Қасиетті Жүрекке құлшылық етуші Маргарита Мария Алакок

Catholic Saint and Mystic

Margaret Mary Alacoque, VHM (22 July 1647 – 17 October 1690) was a French Catholic Visitation nun and mystic who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form.

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.

At the monastery, Alacoque reportedly received several private revelations of the Sacred Heart, the first on 27 December 1673 and the final one 18 months later. The visions revealed to her the form of the devotion, the chief features being reception of Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month, Eucharistic adoration during a "Holy hour" on Thursdays, and the celebration of the Feast of the Sacred Heart. She stated that in her vision she was instructed to spend an hour every Thursday night in meditation on Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Holy Hour practice later became widespread among Catholics. 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. 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. On 16 June 1675, Alacoque reported three specific requests of France, directly from his spiritual talks. These will have political and religious repercussions and will successively be realized under the royal, imperial and republican French regimes:

The first message is 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 is: "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 asks 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". 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 Holy Church." Either Louis XIV never received the letter or he refused to reply. Alacoque died on 17 October 1690.

After Alacoque's death, the devotion to the Sacred Heart was fostered by the Jesuits even as it remained controversial within the Catholic Church. The practice was not officially recognized for 75 years. In his 1928 encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, Pope Pius XI affirmed the Catholic Church's position regarding the credibility of her visions of Jesus Christ by speaking of Jesus as having "manifested Himself" to Alacoque and having "promised her that all those who rendered this honour to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces". Alacoque's short devotional work, La Devotion au Sacré Coeur de Jesus (Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), was published posthumously by J. Croiset in 1698 and has been popular among Catholics. On the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia there are two flower festivals supported by their respective Societies. Each society has a patron saint on whose feast day the grande fete is celebrated. For the Roses it is the feast of St. Rose of Lima on 30 August; and for the Marguerites it is that of St. Margaret Mary Alacocque, 17 October.

The detente bala amulet used by Spanish soldiers is said to derive from Alacoque's emblems. In James Joyce's short story "Eveline", in his book Dubliners, a "coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque" is mentioned as part of the decorations of an Irish home at the turn of the 20th century, testifying to Joyce's fine eye for the details of Irish Catholic piety.