She said Jesus had claimed her as His own right from her infancy and once she reached the age of consciousness, Jesus showed her the ugliness of sin. On May 21, 1671 she entered the Order of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial at age twenty-three, dedicating her life to the silence of the convent. It was here that the Lord Jesus appeared to her on three separate occasions to impart to her the mission of spreading devotion to his Sacred Heart.
As soon as she entered the parlour for her initial visit, she interiorly heard Jesus say, “It is here that I want you to stay.” She received the habit and took her vows on November 6, 1672 and the mystical experiences began right from the beginning of her religious life. Once she had made her vows, Jesus repeatedly appeared to her, revealing to her His desire that His Sacred Heart be honoured, and uniting her soul more deeply with His sufferings.
On the eve of every first Friday, Jesus inspired her to make a holy hour from 11:00 p.m. until midnight, lying prostrate so as to enter into His human sorrow that He suffered while abandoned by the Apostles in the Garden. On the first Friday, she was instructed to receive Holy Communion. Jesus instructed her that He desired all people to love Him and to come to know the love of His Heart.
On the Friday after the octave of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Jesus asked that a feast be established in honour of His Sacred Heart. At one point, Jesus said to her, “My divine Heart is so inflamed with love for mankind that it can no longer contain within itself the flames of its burning charity and must spread them abroad by your means.”
She saw Jesus’ Heart on fire and crowned with thorns. The flames represented Jesus’ burning love for humanity, and the thorns represented the sinful and ungrateful response of men. To her confessor Fr. Croiset, she wrote, “When I begin to write, after having got down on my knees, like a disciple before his master, I write according to what he tells me, without worrying myself in any way and without thinking about what I am writing” (letter 137, vol. III). In the devotion to the heart of Jesus, whose secrets were confided in a privileged and direct way to St. Margaret, the aspect of the centrality of Christ is truly fundamental and of primary importance.
It is not without reason that the revelations happened before the Blessed Sacrament or before the Eucharistic Christ solemnly exposed for adoration. Therefore almost inadvertently she passes from the Sacrament to the person and from the person to the Heart which is the seat and symbol par excellence of this most merciful love. The words spoken by Jesus in each of the apparitions are requests for reparation for the offences committed and perpetrated by the wickedness of humanity and to make up for the indifference towards his divine presence. In order to bring about a renewal of souls on the face of the earth, it was necessary for St. Margaret as his apostle to courageously take up the divine mandate.
The first revelation happened on the 27 December, 1673, the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple of the Lord. The lamentation of the Lord in this first apparition was: “Here is that Heart which has so loved mankind! My Heart is so passionately in love with man….that, unable to contain the flames of its ardent charity, it has to let them pour out. I have chosen you as the abyss of unworthiness and of ignorance to accomplish this great plan, so that all will appear as done by me”. The following apparitions were aimed at highlighting the deep meaning of this, as well as making known its benefits for the world. One day during the octave of Corpus Christi, St. Margaret, under the inspiration of a very special grace, was filled with the desire to make some return to our Saviour by giving love for love. Jesus himself appeared to her and said:
“You cannot give me a greater return of love than by doing what I have so often demanded”.
Then he revealed to her his Sacred Heart and said:
“Behold this Heart which has so loved men even to exhausting and consuming itself to testify to them its love; and in return, I receive from the generality of men nothing but ingratitude through the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges and coldness which they show Me in the Sacrament of My love; but what is still more painful to Me, is that there are hearts consecrated to me that treat me thus. For that reason I demand that the First Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi be set apart as a special feast to honour my Heart, that, on this day reparation be made to it with special solemnity, that the faithful receive Holy Communion in reparation for the indignities which it has received on the altars, and I promise that My Heart will expand to pour out in abundance the treasures of Divine Love on those who render it this honour”.
On this feast, visits should be made, first to thank Jesus for the infinite love shown in instituting the Blessed Sacrament; secondly, to thank him for all the times we have received Holy Communion, and for all the special blessings that we have there received, thirdly, to make acts of reparation for all the outrages which he has received from infidels and heretics; fourthly, to make reparation as far as is in our power, by our profound respect and reverence and by every kind of homage, for the irreverence, impieties and sacrileges which our Saviour has endured from Catholics; fifthly, to adore Jesus in spirit in all the churches, where the Blessed Sacrament is kept, but where the generality of people neglect it, or where it is badly kept, rarely visited or universally forgotten.
Many people on this day visit seven churches where the Blessed Sacrament is kept, trying by their fervour to make reparation for the profanations and contempt.
St. Margaret Mary died on October 17, 1690, at 43 years of age. She was canonized on 13 May, 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.