06/12/2026
“SAINT MARGARET MARY AND THE VISITATION IN PARAY”
THE CHAPEL
"In this church Our Lord revealed His Heart to Saint Margaret Mary." This is the inscription on the facade of the chapel and indicates to the visitor that he enters on “sacred ground.”
Before entering, however, the visitor looks for a moment at the beautiful tympanum above the door, built in 1856; it represents the Last Supper. The hieratic personages all have an ecstatic expression in the presence of Christ who gives Himself to them in the Eucharist. The apostle John has his head leaning on Christ's breast just like Margaret Mary in this same chapel on 27 December 1673 during the rapture which preceded the first revelation of the Sacred Heart.
As one enters one is struck by the feeling of recollection in the sanctuary. The windows made by Luc Barbier just give enough light; a half darkness is maintained which invites to prayer.
One's attention is drawn by the main altar, strong and well shaped and by the large painting at the back of the choir, also made by Luc Barbier. It is a large remounted canvas forming a fresco, put up in 1966 and completed by the same painter in 1973.
In the middle the second great revelation of 1674 is represented; Christ, His arms crossed, but risen and wearing the cloak of glory, shows Margaret Mary His five wounds shining like five suns, particularly the wound of the Heart which radiates everywhere its light of love and surrounds the saint. And yet Christ's face has an expression of sadness: the burning love He shows to humanity is not repaid, quite the opposite. Margaret Mary contemplates the apparition, in all simplicity, receives Christ's message and gives herself to this Heart so full of love.
On either side of the central scene (surrounded by flames, for God is a "devouring fire" as Scripture tells us) the painter has placed the saints of the order and several apostles of the Heart of Jesus. All, in the words of the prophet "look at Him who has been pierced.” On the right there is Our Lady, patron of the Visitation, who has most deeply penetrated into the intentions and redeeming sufferings of the Heart of Jesus; then Saint Paul who has spoken so well of the infinite charity of Christ; the two founders of the Visitation, Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal; then P. Matéo Crawley-Boevey, not yet beatified or canonized, who received in the chapel of the revelations his inspiration for the work of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in Christian families.
To the left we find the apostle John, who represented as a "true witness" of the blood and water which flowed from the open Heart of Christ on the cross; then Saint Francis of Assisi who was given to Margaret Mary by Christ as her spiritual guide; Saint John Eudes, father, doctor and apostle of the liturgical devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Blessed Claude de la Colombière who reassured her about the divine origin of her visions; then Charles de Foucauld, neither beatified nor canonized as yet, witness of the modern, mainly eucharistic, devotion to the Heart of Christ.
To appreciate the very elaborate tones of this composition it is best to see it in daylight when artificial light does not distort the colours.
Choir in the chapel of the revelations.”
Author: Jean Ladame
