From December 27, 2023 to June 2025 we will be celebrating internationally the 350th anniversary of the apparitions to St. Margaret Mary.
In order to prepare, we will post these revelations and in time, reflect upon them. These passages are taken from the Life of the Blessed St Margaret Mary Alacoque, by Bishop Bougaud.
First revelation here: First Revelation of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary | Visitation Spirit
SECOND REVELATION.
1674.
This second revelation is the only one of which we know not the exact date. It certainly took place in
1674, before the arrival at Paray of Father de la Colombière, who came in the autumn of this year. As the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, it could not be, according to the custom of the times, other than the feast of the Visitation, or during the octave of Corpus Christi. On the other hand, it seems to follow from Margaret’s account that it was on Friday, and the first Friday of the month. We think, therefore, that it was in the beginning of June, and the Friday in the octave of Cor. pus Christi.
Let us hear the Sister’s recital: “Once when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, my soul being ab sorbed in extraordinary recollection, Jesus Christ, my sweet Master, presented Himself to me. He was brilliant with glory; His five wounds shone like five suns、 Flames darted forth from all parts of His sacred humanity, but especially from His adorable breast, which resembled a furnace, and which, opening, displayed to me His loving and amiable Heart, the living source of these flames.’
In recounting the first apparition, Margaret Mary had not described the adorable person of the Lord, because, probably, it had not the same glorious character as this one. It was a less royal, perhaps a more intimate, communication. “He made me,” she says in speaking of the first, “rest a long time on His breast,” which it might seem would agree not well with the splendors, the flames that enveloped Jesus in the second apparition. However, this difference in form corresponds to the difference of spirit in which they were made. Till that hour Jesus was the Friend, the Father, making a tender effort to save His children. Now He is the outraged Spouse, the unacknowledged King about to demand reparation. Whilst Margaret, trembling with emotion, was contemplating Him, “He unfolded to me,” she says, “the inexplicable wonders of His pure love, 1 Mémoire, p. 327.
and to what an excess He had carried it for the love of men, from whom He had received only ingratitude. ‘This is,’ He said, ‘much more painful to Me than all I suffered in My Passion. If men rendered Me some return of love, I should esteem little all I have done for them, and should wish, if such could be, to suffer it over again; but they meet My eager love with coldness and rebuffs. Do you, at least,’ said He in conclusion, ‘console and rejoice Me, by supplying as much as you can for their ingratitude.’”
After having shown in the first revelation the true principle of the new devotion, namely, a love whose flames He could no longer confine in His Heart, Jesus now revealed its character. This devotion would be an amende honorable and an expiation for all the crimes of the world, a consolation for His forsaken Heart. He appealed to some chosen souls to come and supply at the foot of the altars for those that do not love Him; and, by their love and adoration, to render the homage He no longer receives from the multitude grown cold and indifferent. “Do thou, at least,” and in speaking thus the Lord addressed Himself to all pious souls, “give Me the consolation of beholding thee supplying for their ingratitude, as far as thou canst.”
Margaret excused herself on the plea of incapacity. “Fear not,” said Jesus; “behold, here is wherewith to furnish all that is wanting to thee.” “And at that moment,” continued Margaret, “the Divine Heart being opened, there shot forth a flame so ardent that I thought I should be consumed by it.” Admirable symbol of what this new devotion was going to become in the Church, of that universal re-warming of hearts of which we shall try later to trace the consoling picture!
Thoroughly penetrated with this burning flame, and unable longer to endure the fire, Margaret implored our Saviour to have pity on her weakness. “Fear nothing,”
said He to her; “I shall be thy strength. Listen only to what I desire of thee to prepare thee for the accomplishment of My designs.“ Then the Lord asked two things of her: the first, to communicate every first Friday of each month to make Him the amende honorable; the second, to rise between eleven o’clock and midnight on the night between Thursday and Friday of every week, and to prostrate for an hour with her face to the ground, in expiation of the sins of men, and to console His Heart for that general desertion, to which the weakness of the apostles in the Garden of Olives had been only a slight prelude.
