St. Margaret Mary & the Immaculate Heart — Lessons on the Sacred Heart

When to read this: When you want to understand the human story behind the devotion — a woman called crazy by her own community, a Jesuit who saw the truth, and why the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart are inseparable.

St. Margaret Mary & the Immaculate Heart

“The human heart that said yes, and the divine heart that loved to the end”

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was a Visitation nun in late seventeenth-century France who claimed that Jesus showed her His heart: a physical heart, burning with love, surrounded by thorns, wounded by the sins of humanity. She saw it. She heard it. She was told to spread the devotion.

And in her own community, she died with a reputation for being out of her mind.

Her sisters didn’t understand what was happening to her. They saw a woman who spoke of visions no one else could see, who carried a burden no one else could feel. They thought she was unhinged. But her spiritual director(Blessed Claude de la Colombière of the Society of Jesus) looked at her revelations and recognized something entirely different: the divine origin of a devotion that would reshape Catholic spirituality for centuries.

The difference between being called crazy and being recognized as a saint? One person who saw what others couldn’t.

But Margaret Mary is only the beginning of this story. Because the devotion she received was never just about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was always about the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the human heart that said yes at the Annunciation, that stood at the foot of the cross, that received the Sacred Heart in a way no other creature ever could.

The Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart are not two devotions on two shelves. They are one mystery of love: divine love and human love, perfectly united.

June 27 — The Woman Who Saw

Margaret Mary and the Revelations

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was not a theologian. She was not a priest. She was not a philosopher. She was a nun … a simple Visitation sister in Paray-le-Monial, France … who experienced visions of Jesus showing her His heart and speaking to her about the urgency of devotion to it.

These were not private devotions she invented. They were revelations given to her by Christ Himself. And they were extraordinary.

The first promise: “I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life” was the beginning of a lifetime of extraordinary graces given to those who devote themselves to the Heart of Jesus. But there were many more revelations than the twelve we commonly associate with the Sacred Heart. These twelve synthesize all the others. They are the distilled essence of what Jesus wanted the world to know about His heart.

Margaret Mary was told to promote this devotion. She did. And in her own community, her sisters thought she was out of her mind.

Called Crazy

Saint Margaret Mary died in her community with a reputation for being out of her mind. Her sisters couldn’t understand what was happening to her. But her spiritual director, Blessed Claude de la Colombière, recognized the divine origin of her revelations. The difference between being called crazy and being recognized as a saint? One person who saw what others couldn’t.

This is the human side of the devotion. Not a polished theological treatise. Not a papal encyclical. A woman, a vision, a Jesuit who believed her, and a devotion that changed the Catholic world.

June 28 — The Jesuit Who Believed

La Colombière and the Spread of the Devotion

The immediate reason the Society of Jesus was given the task of promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart is simple: Blessed Claude de la Colombière believed what Saint Margaret Mary saw.

As a Jesuit priest, La Colombière was trained to be skeptical. He was educated, disciplined, and accustomed to discerning the authenticity of spiritual experiences. When Margaret Mary came to him with her visions, he didn’t immediately accept them. He tested them. He examined them against Scripture, against tradition, against the teaching of the Church. And he concluded, correctly, that they were of divine origin.

Once he believed, he acted. He promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the Society of Jesus. He wrote about it. He taught it. He made it part of Jesuit spirituality. And in doing so, he ensured that this devotion, born in a small French convent, dismissed by Margaret Mary’s own sisters, would spread across the Catholic world.

Fr. Hardon drew attention to something important here: the Jesuit connection is not incidental. The Society of Jesus was founded to promote the glory of God and the salvation of souls. And devotion to the Sacred Heart, with its emphasis on love, reparation, and the conversion of sinners, is one of the most powerful tools for achieving those ends.

The devotion spread because a Jesuit priest looked at a woman’s visions, recognized their authenticity, and had the courage to act on what he saw. That’s how truth often wins: not through force, but through the conviction of one person who refused to let something true be ignored.

June 29 — The Human Heart That Said Yes

The Immaculate Heart at the Annunciation

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is inseparable from its Marian dimension. This is not a later addition. It is built into the revelation itself.

Mary’s Immaculate Heart is the human heart that loved God most perfectly in this life. It is the heart that said “yes” at the Annunciation. It was not a passive yes, but a total, unqualified surrender to the will of God. It is the heart that conceived, bore, and presented to the Father the Son of God made man. It is the heart that stood at the foot of the cross and did not run away.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the divine heart that loved God and loved us to the end, to the point of death on a cross. But that love was made possible by Mary’s yes. Without her consent, the Incarnation does not happen. Without the Incarnation, there is no Cross. Without the Cross, there is no Sacred Heart.

Mary’s heart is the human answer to God’s love. Jesus’ heart is the divine answer to human sin. Together, they represent the fullness of love: human love and divine love, perfectly united in the mystery of the Incarnation.

She Said Yes

Mary’s Immaculate Heart is the human heart that loved God most perfectly. She said “yes” at the Annunciation, a total surrender. Without her yes, the Incarnation does not happen. Without the Incarnation, there is no Cross. Without the Cross, there is no Sacred Heart.

June 30 — The Heart That Leads Us to His

Mary and the Sacred Heart

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is incomplete without devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For it was Mary’s “yes” that made the Incarnation possible. It was her heart that bore the Son of God in her womb. It was her heart that stood at the foot of the cross, united with the sacrifice of her Son.

And it was her heart that received the Sacred Heart of Jesus, not only in the Eucharist, but in the very person of her Son.

Mary is the Mother of the Sacred Heart. She is the one who brought the Heart of God into the world. She is the one who continues to lead us to it. Every time we turn to the Sacred Heart, we are turning, through Mary, to Jesus. She is the bridge. She is the one who shows us where to look.

The Sacred Heart burns with love for us. The Immaculate Heart burns with love for the Sacred Heart. And when we pray to one, we are drawn to the other, because they are one mystery, one current of love flowing from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, through Mary’s yes, and into our hearts.

Love began with a woman’s “yes.” And love ends with our own.

— Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. — The Marian Dimension | The Divine Maternity |The Sacred Heart