Born in the small Burgundian village of Verosvres in 1647, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was a soul marked by grace from her earliest days. Even as a child, she was naturally drawn toward God, finding solace in prayer rather than the games of her peers.
At five, she made a spontaneous vow of chastity; at nine, she received her First Communion, a moment that ignited a lifelong, passionate love for God. However, her path was not one of worldly ease. Her father died when she was eight, leaving the family vulnerable.
Soon after, she was sent to a boarding school with the Poor Clares (nun association), where her piety stood out. Her life was then marked by suffering. A severe rheumatic illness left her bedridden for years, a period of isolation that forced her into a deep, meditative relationship with Christ.
When she returned home after falling ill her relatives had taken over the house. She was humiliated, treated like a servant in her own home. In St.
Margaret’s words, “we had no freedom in our house, and we dared do nothing without permission. It was a continual war. Everything was under lock and key, so that I could not even find my apparel when I wished to go to holy Mass.
I was even obliged to borrow clothes. I felt this slavery keenly, I must acknowledge”. The heaviest cross, she said, was that she could do nothing to relieve her mother’s suffering.
St. Margaret loved her mother tenderly; hence, she suffered fearfully at seeing her so humbled in her own house. She said, “the rudest cross I had to bear was my inability to alleviate my mother’s trials.
They were a thousand times harder for me than my own. I dared not even console her by a word, fearing to offend God by taking pleasure in talking over our troubles. But it was in my beloved mother’s sickness that my affliction became extreme.
She suffered much from being left to my care and little services. Necessary nourishment was withheld from her by our jailers, and I was forced to beg from the villagers eggs and other things suitable for the sick. This was a special torment to me, for I was naturally timid, and I was frequently received very rudely”.
Amid these trials, St. Margaret learned to embrace her suffering as a path to union with God, and through this pain her love for Christ grew deeper. She prayed incessantly, and began at this tender age to practise most austere penances, such as fasting, iron chains, disciplines and cinctures.
As soon as she had a free moment, she ran, or rather she flew, to the church; and once inside the door, love impelled her to the foot of the altar and she could never get near enough to the tabernacle. “I was wholly unable to recite vocal prayers before the Blessed Sacrament, and once in its presence I became so absorbed that I knew no weariness. I could have passed days and nights before it without eating or drinking.
I do not know exactly how I employed those moments. I only know that, like a burning taper, I was consumed in its presence, rendering Jesus love for love. I could not remain in the lower part of the church, and despite the confusion it might cause me, I had to draw as near as I could to the altar on which reposed the Blessed Sacrament.
And yet I did not think myself happy even there. I envied those that could communicate frequently, and that were free to remain long in the Sacramental Presence. I tried to gain the friendship of such persons, that I might enjoy the privilege of going with them to spend some moments with Jesus Christ in this mystery”.
St. Margaret added, “it was at this time that with all my strength I sought my consolation in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. But being in a country-house far from church, I could not go there without the consent of these same persons; and it so happened that the permission granted by one was often withheld by the other.
When my tears showed the pain I felt, they accused me of having made an appointment with someone, saying that I concealed it under the pretext of going to Mass or Benediction. This was most unjust, for I would have consented rather to see myself cut into a thousand pieces than to entertain such thoughts”. “Not knowing where to seek refuge, I hid myself in a retired corner of the garden, in the stable, or in some other out-of-the-way place where I could, unobserved, kneel and pour out my heart in tears before God.
This I always did through my good Mother, the most Blessed Virgin, in whom I had placed all my confidence.” There was one spot specially dear to her, which was just on the boundary of her own garden, and there she often took refuge. Protected behind, and as it were, veiled by the thicket at the side of the house, it had directly in view the apsis containing the main altar of the church, which was less than half a mile distant.
At night the little lamp burning before the tabernacle could also be seen. St. Margaret was often found praying on her knees in those retired corners of the house, sometimes even forgot to go to bed.
She said, “sometimes the poor villagers, pitying my condition, gave me in the evening a little fruit or milk. When I ventured to return to the house, it was with such fear and trembling as, it seems to me, a poor criminal endures when about to receive a sentence of condemnation.” Despite being unfairly mistreated, St.
Margaret took extreme precaution not to reveal the guilty. “God permitted my mother,” she said, “to be deprived of authority in her own house, and to be forced to yield it to others. Those in charge so lorded it over her that both she and I were soon reduced to a state of captivity.
It is not my intention in what I am going to say to blame those persons. I do not wish to think that they did wrong in making me suffer. Far from me such a thought, my God!
I regard them rather as instruments of whom God made use to accomplish His holy will.” To sustain her in such trials, the Lord also began to appear to St. Margaret, ordinarily “under the form of the Crucified, or of the Ecce Homo, or as carrying His Cross”.
This sight roused her soul to love so great, that the hardships she endured, the slavery, contempt, beggary, and even the blows she received, appeared to her light and sweet. “Sometimes,” said she, “when they were about to strike me, I was distressed that their raised hands were stayed, and that they did not exercise upon me all their strength. I felt constantly urged to render all sorts of good services to these person, as to the true friends of my soul.
I had no greater pleasure than to do and say all the good I could of them”. She repeats that it is not she that is acting thus, it is her Sovereign Lord, who was making Himself master of her soul, and directing her in all things.