Mary of the Divine Heart

On November 21, 1888, at the age of 25, Maria entered the convent of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd in Münster. Upon receiving the habit on January 10, 1889, she was given the name Sister Mary of the Divine Heart. She pronounced her vows on January 29, 1891, and was entrusted with the direction of the section for young girls in the care of the Münster convent. In 1894, she was sent on a mission to Portugal. After a brief stay in Lisbon, she was appointed superior of the Good Shepherd convent in Porto on May 15, 1894. In a social and political context marked by growing anticlericalism, she led the community with courage and charity, caring for more than 130 young girls in difficulty. From 1896, her health declined severely. She was afflicted with a disease of the spinal cord (Pott's disease or tuberculosis of the spine) which progressively paralyzed her and confined her to bed in excruciating pain. Despite her paralysis, she continued to govern her community and lead an intense apostolate through correspondence and prayer.

It was from her bed of suffering in Porto that Sister Mary of the Divine Heart received mystical revelations concerning devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She understood that Christ was asking her to intercede with the Pope so that the entire world might be consecrated to His Divine Heart. Obeying this divine request, she wrote two letters to Pope Leo XIII, in June 1898 and January 1899. Deeply moved by these writings, Pope Leo XIII decided to carry out this consecration. On May 25, 1899, he published the encyclical Annum Sacrum, prescribing the consecration of the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for June 11, 1899. Sister Mary of the Divine Heart offered her remaining strength and extreme sufferings for the realization of this consecration. On the morning of June 8, 1899, she received two copies of the encyclical Annum Sacrum sent by the Pope. Her mission being accomplished, she passed away peacefully that same day, June 8, 1899, at 3:00 PM, in Porto, at the beginning of the triduum preparatory to the universal consecration.

The cause for the beatification of Sister Mary of the Divine Heart was officially introduced in 1921. She was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI on February 13, 1964. The miracle accepted for her beatification was the healing of a young girl, which occurred in Porto on the night of December 6 to 7, 1952. Suffering from an extremely severe peritonitis and terminal meningitis, the young girl was healed in a scientifically inexplicable manner after the intercession of the Venerable Sister Mary of the Divine Heart had been invoked. This miracle was officially recognized by a decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on October 3, 1975. Sister Mary of the Divine Heart was beatified by Pope Paul VI on November 1, 1975, on the Solemnity of All Saints, in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican. Her body, discovered intact and incorrupt during exhumations, rests today in a reliquary exposed for the veneration of the faithful in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Ermesinde, in northern Portugal.

The spirituality of Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart is profoundly Eucharistic and reparatory. She wrote: "I could never separate devotion to the Heart of Jesus from devotion to the Blessed Sacrament." For her, love of the Sacred Heart could not be conceived without a spirit of sacrifice and self-offering for the salvation of souls. Her legacy lies primarily in her role as a messenger of the consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart, an act that marked the history of Catholic devotion at the turn of the 20th century. She also leaves the example of a heroic charity towards the most neglected young girls, seeing in each of them the dignity of a child of God to be saved and loved.