For years, the convent of Paray-le-Monial had been a place of painful isolation for Margaret Mary. But once the internal divisions were healed and the sisters were united in adoration before the altar, the devotion could no longer be contained within those cloistered stone walls. Margaret Mary knew that to fulfill Christ’s mandate, the image of the Sacred Heart had to reach the universal Church.Word of this beautiful new devotion began to spread beyond the convent, and the public's desire to possess the image grew intensely.
Margaret Mary quickly realized that simple, hand-drawn sketches on paper or vellum were no longer enough to satisfy the faithful. "It was to be," she urged her supporters, *"a picture struck from a stamp, or a plate, so that every one could freely purchase according to his devotion." The quest for this master image, however, was fraught with frustrating delays.
A Jesuit Father from Lyons initially promised to oversee the creation of a copper plate, but because he was constantly traveling on missions, he accomplished nothing. After navigating a thousand difficulties just to retrieve the original model from his hands, Margaret Mary sent it to Mother de Saumaise in Dijon.There, a talented young nun named Sister Jeanne-Madeleine Joly undertook the task with simplicity and grace.
She drew a new model that perfectly captured Margaret Mary's heavenly ideal. After many unsuccessful preliminary attempts to have it produced locally, this precious design was finally sent to Paris. There, with the help of the first convent, a master engraver painstakingly carved the flaming heart into a long-desired copper plate. When the heavy press came down on the first sheets of paper, the first official, mass-produced prints of the Sacred Heart were born, ready to travel across the rugged French countryside.But the picture alone was not enough; the people needed to understand the profound theology behind it.
Sister Joly, driven by the same burning zeal, composed a tiny manual explaining the picture and offering suitable prayers and litanies. It was quickly printed, approved by the diocese, and distributed alongside the images. Soon, the devotion took flight. Manuscript copies of the prayers failed to meet the soaring demand. In cities like Lyons, students copied the litanies by hand until eager laypeople and workmen stepped forward to fund multiple printed editions of these little books, exhausting the first runs in a wondrously short time.The highest act of homage, however, still remained: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Sister Joly courageously composed a Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart. When an initial petition to Rome was met with the reply that the time had not yet come for universal Church approbation, Margaret Mary was pierced with sorrow. Yet, encouraged by Vatican counsel to establish the devotion locally first, the sisters pressed on. On February 4, 1689, the first Mass ever said in the Catholic Church in honor of the Heart of Jesus was celebrated privately in Dijon.This quiet milestone culminated in a grand public fête just after Easter.
The Ducal Chapter marched in a solemn procession to the church with musical accompaniment, officially inaugurating public devotion. A Confraternity for Perpetual Adoration was established, filling six large volumes with names in mere days. From a hidden French convent, fueled by printed images and little books, the devotion surged outward, knocking at the doors of the Vatican and forever changing the spiritual landscape of the world.