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: Second Revelation of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary | Visitation Spirit
Final Major Revelation
June 16, 1675.
It was on June 16, 1675, that the last of the grand revelations relative to the Sacred Heart took place. It was to close the cycle of those solemn disclosures. Until then the humble virgin had received from the Lord only personal favors, very like those with which other holy souls had already been favored. He had only demanded of her some individual practices of devotion. Now, however, the hour was come for Him to invest her with her grand, public mission.
During the octave of the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, June 16, 1675, Margaret Mary was on her knees before the choir-grate, her eyes fixed on the tabernacle. She had just received “some of the unmeasured graces of His love.” We have no particulars of these graces. Suddenly the Lord appeared on the altar and discovered to her His Heart.
“Behold,” said He to her, “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 receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this sacrament of love. And what is most painful to Me,” added the Saviour, in a tone that went to the Sister’s heart, “is that they are hearts consecrated to Me.” Then He commanded her to have established in the Church a particular feast to honor His Sacred Heart. “It is for this reason I ask thee that the first Friday after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament be appropriated to a special feast, to honor My Heart by communicating on that day, and making reparation for the indignity that it has received. And I promise that My Heart shall dilate to pour out abundantly the influences of its love on all that will render it this honor or procure its being rendered.”
This was the last major revelation, and the most celebrated of all. Justly the most celebrated, for all that regards the Divine Heart of Jesus is contained in it. Its principle is no other than the overflowing love of God, love making a grand effort to overcome evil; its end, to become a public devotion, having been so long a private one; and, lastly, its effects, a new effusion of divine love on the Church, and more particularly on the pious souls that become its apostles and propagators.
But whether the Lord, to leave her the full use of her natural faculties at a moment so serious, had concealed a little the splendor of His divine presence, or whether Margaret Mary, reassured by Father de la Colombière, had banished all fear and abandoned her soul entirely to the happiness of contemplating her Divine Master, we do not know. But at the close of this third revelation no trace of the violent emotion that had followed the first two was perceived. The humble virgin is recollected, attentive, happy. Although astonished at such a mission, (for who was she to establish a feast in the Church, she who could not succeed in convincing her Superiors?) but one word escaped her: “Lord, how can I?” To which the Lord answered by telling her to address herself to that servant of God who had been sent to her “expressly for the accomplishment of this design.”
Margaret Mary did, indeed, recur to Father de la Colombière, and confide to him this third revelation. The venerable priest asked for a written account of it, that he might be able to study it at leisure. We shall see later on with what religious respect he preserved the document. He examined the revelation attentively before God, and, enlightened from on high, declared to Margaret that she could rely on it, for without doubt it came from Heaven. Thus reassured, Margaret Mary no longer hesitated. She knelt before the Divine Heart of Jesus, solemnly consecrated herself to it, and thus rendered it the first and one of the purest acts of homage that it was ever to receive on earth or in heaven. Father de la Colombière, wishing to unite with her, also consecrated himself to the Heart of Jesus. It was Friday, June 21st, the day after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament; the day that had been designated by the Lord to be forever the feast-day of His Adorable Heart. Thus He received, in the person of a holy priest and of an humble virgin, the first-fruits of those acts of adoration soon to be rendered Him by all mankind.
Thus ended this glorious drama, at the same time three and one, of the revelations of the Sacred Heart. Thus was successively developed, in profound and mysterious order, that incomparable vision vouchsafed to one of the most humble of virgins. And that which in silence and ecstasy she had three times consecutively beheld in that chapel, through that grate, on that altar, the Church also was going to see. She examined this testimony, this recital, forced by obedience from the saint’s touching modesty; she declared them true and authentic; and, following the example of the humble virgin, she prostrated before the Sacred Heart.
What the Lord asked has been done. The faithful flock from all quarters on the first Friday of every month to kneel before the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to make reparation for the incomprehensible ingratitude of creatures whom He has passionately loved. In every region, also, are found Christians-wives, mothers, young girls, priests and virgins consecrated to God-who rise in the night between Thursday and Friday, who come to watch with Him, to weep with Him, and sometimes even to impress on their flesh the sacred marks of His Passion. Everywhere, in fine, throughout the Catholic Church, the Friday following the octave of the Blessed Sacrament is a solemnity consecrated to the contemplation of the tenderness, the devotedness of the best of all hearts.