LIFE OF BLESSED MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE- FROY THE FRENCH OF MONSEIGNEUR gOUGAUD #- Bisw of Laval BY A VISITANDINE OF BALTIMORE Trarrskrlor of ''2% Wky of Int& Pcacc," ck. BENZIGER BROTHERS More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com Private Use Only TO HER UPON WHOSg KNEE, A8 A LITTLE CHILD, ? WARNED TO KNOW, TO LOVE. TO ADORE THREE UCUlHE BEHWlE HER DEATH, JUNE 23, 1- ON MY RETLIRI( FRW PARAY, UY YOTHER BESOUGHT ME TO RESUME THIS BIOQIUPHY, PREVIOUSLY UNDERTAKEN AT HER REQUEST, THEN INTERRUPTED *GIIN TAKEN UP, AND ALMOST FINISHED IN THE MIDST OF THE FIRST ANXIETY 001CSECOENT ON HER ILLNESS, AND THE IWSOLABLE SORROW OF HER DEATH. TO-DAY I LAY IT ON HER TOMB AS A LAST TRIBUTE OF HOMAOB TO THE HEART OF THAT INCOMPARABLE motbcr '10 WHOM I OWE ALL. More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com CONTENTS. OU- I. State of the Church in France at the Birth of Blessed Margaret Mary. 1647 ....... 17 11. Birth of Blessed Margaret Mary-First Years- Childhood and Youth. 1647-1662 ..... 111. Margaret's Vocation-She Enters the Visitation of Paray. 1662-1671 .......... 54 IV. The Convent of Paray. 1671 ........71 V. Margaret Mary's Novitiate-God Prepares her for the Great Mission about to be intrusted to her -Her Profession. May 26. 1671-November 6, VI. Final Exterior Preparations-Last Finishing Stroke within. November 6, 1672-December 27,1673 ...............110 VII. The Aurora of the Devotion to the Sacred Hart 126 VIII. The Visitation Established to be the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart ...........142 IX. The Revelations of the Sacred Heart. 1673-1675 160 X. Almighty God Prepares the Convent of Paray to become the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. 1675-1678. ..............180 XI. Mother GreyfiC submits Margaret's Extraordinary Ways to a New Examination-Her Severity and her Fearlessness-Father de la Colombidre Returns to Paray-His Death. 1678-1684 . 194 XII. The Blessed Sister among her Novices--The Secret of the Sublime Revelations Escapes her in .Spite of herself-First Public Adoration of the Sacred Heart. 1684-1685 .......228 Private Use Only 8 Contents. .CHA~. PA= XIII. The Apoetolate of the Sacred Heart Begun-With what Modcgty and Zed Margaret Mary begins to Spread Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 1686- 1689. ................244 XIV. The Laat Grand Revelation-The King and France. 1689 .............263 XV. Margaret Mary's, Mission Ended-She is Con- sumed in the Flames of Divine Love-Her Holy Death. 1690 ...........274 XVI. Devotion .to the Heart of Jesus Begins in the World-Anger of Some, Enthusiasm of Othen a90 SV11. The First-fruits of.Devotion to the Sacred Heart -The Church of France Vivified in the Rayn of the Sacred Heart-Beatification of Blessed Mqaret Mary. ............315 XVIII. Utiexpected and Marvellous Spdof Devotion to the Heart of Jesus amid the Misfortunes of France--The Second Part of the Mission con- fided to, Blessed Margaret Mary Approaches its Accomplishment. 187-1874 .......334 NOTESAND DOCUMENTS........... 357 Note I. Margaret Mary's Birthplace ........357 Note 11. Notes upon the Alacoque Family of Audour . 363 Note 111. Genealogy of Blessed Margaret Mary ...368 Note IV. Baptismal Register of the Relations of Blessed MarpaMary ..............372 Note V. Amodiation pour .Dame Philiberte Lamyn, Widow of M. Claude Alacoque, contre Jean Colin. Ndl et Jean Delagrost et Lazare Perdon, de Charnay . 376 Note VI. Names of the Religious in the Convent of Pany at the Time of Blessed Margaret Mary's Entrance, 1671 377 Note VII. Names of the Religious that entered Paray during Margaret Mary's Lifetime (1671-1690). ...379 Decree on the V;L%U~............ 383 Decree on the Mi~wilcs ............388 Decree of Beatificari!a ............392 More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com INTRODUCTION. INthe two volumes devoted to the telling of St. de Chantal's story and the origin of the Visitation, I thought I had finished my task. But a pure, sweet voice called me, that of the first of St. Chantal's daugh- ters raised to the altar, Blessed Margaret Mary. She it was who was chosen by God to finish the work of St. Francis de Sales and his great co-operatrix. Both had labored together in the construction of the 'edifice. They dug the foundations, drew the grand plans. But the crown was wanting. It was Margaret Mary, that saintly and humble virgin, who was deputed to place it on its brow. Insome way, then, the Life of our blessed Sister is a necessary sequel to the history of St. Chantal. The biography of the one illumines and perfects that of the other. But if Blessed Margaret Mary interests us