by Wyatt North
“Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ. God is a spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray.”
– St. Louis de Montfort
The life of Louis Marie Grignon, born in Montfort, France in 1673, was devoted to Mary, the Blessed Mother. He was ordained a diocesan priest in 1700 and spent years ministering to the poor and preaching parish missions after Pope Clement XI gave him the title of Apostolic Missionary. His message was simple—accepting God’s will for one’s life as the Virgin Mary did. He founded two congregations, the Missionaries of the Company of Mary for priests and other male religious practitioners and the Daughters of Wisdom, dedicated to providing care for the ill. He also established several free schools for poor children. While his missions brought thousands back to the faith, they also garnered complaints from Church authorities because Louis recommended daily Holy Communion, which was not the custom. Louis died in 1716 after a brief illness at the age of 43, having accomplished much in his brief 16 years as a priest. Stories of miracles occurring among those who prayed at his tomb began to circulate shortly after his burial in the parish church in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre. He was canonized in 1947.
“The Rosary is a priceless treasure inspired by God.”
– St. Louis De Monfort
St. John Paul II credited St. Louis de Montfort for his choice of “Totus Tuus,” or “totally thine,” as his apostolic motto. He explained in Crossing the Threshold of Hope that his personal consecration to Mary was based on the spiritual approach of St. Louis de Montfort: “Thanks to St. Louis de Montfort, I came to understand that true devotion to the Mother of God is actually Christocentric; indeed, it is very profoundly rooted in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity and the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption.” As a seminarian, the pontiff had read and reread the writings of de Montfort. John Paul II borrowed the phrase “totus tuus” from a prayer he found in de Montfort’s book, True Devotion to Mary. The prayer begins (in Latin) with these words, “Totus tuus ergo sum, et omnia mea tua sunt,” which translate as “I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours.” The prayer concludes with “I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart."
“Angel of God and well-beloved brother, I trust myself to your beneficence and implore you humbly to intercede for me with my Spouse, so that He may forgive me my sins, strengthen me in well-doing, help me by His grace to correct my faults, and lead me to Paradise, there to taste the fruition of His presence and to possess eternal life. Amen.”
– St. Lydwina of Schiedam
At the age of 15, Lydwina, born into a large working-class family in Schiedam, Holland, fell while ice skating and broke her rib. It marked the beginning of a steady physical decline that culminated in her death at the age of 54. Scientists today believe she may have suffered from multiple sclerosis, which would make her case the first recorded instance of the disease. Throughout her life, Lydwina suffered headaches, vomiting, muscle spasms, extreme thirst, neuritis, blindness, paralysis, and more, with brief periods of remission. Bedridden much of the time, she became known as a mystic who experienced supernatural visions and the stigmata. She bore her suffering as the will of God and offered up her pain as atonement for the sins of all humanity. She was confirmed a saint in 1890 by Pope Leo XIII and is the patron of the chronically ill, skaters, and her hometown of Schiedam.
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“As iron is fashioned by fire and on the anvil, so in the fire of suffering and under the weight of trials our souls receive that form which our Lord desires them to have.”
– St. Madeline-Sophie Barat
Born in the French village of Joigny in 1779, Madeline-Sophie Barat received her early education from her older brother, a priest. She and three other young women were accepted into religious life by a priest her brother recommended her to, who envisioned a female counterpart of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. They formed the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1800 with two goals: revealing God’s love to the world and educating children to be a source of transformation in the world. They founded a convent and school in 1801, and the following year, Madeline was named Superior though she was only 23. She held that position for 63 years. During that time the Society grew and established communities throughout France—more than 100 houses and schools in 12 countries. By the time of her death in 1865, there were 3,359 women in the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and today there are more than 2,500 members in provinces in 41 countries. St. Madeline-Sophie Barat was canonized in 1925.
