[Rank]
S. Margaritae Reginae Viduae;;Semiduplex;;2.1;;vide C7a

[Rule]
vide C7a;
9 lectiones

[Oratio]
O God, Who didst make Margaret, that blessed Queen, wonderful for tender love toward the poor, grant that her intercession and example may be effectual to gain for our hearts a thorough love toward thee.
$Per Dominum

[Invit]
For the confession of Blessed Margaret * let us praise our God. 

[Lectio4]
Margaret, Queen of Scots, was most noble by birth, uniting in herself, from her father the blood of the Kings of England and from her mother the blood of the Caesars, but her greatest nobleness was in her brave Christian life. She was born in Hungary, where her father was then an exile, (in the year 1046,) and had passed a religious childhood, when her uncle Edward, the holy King of England, recalled him to his own royal home, and she came to England with him (in 1054.) A few years after, upon the ruin of her family, she was escaping from England by sea, when the violence of the weather, or, to speak more truly, the Providence of God, caused that the ship should take refuge upon the coast of Scotland. There her extraordinary graces of mind and body so attracted King Malcolm III., that by the advice of his mother, he took her to wife (in 1070,) and of Scotland she deserved exceedingly well for the thirty years of her reign, by the holiness of her life and the abundance of her works of mercy.

[Lectio5]
In the midst of kingly dainties, she afflicted her body with hardships and watching, using to spend great part of the night in earnest prayer. Besides other fasts which she imposed upon herself, it was her custom to observe one of forty days before Christmas, concerning which fast she was so rigid, that she would not relax it even under sharp suffering. She took great delight in the public worship of God, and founded or renewed a great number of Churches and convents, which she enriched at great cost with sacred furniture. Her healthy example drew the King her husband to habits of sobriety, and to imitate her in her good works. To all her children she had the happiness of giving a godly education, and several of them, like her mother Agatha and her sister Christina, led notable holy lives. The happiness of the whole kingdom was the object for which she constantly strove, and she successfully rooted out all the vices which had stealthily crept in, and established among the people a standard of living worthy of Christians.

[Lectio6]
The most remarkable feature of her life was the tenderness of her charity toward her neighbour, especially the needy. Of these she would not only order whole flocks to be relieved, but was accustomed to give dinner to three hundred of them every day, treating them with the tenderness of a mother, and waiting upon them on her knees like a maidservant. She held it one of the privileges of her rank to wash their feet with her own Royal hands, and to dress their sores, which latter she would even kiss. To meet the expenses of her charities she sold not only her queenly raiment and her precious jewels, but more than once exhausted her funds entirely. Purified by grievous suffering, which she bore with marvelous patience during an illness of six months, she resigned her soul into the hands of Him Who had created it, upon the 11th day of June, (1093.) At the moment of death, the bystanders saw her poor worn face, pale and disfigured by continual suffering, flush again with a beauty to which it had long been unused. After her death she became illustrious on account of great signs and wonders. With the approval of Clement X., she was chosen Patroness of Scotland, and her memory is held in profound reverence throughout the whole earth.

[Lectio94]
Margaret, of the royal house of England, was born in Hungary and spent her childhood there as an unusually devout and pious girl. When her father was called to high office in his own country by his uncle, St. Edward, King of England, she went to England and then to Scotland. There, upon instructions from her mother, she married King Malcolm III. The country was blessed by her holy life and by her deeds of charity for the next thirty years. The austerity of her life was exceedingly great, and her charity towards her neighbour most ardent and zealous, especially for those in need, for whom she not infrequently exhausted the treasury. At length, having most patiently endured bitter sorrows and long illness, she rendered her soul to God on the 16th day of November. At the moment of her death her features, emaciated and pale, bloomed again with unusual beauty. On the authority of Clement X she was chosen Patroness of Scotland, and is honoured with great devotion throughout the world.
&teDeum