Marguerite-Marie Alacoque

1647-1690 17th century Feast day: October 16

The discovery that the heart of God loves first, and that one can answer that love in the most ordinary life.

Who was Marguerite-Marie Alacoque?

A Visitation nun of Paray-le-Monial, long misunderstood by her own community, between 1673 and 1675 she received the revelations of the Heart of Jesus, which she recounted out of obedience in her autobiography and letters. She spent the rest of her life in the ordinary duties of the monastery, as infirmarian and novice mistress. From her prayer was born the devotion to the Sacred Heart that has crossed the centuries.

In their own words

And he showed me his divine Heart: Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, to show them its love.

Autobiography, account of the great apparition (§ 92)

Let us then give him love for love.

Letters