“We should always look to God as in ourselves, no matter in what manner we meditate upon Him, so as to accustom ourselves to dwell in His divine presence. For when we behold Him within our souls, all our powers and faculties, and even our senses, are recollected within us. If we look at God apart from ourselves, we are easily distracted by exterior objects.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Margaret Alacoque was born in 1647 in L’Hautecour, France, the daughter of a notary who would die of pneumonia when she was only eight years old. Her parents were devout Catholics who imparted their values to their daughter, who soon showed a preference for prayer and silence over childhood games. After her father’s death, Margaret was sent to the school operated by the Poor Clares at Charolles, where she secretly practiced corporal mortifications. Her piety impressed the nuns and she was allowed to make her First Communion at the age of nine, several years ahead of what was the custom at the time. A bout of rheumatic fever left her bedridden from the age of ten until she was fifteen. During her illness she developed a profound devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
“Believe me, do not be cast down or grieved at the small vexations by which it pleases our Lord to try your love and patience; but endeavor rather to conform your will to His, letting Him do with you according to His desire, which is, that you should remain peaceful and resigned in the midst of your difficulties.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
The Alacoque family’s circumstances were drastically altered by the death of Claude, Margaret’s father. He had not managed his money well and left his wife and children with little to live on. When Margaret was returned to recuperate from complications of rheumatic fever, it was to a household that had been taken over by relatives of her father. Margaret and her mother, Philiberte, were treated as little more than servants. Once Margaret recovered, her relatives controlled when she could leave the house and where she could go, and she often cried over her inability to go to church very often. It was a difficult time for Margaret, but everything improved when her eldest brother reached the age of majority and control of the property reverted to him.
“In order to make good use of time, we must love ardently and constantly; we must surrender ourselves entirely to love, leaving it to act for us. Be satisfied to adhere to it in everything but always with profound humility.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
For a brief period in her teens, encouraged by her brothers, Margaret began to go out into the world and participate in activities commonly enjoyed by young ladies of her age and station. Throughout her life she agonized over having worn jewelry and a carnival mask—acts she deemed frivolous and sinful. When she returned from a ball one evening, Christ appeared to her in a vision, bleeding from his scourging and chastising her for being unfaithful to him. Shortly thereafter, Margaret rebuffed her mother’s attempts to arrange a marriage for her and entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial, taking the name Margaret Mary.
“I am very glad that our divine Master has shown you that these trials add to the burden of your office; for He wishes them to be the cause of your having more frequent recourse to His Goodness, which will turn all these things to His glory and to your advantage, if you second His designs.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to a Superioress
Sister Margaret Mary chose to impose suffering upon her
self in the form of corporal mortifications as she had when she was younger. One of her greatest desires was to suffer, as she had nothing to give the Lord other than her love. She offered her suffering to Him as proof of her love and her willingness to die to be united with Him. It was a practice she continued throughout her life. She also believed that by sharing the sufferings of souls in Purgatory, she would rescue them from the fires.
“You see plainly that I do not mean to advise you to perform great austerities, but rather generously to mortify your passions and inclinations, detaching your heart and emptying it of all that is earthly, and exercising charity towards your neighbor and liberality towards the poor.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Margaret Mary experienced her first vision of Christ on December 27, 1673. She described a feeling of being suffused by the Divine Presence and reported that Christ invited her to take the place occupied by St. John at the Last Supper, at His right hand. The Lord told her she would be the instrument through which he would reveal the love and graces of His heart to mankind. Margaret Mary would continue to receive the Lord’s revelations over the next eighteen months.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ desires that we should, for sanctifying ourselves, glorify His all-loving Heart; for it was His Heart that suffered the most in His Sacred Humanity.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
It was during her conversations with Christ that He gave Margaret Mary the mission of establishing the devotion to His Sacred Heart. Her efforts to carrying out His instructions to perform specific devotions, brought her much criticism, and her superior, Mother de Saumaise, commanded Margaret Mary to live the common life in accordance with the maxim of the Visitation order’s founder, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, “not to be extraordinary except by being ordinary.” Though her humility and charity toward her critics eventually won over Mother de Saumaise, others in the community continued in their opposition to Margaret Mary’s ideas, and a group of theologians considering her delusional, advised her to adopt a healthier diet.
“I can say nothing more, except that the effacement of yourself will raise you to union with your Sovereign Good. By forgetting self, you will possess Him, and by yielding yourself up to Him, He will possess you.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
One of the devotions Margaret Mary was instructed by Christ to implement was to lie prostrate from 11:00 pm to midnight on the eve of the first Friday of every month, to share in His loneliness and sorrow in Gethsemane, and to receive Holy Communion on that Friday. He also commanded her to establish the feast of the Sacred Heart. It was not until 1683 when a new superior was named and appointed Margaret Mary as her assistant that the opposition to her efforts to obey these instructions ceased. The convent first observed the feast of the Sacred Heart privately in 1686, after Margaret Mary had become Mistress of Novices. Two years later a chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart was built on convent grounds.
