St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is one of Jesus' most powerful workers in the vineyard._ She is best known for the Apparitions of Our Lord Jesus and His Sacred Heart. Through the work of St. Margaret Mary, in obedience to Jesus' mandate, devotion to His Sacred Heart became a strong movement throughout the world.

Because she is best known as the spearhead of this movement, many of us are not aware that she also had a great compassion for, and did much work to alleviate the suffering of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. But if we read a quote she wrote about her early days, we become aware of her great repugnance for sin:

"O my only love! How indebted I am to You for having predisposed_ me from my earliest childhood, by becoming the Master and Possessor of my heart, although You well knew how it (my heart) would resist You! As soon as I could know myself, You made my soul see the ugliness of sin, and impressed such horror of sin upon my heart, that the slightest stain caused me unbearable torment; and to put a stop to my childish impetuousness one needed only to tell me it was offending God. This stopped me short, and kept me from doing whatever I was eager to do."

From her earliest years as a child, the Lord prepared this Mystic and future Saint for her mission, by molding her into the vessel necessary to carry out His commands. Come with us to Paray-le-Monial, a quiet little town in the Burgundy section of France, with a great message. As we walk through the narrow streets of this quaint village, we can still hear Our Savior's most passionate cries. Here, Our Lord spoke to a little nun, in the Seventeenth Century, over a period of seventeen years. In a small Chapel, Our Lord shared His Sacred Heart, wounded and bleeding, because of His Love, unreturned.