A closer look
If Catholic guilt had a mascot, it was born in 1673. The French nun Margaret Mary Alacoque claimed Jesus physically appeared to her, casually opening his chest to reveal a literal, pulsing heart wrapped in thorns and engulfed in flames. This wasn't just a metaphor for love; it was a guilt-inducing demand for reparative suffering to apologize for humanity's sins. Her gruesome, visceral hallucinations single-handedly birthed the Sacred Heart devotion, turning a terrifying anatomical vision into a global Catholic obsession.
