{"id":"st-margaret-mary-alacoque","name":"St. Margaret Mary Alacoque","title":"Apostle of the Sacred Heart","knownFor":"Revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus","feastDay":"October 16","lifespan":"1647-1690","patronOf":"Devotees of the Sacred Heart, Polio Patients, Loss of Parents","shortBio":"A French Visitation nun who received visions of Jesus revealing His Sacred Heart. Through her, Christ established the devotion to the Sacred Heart, including the Nine First Fridays and the Holy Hour.","fullBio":"Born Marguerite Alacoque in Lhautecour, France, to Claude and Philiberte Alacoque, Margaret Mary experienced profound suffering from an early age. Her father died when she was eight, plunging the family into poverty. She was struck with rheumatic fever that left her paralyzed for four years.\n\nAt age 15, after vowing herself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she was miraculously healed. Despite pressure to marry, she entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial in 1671 at age 22, after a vision of Christ reproached her for worldliness.\n\nBetween 1673 and 1675, she received a series of revelations from Jesus Christ. He showed her His Sacred Heart, wounded by humanity's ingratitude, and appointed her to spread devotion to His heart. Christ requested the establishment of the Nine First Fridays devotion, the Holy Hour of adoration, and a feast in honor of His Sacred Heart.\n\nInitially rejected by her community as delusional, she found support from her confessor, St. Claude La Colombière, who validated her visions. The devotion she promoted would eventually spread throughout the universal Church, though official approval came only 75 years after her death.\n\nShe spent her final years in suffering and prayer, dying on October 17, 1690. Her body was found incorrupt when her tomb was opened in 1830, confirming her sanctity.","miracles":["Miraculous healing from paralysis at age 15 after prayer to the Virgin Mary","Received multiple visions of Christ revealing His Sacred Heart","Body found incorrupt 140 years after death","Two instantaneous cures occurred when her tomb was opened in 1830","The worldwide spread of Sacred Heart devotion from her private revelations"],"imageUrl":"https://page.gensparksite.com/v1/base64_upload/404f3933e7f66cd147ba7bfcc107dc28","imageAttribution":"The Apparition of the Sacred Heart by José María Obregón (1866). Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), Mexico City. Oil on canvas","orderByDate":1690}