“The Sacred Heart of Christ is an inexhaustible fountain and its sole desire is to pour itself out into the hearts of the humble so as to free them and prepare them to lead lives according to his good pleasure.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
One of the instructions Margaret Mary was given by Christ was for Louis IV to consecrate the nation of France to His Sacred Heart. He did not, and neither did his successor, Louis XV. Louis XVI did consecrate France to the Sacred Heart before his imprisonment during the French Revolution, but it was too late to save himself and his queen from the guillotine or France from the violence and turmoil that would continue for another six years.
“It seems to me that the happiness of a soul consists entirely in conforming to the most adorable Will of God; for in so doing the heart finds peace and the spirit joy and repose, since he ‘who is joined to the Lord in one spirit’ with Him.” (1 Cor. 6:17).
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Much of what is known about the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque comes from her autobiography and from the letters she wrote to her superior, to other sisters, and to those who wrote to her inquiring about the Sacred Heart. St. Claude La Colombiere, her confessor at the time the Lord made His revelations about His Sacred Heart, recorded the details of each visitation as Margaret Mary described them to him. These accounts incorporate the words of the Lord, which Mary Margaret was able to recall and repeat in great detail after each vision, including the twelve promises of the Sacred Heart.
“Affliction or consolation, health or sickness, is all one to a heart that loves. Since we wish only to please God, it should be enough for us that His Will is accomplished.”
– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Margaret Mary died in 1690, and Pope Clement XIII approved the devotion to the Sacred Heart 75 years later. She was canonized in 1920. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. John Eudes, and St. Claude La Colombiere are known as the Saints of the Sacred Heart. St. Claude La Colombiere served for a time as the confessor for the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial and declared Margaret Mary’s visions genuine when others were skeptical.
“Trials are nothing else but the forge that purifies the soul of all its imperfections.”
– St. Mary Magdalene de'Pazzi
St. Mary Magdalene was born Catherine in 1566 in Florence, Italy, into the wealthy and noble de‘Pazzi family. When Catherine was nine, the family chaplain, at the request of her mother, taught her a form of prayer that involved 30 minutes of meditation. When she was twelve, viewing a spectacular sunset with her mother, Catherine experienced the first of the many ecstasies that would continue throughout her life. Shortly after making her First Communion, she made a vow of lifelong virginity, and when she was ready to enter religious life, she looked specifically for a monastery where the nuns took Communion every day, which was not the norm at the time. She found what she was looking for in the Carmelite monastery of St. Mary’s of the Angels. She entered the monastery at the age of 16, taking the name Mary Magdalene, and soon had the second of the mystical experiences that would eventually result in her being known as the “ecstatic saint.” Her confessor, to ensure the authenticity of her revelations and provide a written record of them, instructed her to dictate them to the other sisters. During the next six years, the sisters filled five large volumes documenting Sister Mary Magdalene’s mystical experiences.
“Oh! Could you but see the beauty of a soul in the grace of God, you would be so much enamored of it that you would do nothing else but ask souls of God; and, on the contrary, could a soul in mortal sin be placed before your eyes, you would do nothing but weep, and you would hate sin more than the devil himself and always pray for the conversion of sinners.”
– St. Mary Magdalene de’Pazzi
Sister Mary Magdalene suffered greatly throughout her life. She regarded her frequent illnesses, emotional pain, self-doubt, spiritual torment, and self-inflicted corporal punishments as gifts from God intended to help her become more obedient, holy, and worthy of His love. Though she was initially refused early profession, she was allowed to profess from a stretcher at the altar when she became seriously ill. Her symptoms continued to worsen during the forty days of ecstasies that ensued and were only relieved when she requested the intercession of Blessed Mary Bagnesi. Her revelations during that forty-day period filled an entire volume of the record being maintained by the sisters of St. Mary’s of the Angels. Her dictated account shows the personal relationship of Mary Magdalene’s relationship with Christ. In one often quoted example, Jesus repeatedly offered her a choice between a crown of thorns and a crown of flowers. She always chose the crown of thorns, and Jesus kept pushing the crown of flowers toward her, as if teasing her. When he finally said, “I called you and you didn’t care,” she responded, “You didn’t call loudly enough.” During the five years of spiritual trial that followed, and long afterward, Mary Magdalene flagellated herself with a crown of thorns and was known to secure thorns and nails beneath her clothing to suffer as Christ had suffered.