Years ago a priest recommended to us Bishop Bougaud's Life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque as the best biography of this famous saint. We read it and agree. While it includes many sidelights pertaining to the Church in 17th-century France (which, though they are very interesting, the reader may skip over), the treatment of the actual events of her life is undoubtedly still the best there is. In these pages St. Margaret Mary is shown to have been not just a quiet little woman in Religion, but also a redoubtable soul ready to give all for Jesus. It was to her that Our Lord revealed and entrusted the mystery and teaching about the love of his Sacred Heart for men. No private revelation in modern times has achieved the status and success of that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and likely none will ever exceed it. It is largely due to St. Margaret Mary that we know what we do about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it is largely to Bishop Bougaud that we should turn to gain an accurate idea of the life of St. Margaret Mary.
