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Called to the Poor Clares
Mary O’Regan on the Venerable Margaret Sinclair
I first heard of Venerable Margaret Sinclair in less than ideal circumstances. I was reading about the late Jimmy Savile when I learned that Savile's mother, Agnes Kelly had prayed to Venerable Margaret when her son was ill. Agnes believed that Venerable Margaret had interceded for him.
This autumn marks the tenth anniversary of Savile's death, and those who are researching his early life may read about Venerable Margaret for the first time and may be inclined to lump sordid sinner and saint together.
Perhaps I am alone in wanting to extricate Venerable Margaret from her link to a terrible man, but in order to defend Margaret, I have had to study her life. There is an added urgency in that Pope Francis is set to visit Scotland in November and His Holiness may raise the question of furthering Margaret's cause of canonization.
Margaret was born in 1900 in a three-room basement flat in a derelict tenement in Edinburgh. She was the daughter of a dustman who had become a zealous convert to Catholicism at the urging of his devout wife. They named her Margaret to thread a link with Scotland's Catholic heritage - the stone chapel which had been the personal oratory of the Queen and Pearl of Scotland, St Margaret was not far away.
The family Rosary was offered every night and Margaret and her parents were seen every day at St Patrick's, their local church. Margaret benefitted from Pope Saint Pius X's exhortation to frequent communion, and she did her utmost to receive as often as possible.
From her earliest years, Margaret had to make hard sacrifices. When her mother fell ill, she had to stay away from school and earn pennies scrubbing floors. Everything intensified when her father had to leave for France to fight in the trenches of World War I.
Margaret then left school for good and became a French polisher. She was esteemed by her employers for her incredible work ethic and the quality of her craft. One day, she found a picture of Mary Immaculate on a pile of rubbish. Promptly, she dusted it, kissed it and hung it over her workshop. Her boss took it down, but Margaret retrieved it and re-hung it.
The strikingly beautiful Margaret attracted a young man, Pat Lynch, who had been badly traumatised in the trenches and had abandoned his Catholic faith. Margaret took pains to bring him back to the fold.
Pat wanted to marry but Margaret felt a calling to be a Poor Clare nun. She was blessed with a most astute spiritual director, Fr Thomas Agius. When he asked her why she wanted to be a Poor Clare, she said it was because she wanted to suffer with Jesus. She had a particular reliance on the power of the Holy Name. When she felt herself tempted, she offered the Name ten times and always felt the temptation pass.
The Poor Clares of Edinburgh could not give her a place, so she went to London to the sisters of Notting Hill. The more reserved English sisters kept their distance from this emotional newcomer, but her first day tears were soon forgotten as she settled in and amazed the other sisters with her appetite for hard work. She was given the name Sister Mary Francis of the Five Wounds, perhaps the most fitting name ever for a Franciscan because it honours the founder and the wounds of Christ which Francis bore.
But Margaret was not universally popular. Her accent was sometimes mocked and at least one sister developed a great jealousy of her.
Margaret's superiors gave her the post of extern, which meant she had a role outside the convent. She solicited money and begged for food. She walked to nearby Portobello Market and brought home donated vegetables and fruit.
One day on a London bus, Margaret sat next to a woman who seemed terribly consumptive with a wild, terrible cough, but rather than move and hurt the woman's feelings, Margaret kept her company. Soon after she became ill with tuberculosis.
She had to leave Notting Hill and go to the Vincentian Sisters in Warley where she was nursed. As she lay dying, she was stung by a bee. Margaret said: "It is but a splinter of the Cross." She breathed her last with the Name of Jesus on her lips.
Those who pray to Margaret are astounded at how promptly she intercedes for them. She is known particularly for helping the dying. The nun who had been jealous of Margaret all those years ago, lived into her nineties and called on Margaret to assist her in dying.
Margaret had a most extraordinary charisma and exceptional holiness; indeed, there was nothing at all ordinary about this so-called ordinary girl.
