Happy Feastday to me

Today is the feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. St. Margaret Mary was born on July 22, 1647 in France to a middle class family known for its virtue. At a young age she exhibited a great affection for the Blessed Sacrament and spent much time in prayer and contemplation. She suffered rheumatic fever and was bedridden nearly four years, until she made a promise to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life.

She entered the Visitation Convent at Paray in 1671. Our Lord began appearing to her and asked her to establish devotion to His Sacred Heart. Because of this, she was treated as a visionary (not in a good way) by her own community and only her obedience, humility, and charity, and the grace of God were able to persuade her detractors. She died October 17, 1690.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s Consecration to the Sacred Heart

I give myself and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, my person and my life, my actions, pains, and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being other than to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart. This is my unchanging purpose, namely, to be all His, and to do all things for the love of Him, at the same time renouncing with all my heart whatever is displeasing to Him. I therefore take You, O Sacred heart, to be the only object of my love, the guardian of my life, my assurance of salvation, the remedy of my weakness and inconstancy, the atonement for all the faults of my life and my sure refuge at the hour of death.

Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God the Father, and turn away from me the strokes of his righteous anger. O Heart of love, I put all my confidence in You, for I fear everything from my own wickedness and frailty, but I hope for all things from Your goodness and bounty.

Remove from me all that can displease You or resist Your holy will; let your pure love imprint Your image so deeply upon my heart, that I shall never be able to forget You or to be separated from You.

May I obtain from all Your loving kindness the grace of having my name written in Your Heart, for in You I desire to place all my happiness and glory, living and dying in bondage to You.

Amen.

Source: THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA