Bl. Margaret (1287-1320) was blind and lame from birth, rejected by many, yet still achieved heroic sanctity by her love of God and charity towards every neighbor (1287-1320).
A DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD
Because she was born dwarfed, blind, hunchbacked and lame, Blessed Margaret was kept hidden by her noble parents throughout her childhood. They made every effort to prevent visitors to their castle from discovering her existence. When a visiting lady happened to meet her in the castle’s chapel (Margret was then six), her parents were horrified at the possible scandal this could cause for them. Human respect dominated their worldly way of thinking, despite the having the reputation of being good Catholics. They determined to prevent a similar occurrence from ever happening again. So they built her a walled cell next to a church in a nearby forest. Here she was forced to live in isolation for the next nine years. Her parents effectively imprisoned her. She was able to assist at Holy Mass, receive Communion, and her survival needs were provided for via a small window in the cell. The castle chaplain took great pity on her and instructed her in the faith and in the contemplative life. She suffered greatly on account of the elements - being scorched in summer and freezing in winter, with minimal protection offered by the walls.
When she was sixteen, Margaret was taken from Metola to the miraculous shrine at Citta-di-Castello, where a cure was anticipated by her parents. Unfortunately, no miracle occurred. It is recorded that the child was left abandoned that same day by her parents, who fled from the shrine back to their home. We can’t imagine what this poor blind and lame girl felt at being all alone in a foreign city, especially after living in seclusion her entire life. By Divine Providence, she was befriended by some street beggars. They taught her the life of begging and how to live on the streets. Soon Margaret attracted many friends because of her cheerful and holy disposition. She never spoke badly of her parents, recognizing in her fate a great blessing: to be unwanted and rejected like Our Lord. She viewed every difficult and painful experience in her life as a grace offered by Our Lord to share ever more profoundly in His sufferings and Passion.
RELIGIOUS LIFE
Eventually Margaret was able to get off the streets and began to be cared for by various poor families of the city. She earned money for her room and board by attending to small children. Yet her great dream was to enter a convent. As one might expect, she was denied on several occasions. The single biggest obstacle was the fact that she could not produce her baptismal certificate. Margaret refused to disclose her parents since she knew this would bring them great shame. She preferred to be denied of her dream than speak ill of her parents for having mistreated her. An astute priest was able to determine the city and year of her birth and after pouring through all the baptismal records found her. He was shocked to learn her parents were nobility, but extremely edified by Margaret's motives in keeping silence. He agreed to keep her secret.
With the priest's help, Margaret's persistence paid off and she gained her heart’s desire. She entered a convent where she accepted the Rule whole-heartedly and the cloistered life with great devotion. However, her fidelity to the Rule earned her many enemies, because this convent was quite lax. The nuns scoffed at the Rule claiming their holy founder could not possibly have intended for them to live so austerely and penitential, at least not in their modern day! (It seems this temptation often plagues religious.) The nuns accepted many visitors, received copious gifts, ate lavishly, regularly broke silence, and committed many other abuses against their holy Rule. (Some of this reminds me of the trials faced by Mother Mariana de Jesús Torres of Quito, Ecuador). Although Margaret never complained about her sisters’ violations of the Rule, her very presence and example stirred their conscience and led them to intense envy. Instead of seeking conversion, the nuns opted to expel Margaret from the convent. They claimed her very faithfulness to the Rule was a prideful criticism and condemnation of their actions and that such a source of internal division was contrary to the spirit of religious life. (Sin tends to blind man into hypocrisy.)
Back on the streets and all alone, Margaret fell yet again into hard times. She suffered even more because in her efforts to protect the reputation of the convent, she would say that the expulsion had been her own fault. Many families would therefore not take her back in; they simply assumed she must be an awful and scandalous person in order to have been kicked out of the convent. Yet eventually, the townsfolk were able to reconstruct what had truly happened to Margaret (mostly on account of what the nuns at the convent themselves were saying). A kind family took her in on a more permanent basis. She then eventually became a Dominican tertiary. Her acceptance as a Tertiary was quite surprising since at that time, only older widows were accepted. Her own acceptance as a tertiary paved the way for St. Catherine of Siena later that century and St. Rose of Lima many years later.
ANECDOTES FROM HER LIFE
Her cheerfulness, based on a complete confidence in and love of God, endeared her to everyone. She was well known for her holiness and exemplary in prayer. As a tertiary, she devoted herself to the sick and dying, but showed especial solicitude toward prisoners, which was almost unheard of in within her society.
It came to the attention of Blessed Margaret of Castello that a certain man named Alonzo was falsely imprisoned. With no one to care for his wife and young son, they quickly became destitute. Alonzo was tortured by men who wished to learn if he had in fact committed any crime, and although innocent, his overly zealous jailers left him a permanent cripple. When Alonzo was not released, and learned that his son had died of starvation, he fell into despair and blasphemed against God and drove himself mad by uncontrollable rages. One day when Margaret visited Alonzo, she fell into an ecstasy. Her blind eyes and face were surrounded by a brilliant light. Her lame and hunchbacked body levitated almost two feet into the air! When the ecstasy ended, Margaret begged Alonzo to repent and cease his blaspheming. Alonzo tried to speak against God, but found he could not do so. Instead, he pleaded to Margaret, "Little Margaret, please pray for me." This she did and he was healed and converted.
Blessed Margaret also had the gift of prophesy. She lived with the Macreti family for a time, and they had a sixteen-year-old daughter named Francesca, to whom Margaret taught the Faith. One day Margaret said that both Francesca and her mother would become Dominican tertiaries. They did not agree with Margaret, as Signora Macreti cared nothing about religion, and Francesca was expected to marry. Margaret did not repent of her words, insisting that they would one day wear the habit up until the day of their death. Signor Macreti died after a few months, leaving his wife inconsolable. She finally found comfort in the Catholic Church. As the seer had predicted, both she and her daughter asked to be admitted to the Dominican Order, where they remained faithful until death.
One day there was a fire in the house where Blessed Margaret was staying. The downstairs was completely engulfed in flames, and would soon trap Margaret upstairs. People were shouting for Margaret to come down when she calmly appeared at the top of the stairway. Removing her mantle, she threw it downstairs with instructions to cast it into the fire. No sooner was it done than the blaze was instantly extinguished.
HER HOLY DEATH
The holy death of Blessed Margaret of Castello occurred on April 13, 1320, when she was thirty-three years of age. The people of the city blocked the funeral procession out of the church, demanding that she be buried in the church because of her well-known reputation for sanctity. A small crippled child who had never walked was brought to her coffin inside the church. Immediately she was healed completely, and began to walk for the first time. After her death, more than two hundred miracles occurred in confirmation of her heroic sanctity and upon exhumation, her body was discovered to be incorrupt.
Blessed Margaret of Castello had often been heard to say, "Oh, if you only knew what I have in my heart!" Inside her heart were found three pearls on which appeared to be carved religious symbols, and the images of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and St Joseph.
After the exhumation, Bl. Margaret's body was re-clothed in a fresh habit and was placed in a new coffin. Many miracles followed this ceremony. Her cause for beatification, which was undertaken with renewed interest, came to a successful conclusion on October 19, 1609. Pope Paul V officially recognized Margaret’s sanctity, pronouncing her a beata and designating April 13 as her feast day. Her cause for canonization is still pending.
Today many invoke Bl. Margaret of Castello as a patroness in the battle against abortion. Like so many children today, she was 'unwanted' by her parents. Had she been conceived in our day and age, when abortion is held as legal in nearly every corner of the world, she would almost surely have been murdered in utero or as an infant. The world would have been deprived of a great heroine and inspiration. She is a striking witness to the truth that God's ways are not man's ways (cf. Is 55:8) and that God exalts the lowly and humble (cf. Lk 1:52).
The body of Blessed Margaret, which has never been embalmed, is dressed in a Dominican habit, and lies under the high altar of the Church of St. Domenico at Citta-di-Castello, Italy. The arms of the body are still flexible, the eyelashes are present, and the nails are in place on the hands and feet. The coloring of the body has darkened slightly and the skin is dry and somewhat hardened, but by all standards the preservation can be considered a remarkable condition, having endured for almost seven hundred years.
“For my father and my mother have left me: but the Lord hath taken me up.” (Psalm 26:10)
Adapted from: The Incorruptibles, TAN Books