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

LHAUTECOUR, Burgundy, winter 1663 AD — In the hamlet of Lhautecour, in the granite hills of the Charolais, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was cured this winter of an illness that the surgeon had said he could do nothing about before spring. She was sixteen. When the surgeon’s remedies failed, she told her mother that God would cure her within the month, and she was well before the end of the nine-day novena the two of them made together.

Her mother, Philiberte Lamyn, wanted the illness treated and her daughter’s penances stopped. St. Margaret Mary wanted a room of her own again, where she could pray through the night and do penance unseen.

Lhautecour is one of the farming hamlets of Verosvres, a parish where the thin soil gives poor harvests for hard work. The Alacoque house was two main buildings facing each other across a courtyard. The family lived in the first, and the royal notary kept his office there. Gardens ran down from the house to a little wood, and the wood dropped steeply into a narrow valley.

The notary was St. Margaret Mary’s father, Claude Alacoque. He died at the end of 1655 AD, leaving five children, a moderate fortune and his affairs in disorder. Her mother tried to recover the family’s money and failed. The children’s land was leased again in their names, but the lease was agreed with their uncle, Toussaint Delaroche, not with their mother. Toussaint Delaroche took over the running of the farm. His wife, Benedicta, Claude Alacoque’s sister, ran the household, and St. Margaret Mary’s grandmother lived there too. Her mother had been pushed aside in her own house.

From about the age of eleven St. Margaret Mary was kept in bed for four years by a rheumatic illness that brought on paralysis, so that she could not walk, sleep or eat. Once she was well she spent hours in silent prayer, getting up before daybreak and staying up at night so that her housework did not suffer. She slept on the bare floor and whipped herself with a scourge she had made out of chains, until a servant found out. Her mother, afraid for her health, then made her daughter sleep in her room with her.

This year St. Margaret Mary fell ill again. For a long time she told no one about a pain in her side, but she could not hide the ulcers that broke out on her legs. She gave the ulcers as her reason when she asked her mother to let her sleep alone again. Her mother agreed, and St. Margaret Mary went back to her night prayer and her penances and did nothing for her legs. When her mother begged her to take care of her health, St. Margaret Mary answered: “Be assured, my dear mother, that it is God who has sent me this little suffering, and He will Himself remove it without human remedies.” She told her mother that she was not in as much pain as she looked: “God, seeing that I should not make a proper use of this trial, has so spared me, that I do not feel so much pain as you would suppose from appearances; for if I suffered much, I should be weak enough to show it.”

Her mother’s pleading turned into orders. The surgeon came. It was winter, and he said nothing could be done before spring; he tried bleeding and other remedies, and none of them worked. St. Margaret Mary took every one without complaint. Then she told her mother: “You see the utter weakness of human remedies. I have obeyed your commands.” She went on: “Remember what I said; God, Who has sent me this light affliction, will cure me before the expiration of another month.” St. Margaret Mary offered her mother her own prayers as well: “To console you in the grief which this little suffering causes you, I will join my weak prayers to yours, and you will obtain from God a recovery which will be no otherwise advantageous, than to make you happy.” The two of them made a novena together.

Before the nine days were out, St. Margaret Mary felt that she was cured. The ulcers on her legs had closed without any treatment, so completely that nothing showed where they had been, and the pain in her side had stopped at the same time. She called her mother and showed her the healed legs in private, and the two of them knelt in front of a crucifix to thank God.

Her mother was afraid that new penances would bring new illness. “My dear child, since God has granted you the restoration to health, which I have so long prayed for, take care of it that you may support me in my old age,” her mother said. “In His name I ask you to grant me this satisfaction.” St. Margaret Mary answered her: “Do not be uneasy, God will give me strength sufficient to serve you.”

St. Margaret Mary did not give up her penances. Her mother got from her all the help she could have hoped for, and St. Margaret Mary’s health held from this winter until she entered the convent of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial eight years later, in 1671 AD.