as the firsc beatified daughter of the holy founders of the Visita- tion, we hesitate not to say that she awakens our syrn- pathy from still another point of view. H~ddenin the depths of her cloister, in the seclusion of a little town far from Paris, she received a first-class mission. She was deputed by Almighty God to come to the assistance of the Church in the fulfilment of a work the greatest and, at the same time, the most formidable ever accom- plished in this world. This work, we well know, is not to remain inactive in the midst of the instability of human things, of dynasties. empires, and even whole nations, which shall sooner or later crumble into dust. Nor is it to impose on man's proud reason a collection of dogmas whose titles he has, 9 Private Use Only 10 Inlroductwn. indeed, the right to study, but which can regenerate him only by humbling him. This work, still more elevated, so luminous and yet so obscure, is to persuade man tha: God loves him. Yes, one day, from the depths of His eternity, God looked upon man ; and like some great king, some powerful genius, who falls a victim to the charms oS a little lisping child, that child his own, God was capti- vated. He loved man. He loved him even to passion, even to folly. He loved him so far as to make Himself man, in order to bridge those distances which, of what- ever nature they may be, are insupportable to love. God loved man even to suffer and to die for him. Yes, He who hangs there on that gibbet, His hands and feet pierced, His Heart opened, is God ! And what is He doing there ? He is suffering, He is dying, through love ; yea, He is dying of love ! This is what the Church is commissioned to teach to man. This is the price of his regeneration. Outside this we find only feebleness of heart, shipwreck of morals. A man may indeed be an honest man ; but the folly of sacrifice, of virginity, of devotedness, of martyrdom, arises only from faith in the folly of the Cross. This love of God for man is so great, so prodigious, that it has become a scandal to the world. It is the old and universal stumbling-block, the final reason of all schisms and all unbelief. If Arius, for example, sepa- rated from the Church, it was because he could not be- lieve that that Man who had one day appeared in Judea could, without certain equivocal expressions, without exaggeration, be truly styled the Only Son of God. There was in such abasement a grandeur of love revolt- ing to the heresiarch. Nor could Nestorius admit that the EternalSon of God had reposed in the womb of an hurrrble virgin, that he had been nourished with her milk, and that He had called her mother ! Luther and Calvin,-why did they break onew the unity of the More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com Church ? Because they could not believe either in the tribunal of reconciliation, that is, in mercy that makes no account of ingratitude; or in indulgences, that is, in one of the most tender industries of the Saviour to supply for our ever-recurring insu5ciencies ; or in the Holy Eucharist, that is, in His constant abiding with those whom He loves. Narrow hearts, which know not what it is to love ! And if in our day there are so many men that pass before the Cross wagging their head, who gaze at our altars with a smile of contempt, it is because the folly of the Cross disgusts them. Man's egotism, incapable of loving, sinks under the weight of such mysteries ; and the Church cannot draw from him this cry that would transfigure him : Et nos crcdidimps cha- rituti quam UctDcus irr nobis: " Yes, we believe that God has love for us." ' But precisely because the work is formidable, because the Church seems at some moments to bend under the weight, God comes to her aid by some master-strokes. As, when sophists multiplied, He made a sign, and we saw appear those whom we shall call volunteers, extra- ordinary agents of the truth, a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a Bossuet: in like manner, when the world grew cold, and God's love was no longer credited ; when we saw degenerate purity, sacrifice, apostleshin devotedness, and martyrdom,-all those qualities that derive their origin from the heart, but from the heart transfigured by divine love,-God made a sign, and we saw arise those whom we shall call volunteers, the extraordinary agents of love. Thus, for example, when Constantine ascended the imperial throne, the early persecutions passed ; when he extended over the Church his imperial purEjle, he introduced with those honors, though unknown to himself and without willing it, the seeds of lukewarmness. When arise those cold-hearted doctors whom we have already cited, Arius, Nestorius, I.