Published by Paray-le-Monial, France…This generally quiet and unassuming country town, with a population of around eleven thousand, is a place of pilgrimage. Second only to Lourdes in visitor numbers it established itself around a Benedictine Abbey, founded in 973 CE. The pilgrims who flocked here today however, are attracted by events that took place in the seventeenth century. It was here that in 1673 a Visitation nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque claimed to have visions of a divine origin.
Over a period of eighteen months, the young nun reported to both her Mistress and Superior, that Jesus had appeared to her and displayed his open heart, bleeding and on fire. Margaret Mary wrote that she had been chosen by Jesus as an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance, through whom her Divine Master would accomplish His great design.
She came from a once prosperous family in Burgundy, France, born in 1647 during the reign of King Louis XIV. Her father was in business; they also had a farm and were well connected. Then her father died and things changed for the worse. Relatives apparently inherited the wealth and her brothers and sisters became farm labourers. She was only eight when she was sent off to the nuns at Charolles, some distance away. She became ill with what is thought to have been rheumatic fever. It was then she first started hurting herself, the details of which are somewhat bizarre.
She liked cutting herself a lot, self inflicted wounds with a knife. All this time she seems to have been driven by a passionate faith, and the violence she performed on herself seemed to be motivated by a strong need or desire to suffer. Then she claimed she was having visions of the Virgin Mary.
What are we to make of this today? Was Margaret Mary Alacoque nothing more than an out of control attention seeker, starved of attention in her childhood years, and craving to be noticed, to be loved, to be needed?
An interesting book entitled “SAINTS AND RELICS” by Australian author John Kelly tells a fictional tale about how some people in a small community in rural New South Wales react to over-zealous devotion to saints and relics using the story of this french nun. More details are available at: http://aquininebooks.webs.com
