OCTOBER 16, 2010 ST. MARGARET MARY

Today is the Feast Day of Margaret Mary Alacoque , the Visitacion nun in Paray- le- Monial, France to whom Our Most Sacred Heart of Jesus appeared. She was instrumental in initiating the First Friday Devotion to the Sacred Heart and the celebration of the Holy Hour.

St. Margaret Mary was born on July 22, 1647 in France, died on October 17, 1690 and canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

From early childhood, she preferred silence and prayer over playing games. She received Holy Communion at age 9 and loved to read the lives of saint even thinking of being one someday. When she was still a young adolescent, she contracted paralysis which confined her in bed for four years. She made a vow to our Blessed Mother that she would become a nun if She would heal her. She got well. After a while, the death of her father caused her and her mother the most trying times in their lives. They were reduced to being servants by three very close relatives including a great grand-aunt. Everything was under lock and key so that hunger and deprivation of shelter and comfort were their constant companions. Marriage would have provided an escape from her miserable life but she would not accept it.

It was through some difficulty due to consent and dowry that she was able to enter the convent of the Visitation in Paray-le-Monial in France at age 24 after a vision of Jesus Christ Who reproached her of forgetfulness in claiming His Heart filled with love for her. In the convent, the Sacred heart visited her on December 27, 1673 and several times thereafter within 18 months. During one of the visits, Jesus permitted St. Mary Alacoque to rest her head against His Heart. The visions revealed the form of the First Friday Devotion which requires Holy Communion and the adoration of the Host during the Holy Hour. She was given the Promises of the Sacred Heart to those who practice the First Friday Devotion. Instructions to her specific Holy Hour on midnight of Thursday included mortification which she somehow had been doing by tying a very tight rope around her waist for so long that each time she removed it, bits of skin came off. Such was the case with the small iron chains she tied around her upper arms, too.