Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/35

23 ST. MARGARET 28 meditation were the delivery of tbe Virgin Mary, the birth of Christ, and the serviee of St. Joseph during the flight into Egypt and the return thence. On her death, a grave was dug for her in the cemetery, but the people who bad witnessed her sanctity and her miracles, clamoured to have her buried in the church like a saint, so they made a wooden box and took her in it to the church. A dumb and deformed boy was brought to this extemporized coffin, and as soon as he touched the body of the saint he became straight and cried out that he was healed by St. Margaret. He forthwith took the Dominican habit, to the joy of his grateful parents. The rulers of the town decided that Margaret ought to be embalmed. This operation was attended by miracles, the most remarkable of which was that her heart was found to contain three precious stones marked with representations of the three chief subjects of her meditations. On one was engraved the image of a beautiful woman with a gold crown on her head; on the second, a new-born child between two mules ; on the third, an old man with a bald head and white beard, wearing a gold mantle ; before him was a woman on her knees, in the dress of the Order of St. Dominic, repre- senting Margaret herself at her devo- tions. She cured many persons possessed of deyils and afflicted with blindness and divers diseases. Her worship and miracles having continued for nearly three hundred years, her honours were solemnly confirmed by Paul V. in 1609. Mart.Predicaiorum. AA,SS, Ferrarius. Cahier. Fio. Bazzi. Analecta. B. or S. Margaret (20) of Faenza, Ang. 26, V. -f 1330. She was abbess of the Order of Vallombrosa, and was buried at the convent of St. John the Erangelist at St. Salvio, near Florence. For centuries the nuns reverently pre- served the image of the Infant Christ, which she caused to be made. She was the disciple, beloved companion and suc- cessor of St. Humility. She was favoured with many celestial apparitions and mar- ried with a ring to Christ in a vision. AA,8S. Bucelinus. Ferrarius. St. Margaret (21) of Sanseverino, widow, Aug. 5, 27, -f 1395, called La Paaiorella^ the shepherdess. She was born of poor parents in the village of Cesalo, near Sanseverino. She was always anxious to serve God and her neighbour and to deny herself. When she was seven years old, she was sent by her mother to feed the sheep. On the way she saw a noble looking pilgrim sitting on the ground, apparently worn out with fatigue and hunger. He asked her if she could spare him some of the food she was carrying for herself, as he was dying of hunger. Although she was very hungry, the child opened her little bag and gave all her bread to the pilgrim, who stood up and solemnly blessed her for her charity and then vanished out of her sight. She knew that he was no mortal man and she spent the rest of the day in prayer. At night when she brought home the sheep as usual, she was very hungry and asked her mother for bread. The mother re- plied somewhat angrily, ** Didn't you see that the cupboard was empty when I gave 'you the last bit of bread I had in the morning ? And now you come and ask for more before supper time as if you were the only one of the family that wanted food ! Don't you know how poor we are? Do you forget that we all want food ? " Margaret told her mother she had been fasting all day because she had given all her bread to a beggar, and that she was not sorry for it as she had done it for the love of Christ and she believed she had given her charity to the Lord Himself. '*Woll then," said the mother, *' bear with patience the hunger you voluntarily encountered." With these words she opened the cup- board, and saw to her surprise a large, white loaf of bread which she at once divided, giving a piece to Margaret first, and afterwards sharing it with the whole family and some relations and neigh- bours, who, hearing that something un- usual was going on, flocked to the house. When they saw the miracle they en- treated Margaret to pray for them and they all lived together in peace. At fifteen Margaret was married to a man of Sanseverino, with whom she never quar- relled during the twenty-one years of her