“During all this time,” says Margaret Mary, “I was unconscious, I knew not where I was. Some of the Sisters came to take me away, and, seeing that I could neither reply nor support myself on my feet, they led me to our Mother, who found me quite out of myself, trembling and as if on fire.” When Margaret Mary told her what had just taken place, whether she believed or not, or whether she feigned not to believe it, Mother de Saumaise humbled her as deeply as she could-” which gave me extreme pleasure, caused me inconceivable joy,” says Margaret Mary; “for I felt myself such a criminal, I was filled with such confusion, that, however rigorous might be the treatment bestowed upon me, it would still have seemed to me too lenient.”
“The fire that devoured me,” continues Margaret Mary in a style that grows eloquent with the subject, “brought on continual fever; but I rejoiced too much in suffering to complain of it. I never spoke of it but when my strength was completely gone. Never have I felt so much consolation. My whole body was racked by extreme pain, and this relieved a little the parching thirst I felt to suffer. This devouring fire could neither be fed nor satisfied but with the wood of the cross; namely, with contempt of all kinds, humiliations,&pains. Never was my bodily suffering equal to what I experienced from not suffering enough. The Sisters thought I would surely die.”
Dr. Billiet, the attendant physician, declared that Blessed Margaret Mary had sixty consecutive fevers that resisted every remedy employed to moderate their ardor. Mother de Saumaise, very much perplexed, at last resorted to the following expedient. She approached the bed of the apparently dying Sister, and commanded her in the name of obedience to ask her restoration of God, adding that she would recognize it as a sign of the supernatural character of all that had taken place in her regard. She would then, she said, permit her to make the Communion of the first Friday of every month, and the hour’s prayer during the night between Thursday and Friday. Margaret experienced strong repugnance to asking a termination of her sufferings, fearing, she said, “to be heard.” But at the word obedience, she no longer hesitated. Scarcely had she uttered a short prayer before her fever fell, her pulse beat less rapidly, and the astonished physician pronounced her cured. There was, however, little need for the doctor to make this assertion, for the saint arose; and from that day the Sisters remarked a total change in her health. Mother de Saumaise did not resist the voice of God. She granted Margaret Mary the permission to communicate the first Friday of the month, and for the future to rise on the night between Thursday and Friday.
Meanwhile Mother de Saumaise became more and more embarrassed. This cure, which looked like a miracle and which perhaps was one, caused her to reflect most seriously on the propriety of acknowledging the incontestable sanctity of Sister Margaret. But, on the other hand, Margaret was very young, hardly six-and-twenty, and counted but two years of religious life. The visions that she related were, more.
over, very extraordinary. Was not some illusion to be feared? Finally, Mother de Saumaise resolved to consult others; and breaking silence for the first time, she conferred on the subject with some religious whose names we do not know-“learned people,” say our old Mémoires. But whether Margaret, so timid and so humble, was herself not understood, or whether the advisers of Mother de Saumaise entertained certain prejudices on the score of supernatural manifestations, a thing not unfrequent even among priests and pious religious, her conferences led to the conclusion that in Margaret Mary’s case there was much imagination, a little natural temperament, and perhaps even some illusion of the evil spirit, so skilfully disguised that the good Sister could not perceive it.
The perplexity of Margaret’s judges was thus increased instead of diminished. Condemned by her Superiors and confessors, the poor Sister knew not which way to turn. “I made,” said she, “every effort to resist my interior attractions, believing that I was assuredly in error. But I could not succeed. I no longer doubted that I was abandoned, since I was told that it was not the Spirit of God that governed me; and yet it was impossible for me to resist the Spirit that moved me.” One day, when drooping under the weight of this continued anxiety, and pouring out her plaintive wail at the feet of her Lord, she seemed to hear a voice saying to her: “Have patience, and await My servant.” She knew not what the words meant, but they poured a little balm into her soul, and she felt that God would come to her assistance in His own good time.’
Things were in this state when Mother de Saumaise announced to her Community one day that a pious conference would be given them by a religious of the Society of Jesus who had just arrived at Paray, and who had the reputation of speaking eloquently of the things of God. 1 Contemp., p. 81. 2 Mémoire, p. 345.
