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brief · CORCHEVAL, Burgundy, 1655 AD

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, eight, is sent home after her godmother dies

Edition of

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
A dark oil painting of a stone manor gateway in wooded upland country, its timber gate half open on an empty courtyard, a small chapel beside it, and a horse harnessed to a two-wheeled cart carrying a single roped trunk on the rutted track outside, with a valley and a distant hilltop church beyond.
The gate of the château of Corcheval, near Baubery in Burgundy, in 1655 AD. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque lived here with her godmother. The track outside runs home to Lhautecour, a league away.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of seventeenth-century French oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Apparition du Christ à Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (Unknown, 18th century; photograph by Benjamin Smith, Musée du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial). No person is depicted and no likeness is intended. View source artwork.

CORCHEVAL, Burgundy, 1655 AD — Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque is eight, the fifth of the seven children of Claude Alacoque, royal notary of Lhautecour, a hamlet in the upland parish of Verosvres in the Charolais. She has lived here at Corcheval since she was four and a half, a league from her parents’ house. Her godmother, Marguerite de Saint-Amour, Madame de Fautrières, had no children and asked to have her. Her mother, Philiberte Lamyn, brought her over.

Madame de Fautrières has died this year, after a long illness no one could do anything for. Too weak to teach the child, she had given that work to two of her companions. Four years at Corcheval end with her death. They were happy years, and St. Margaret Mary has gone back to her parents.

Her father is judge of this manor as well as of Terreau. He will be dead before the year is out, at about forty-one.

About this story

Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.

The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.

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Image. AI-generated image, in the manner of seventeenth-century French oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Apparition du Christ à Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (Unknown, 18th century; photograph by Benjamin Smith, Musée du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial). No person is depicted and no likeness is intended. — see the original.

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More on this saint

In a dim plastered farmhouse bedroom with a beamed ceiling and a small dark window, a pale young woman in a white linen shift sits up in a wooden bed with her hands joined, while an older woman in a brown gown, white collar and white coif stands in the open plank door holding a lit candle; a plain crucifix hangs on the wall.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French seventeenth-century oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Apparition du Christ à Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (unknown artist, 18th century, Musée du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial; photograph by Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0) View source artwork.

place · LHAUTECOUR, Burgundy, winter 1663 AD

St. Margaret Mary's ulcers close without a trace before her novena ends

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, sixteen, fell ill this winter at her family's farm at Lhautecour in Burgundy, with ulcers on her legs that a surgeon's remedies did not touch. She told her mother that God would cure her within the month, and before the nine-day novena the two of them made was over, the ulcers had closed and the pain in her side had stopped. Her health held until she entered the convent eight years later.

Edition of · 4 min read

An oil painting of a candlelit stone room in which a young woman in a dark brown gown, white collar and linen coif kneels holding a prayer-book stuffed with written sheets, while a seated friar in a grey habit and knotted cord speaks to her, one loose sheet lying on the floorboards.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French religious oil painting of the later seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Apparition du Christ à Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (Unknown, 18th century, Musée du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial; photograph by Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0) View source artwork.

A Franciscan friar came to preach the Jubilee at Verosvres, in Burgundy, in 1670 AD. Years later, at her spiritual director's order, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque wrote down how the friar set aside the long confession she had prepared. The friar then persuaded her brother to stop keeping her from the convent.

Edition of · 4 min read

Also in the edition of Wednesday, 2 September 2026

Teresa's reform under siege · Part 1 · ÁVILA, Castile, October 1577 AD

Nuns forbidden to elect Saint Teresa of Ávila elect her twice

The nuns of the Convent of the Incarnation at Ávila have elected Saint Teresa of Ávila their prioress twice this month, after their superiors forbade the choice and then ordered a second vote. Fifty-five of them are under sentence of excommunication for their votes, barred from Mass and from speaking to anyone outside the walls. St. Teresa is sixty-two, and held the same office in the house for three years before resigning it in 1574 AD.

4 min read

Teresa's reform under siege · Part 1 · MADRID, October 1577 AD

The Pope's envoy who protected St. Teresa's convents dies at Madrid

Monsignor Nicolás Ormaneto, the Pope's representative at the court of King Philip II, died at Madrid on June 18, 1577 AD. Ormaneto had shielded the convents and friaries St. Teresa of Ávila founded from the Carmelite superiors who wanted those houses back under their control, and the friars of her reform held their powers from his commission. His successor reached Madrid in August and has dealt severely with those friars.

4 min read

event · JERUSALEM, Ottoman Palestine, September 4, 1523 AD

St. Ignatius enters Jerusalem at midday after a year begging across Europe

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a Basque nobleman of thirty-two who was a soldier until a cannon ball broke his leg two years ago, reached Jerusalem at midday this week. He had begged his way across Europe for a year to get there, on a road left nearly empty after Rhodes fell to the Turks last Christmas. He has asked the Franciscans who keep the holy places to let him stay.

4 min read