The History of Devotion to the Heart of Jesus
Devotion to the Heart of Jesus spread in the seventeenth century. Its pioneer was Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus appeared and asked her to honour his Heart.
This saint, of French origin, was born in 1647 into a devout family; she entered the Visitation Sisters at the age of twenty-four. The Church celebrates her feast on 16 October.
On the day she made her religious vows, she wrote in her own blood:
“Everything from God and nothing from me; everything for God and nothing for me; everything for the sake of God and nothing for my sake.”
And elsewhere she wrote:
“The further I go, the more I see that a life without the love of Jesus is the most wretched of miseries.”
Christ appeared to this saint many times, and the Church recalls four principal apparitions,
in which Jesus pointed to his Heart, standing out from his breast, expressing his deep sorrow at people’s ingratitude.
It was the Lord himself who appointed for Saint Margaret Mary the celebration of the feast of his Sacred Heart on the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi.
Accordingly, the Visitation Sisters began celebrating this feast from 1685.
