Colombiere was chosen as the confessor for the convent, and, after listening to Margaret Mary describe her visions to him, he declared them authentic. In the end, Margaret Mary’s own devotion and dedication to the Sacred Heart and her witness of love for her sisters became their own testament for the authenticity of her visions. Devotion to the Sacred Heart began to spread throughout Margaret Mary’s religious community and throughout France.

Margaret Mary’s ill health from childhood continued to plague her, and she grew weaker and weaker in the years following her visions, but the divine flame of love in her heart never weakened. Even as she lay dying on October 16, 1690, Margaret Mary said: “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus,” Today, a few of her relics are preserved in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus.

In the decades after Margaret Mary’s death, as devotion to the Sacred Heart swept France, Basil Moreau founded the Congregation of Holy Cross in Le Mans, France. Thus, the priests of his congregation were, and still are, consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Consequently, when the basilica on Notre Dame’s campus was constructed, it was also dedicated to the Sacred Heart. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is honored in the Basilica by two stained glass windows in the Lady Chapel, shown to the right and above, both depicting her visions of Christ.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose own heart burned with love for Jesus’ Sacred Heart—pray for us!