As a child, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque loved to recite the Rosary

As a child, Margaret loved to recite the Rosary. She would kiss the ground at each Hail Mary. At the age of 9, she practiced severe mortification of the body, in secret, until paralysis kept her bedridden for four years. After making a vow to the Virgin to enter religious life, she was healed on the spot. In gratitude, on the day of her confirmation, she added the name of Mary to her baptismal name.

On May 25, 1671, Margaret Mary entered the monastery of the Visitation of Mary, in Paray-le-Monial (France). Of fragile health, she was still practicing her penitential floggings, when Christ appeared to her several times in the convent.

The most famous of these apparitions occurred in June 1675. On that day, Jesus showed her his Sacred Heart, saying: “Behold this Heart, which has so loved men that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love. In return, I … only receive ingratitude.” From then on, Margaret Mary was given the mission to establish a special devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Inspired by Christ, Margaret Mary established the practice of Holy Hour. For her, it consisted in praying, lying face down against the ground, from 11 pm to midnight on the first Thursday of each month, to share the mortal sadness that Jesus had experienced when he was abandoned by his Apostles in his Agony. Since the revelation of the Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary, the Church has established the feast of the Sacred Heart on the Friday following the octave of Corpus Christi.

Source: Notre Dame des Neiges