The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been controversial from its beginning inthe life of the French Visitationist nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who established the devotion after a series of mystical visions of Christ. Under the leadership of Sister Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1800,the devotion was taken around the world in the course of the nineteenth century.Wherever it went, the devotion took theshape of an evolving visual culture. Evenduring Ala