Short Lives of the Dominican Saints

Description

pp. 90-93 = DjVu pp. 118-21 (cf. novena to her):

APRIL 13
Blessed Margaret of Castello, Virgin
(A.D. 1287-1320)

BLESSED MARGARET was born at Metola, on the borders of Tuscany and Umbria, in A.D. 1287. Her parents were of noble family but had been reduced to extreme poverty by political disasters. To their great grief, their child was born blind; and, as no medical skill availed to give her sight, they took her, when still quite young, to the tomb of a holy Franciscan lay-brother, Jacopo by name, who was buried at Tiferno, now called Città-di-Castello, and who was renowned for many miracles. But God, who had sent this blindness for the spiritual perfection and enlightenment of His servant, was not pleased to grant their request; and the unnatural parents, finding themselves disappointed, abandoned the child, whom they regarded as a burden, under the portico of the church and returned home without her.

The little one, feeling herself thus cast away, had recourse to the God whom she had constantly and lovingly served ever since she had attained the use of reason. She lived an object of charity for sometime. Kind-hearted persons would take her in for a night or two and then pass her on to a neighbour. Wherever she went, she left such a conviction of her holiness and of the great interior gifts which adorned her soul, that soon every one was full of the saintliness of the little blind girl of Metola. These reports reaching the Convent of Saint Margaret, the nuns offered her an asylum. But her trials were not yet ended. Her benefactresses, religious only in name, finding the prayers, austerities, and heavenly virtues of their new guest a silent but constant reproach to their own worldly and self-indulgent habits, loaded her with abuse and ill-treatment, called her a hypocrite and other evil names, and at length drove her from their doors.

An honest and virtuous couple, who knew her history and pitied her situation, took her into their house, where she lived as one of the family to the day of her death. Whilst with these new parents, she became a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Though blind, she knew by heart the entire Psalter, which, in addition to the daily recitation of the Office of the Blessed Virgin and of the Cross, was her habitual prayer. She used to explain the mysteries contained in the Psalms and to develop the hidden sense of their inspired words in a marvellous manner; and, though never taught at any human school, she possessed a perfect and infused knowledge of Latin and of other branches of knowledge, so that, when the children of the house came back from school, she would hear their lessons and correct their exercises.

Blessed Margaret devoted many hours of the day and great part of the night to prayer and contemplation. It pleased God to subject her to severe interior sufferings, strong natural repugnances, and aridity of soul, and the devil was permitted to assault her with violent and grievous temptations; but at each fresh trial she made it her one endeavour to bring her will into perfect conformity to the will of God, and by her disinterestedness in the Divine service merited that her life should become an almost continual ecstasy. If she set herself to pray or heard any discourse on spiritual subjects, she almost invariably fell into rapture, and was often seen suspended in the air, without support, for many hours together. She had not only learnt patience in the school of suffering, but also a great compassion for others. Yet, with this sweetness and gentle charity for all who needed it, she combined severe austerity towards her own innocent flesh, which was only discovered when, after her death, her body was found all torn and mangled by instruments of penance. Poor and afflicted as she was, she had no other means of testifying her gratitude towards her benefactors than by her prayers; and three times our Lord rewarded these with miraculous answers on their behalf.

At length she happily departed to her Heavenly Spouse, on April 13, A.D. 1320, fortified by the Holy Sacraments of the Church, being in the thirty-third year of her age. She was buried with great honour in the Dominican church, where a multitude of miracles bore witness to the sanctity of this humble and afflicted servant of God. A few days after her funeral, the Friars called to mind that she had often been accustomed to say, "Oh, if you did but know what I have in my heart!" With the permission of the ecclesiastical authorities, therefore, they subjected the heart, which had been extracted from the body before the interment, to a medical examination. At the first incision there issued from it three shining and polished balls, resembling three pearls artistically carved. On one of them was represented a majestic queen, apparently the Holy Mother of God, to whom Blessed Margaret had been specially devoted; the second bore the effigy of the infant Jesus lying in the manger between the ox and the ass; on the third were to be seen a venerable old man, supposed to be Saint Joseph, a Dominican Tertiary, and a dove.

Blessed Margaret's body remains even to our own times in a state of perfect preservation, and she is held in great honour in her own country. She was beatified by Paul V.

Prayer

O God, who wast pleased that Thy Holy Virgin, the Blessed Margaret, should be born blind, so that the eye of her heart being enlightened, she might continually contemplate Thee alone, be Thou the light of our eyes, that we may have no part in the darkness of this world, but be enabled to reach the land of eternal brightness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.