His name was Father de la Colombière. We are astonished that a man who, in spite of his youth, was already so celebrated, and who from his entrance into the Society had given promise of attaining high renown, should be sent to so small a place as Paray. We read in the sequel the divine purpose of this sending. Father de la Colombière came in time for the greatest perplexities (for it was very likely the morrow of the second revelation, so badly understood by “the learned people” of Paray, and the eve of the third and last, the most important of all). He was going, in few words, to evoke light in the midst of darkness.
Sister Margaret Mary went with the other Sisters to the conference, Father de la Colombière’s name not having made upon her the slightest impression. But he had hardly opened his lips when she distinctly heard these words: “Behold him whom I send to thee.” Accustomed to await God’s moments without anticipating them, scarcely had she rested her eyes on the Father when she remitted to God, who had sent him, the care of making her known to him.
The Ember days came. Father de la Colombière having been deputed to hear the confessions of the Community, Margaret Mary remarked that, although he had never seen her, yet he spoke as if he knew what was passing in her soul. He detained her a long time, and even offered to see her again the next day, in order to receive a thorough manifestation of her interior state. These advances could not come more opportunely. But Margaret did not wish to open her heart to him; and as to the second proposition, she replied humbly and timidly that she would do what obedience ordered her.
Very probably it was the venerable Mother de Saumaise who had spoken to Father de la Colombière of Margaret’s state, that she might be able to add the opinion and advice of a pious and eloquent man to those
that she already had: though perhaps it was God Him、 self who had thus enlightened His servant, that He might extend to His faithful spouse the direction of which she had so great need. Be this as it may, a few days later the Father returned and asked for Sister Margaret Mary. “Although I knew,” said she,” that it was the will of God for me to speak to him, yet I felt extreme repugnance to answering his summons.’ Her repugnance, however, lasted but a moment. Gained by the piety and sweetness of the holy religious, and interiorly excited by grace, Margaret Mary confided to him the secrets of her heart. The interview was long, and Sister Margaret Mary came forth from it enlightened and consoled. “He assured me,” she said, “that there was nothing to be feared in the guidance of this Spirit, inasmuch as it did not withdraw me from obedience; that I ought to follow its movements, and abandon my whole being to it, to be sacrificed and immolated according to its good pleasure. He admired the great goodness of our God in not withdrawing His favors in the face of so much resistance, taught me to esteem the gifts of God, and to receive with respect and humility the frequent communications and familiar entertainments with which He favored me. The Father added that my thanksgiving for so great goodness ought to be continual. When I had told him that my soul was pursued so closely by the Sovereign Goodness without regard to time or place, that I could not pray vocally without doing myself violence so great that I sometimes remained with my mouth open unable to pronounce a word, and that this happened particularly whilst saying the Rosary, he told me to make such efforts no more, and to confine myself to my vocal prayers of obligation. When I told him something of the special caresses and loving union of soul I received from my Well-beloved, and which I cannot describe here, he replied that I hadgreat reason to humble myself, and to admire with him the wonderful mercy of God in my regard.”‘
We have quoted this entire page, because in very brief form it contains true light. There is something elevated, sensible, sweet, and pious in it. It is, besides, the great word of Father de la Colombière. He did, undoubtedly, utter many others. He preached long, he made known God’s truth in France and England. But, notwithstanding all this, he was most probably created, led from afar, divinely prepared by a chain of hidden marvels expressly to speak this word. That done, he retires, his mission finished. He had played his part. Assuredly there is none either more glorious or more useful; for in enlightening one such soul he has enlightened millions. He contributed largely to the good of the Church by giving her bark tossed by a frightful tempest the stroke of the oar that was to enable her to clear rugged obstacles. But Father de la Colombière did not retire and leave his work unfinished. We shall see him again at the decisive moment of the third revelation, when he will once more sustain and enlighten the Sister. He will study seriously this last and highest manifestation of God’s will, after which he will be the first to prostrate with our saint and consecrate himself to the Sacred Heart.