Little Maggie

Alan Frost on the life of Blessed Margaret of Castello who was canonized last year

Little Maggie is an affectionate reference, because of her stature, to a girl born into an aristocratic family in central Italy more than seven hundred years ago. She led an inspirational life of sanctity that would lead to her being beatified as Blessed Margaret of Castello in 1607, and, finally, canonised as St Margaret on 24 April 2021.

Though unknown to most Catholics for centuries, in more recent times she has become increasingly seen as a champion of the disabled and unwanted. Numerous churches have shrines to her, notably St Patrick’s in Columbus, Ohio and she is also identified as a patron by pro-life groups in the USA and elsewhere.

Though a ‘new’ Saint, Margaret of Castello was born back in 1287, in Metola in Italy. She was the daughter of prominent local figures: the castle owner and Captain of the army, Lord Parisio and his wife Lady Emilia. They were far from pleased, however, on discovering their newborn daughter was clearly seriously disabled. The blow to the prestige of the father was such that the baby was sent to be baptised secretly, and as she had not even been given a name, ‘Margaret’ was chosen, after the servant sent with the baby for the ceremony.

For the next six years Margaret lived in the vaults and recesses of the castle, attended to by servants, but hidden. Her one regular visitor was the castle priest, who instructed her. Having an excellent memory, she came to learn the Mass, prayers, the Psalms, pieces of scripture, teachings of the early Church Fathers and lives of the Saints. She had a precocious love of Christ and a deep sense of how He had been rejected by His own people. Though they rarely came to see her, she bore no grudges against her parents, even when her father had her moved to an annex built next to an out-of-the way church, fearing she might be seen in the castle by visitors.

As she grew into a teenager, through the continual friendship and guidance of her padre, who described her mind as ‘luminous’, she came to understand that it was not her body that mattered so much as her soul. Spending each day mostly in learning, prayer, and contemplation, she endured more than twelve years in her confinement.

When she was in her late teens, the political situation forced her father to move his whole family to the town of Castello for safety. A monk of the town had recently died and subsequently miracles occurred associated with him. Margaret’s parents thought that given their social standing, surely a miracle would also cure Margaret. But this did not happen, and while she was in the local church, her father led the rest of the family away, abandoning her.

Without any hint of bitterness, she accepted her fate and trusted to God. She was befriended by the local poor, helping them to survive by begging. Her remarkable cheerfulness and constant reference to God and the Scriptures in her conversations led people to think there was someone holy in their midst. She joined a local convent, but was soon rejected by the nuns because she proved to be a model too strict for their ways. Undismayed, she took shelter in her favourite church, the Chiesa della Caritas, where she was found and taken in by comfortably off people, one of whom was a mantellata. All such women were allowed to wear the cloak of the Dominicans as a ‘tertiary’. Usually, such women were mature in age, but an exception was made in Margaret’s case and she was allowed to join them. Though small and suffering from curvature of the spine and needing to walk with a stick, Margaret was regularly to be seen helping the local poor, visiting the sick and prisoners, and giving wise counsel and spiritual teaching.

On occasions she exhibited miraculous acts, once seen levitating in a prison when absorbed in prayer for a blasphemous prisoner, who became a true believer.

There are numerous documented and witnessed examples of acts she performed that could have occurred only through divine intervention, such as saving people in a burning house, and saving a young girl who was close to death. A sixteen-year-old girl wanting to become a religious against her parents’ wishes, did so through Margaret’s intercession. The girl wore the Dominican mantle to the end of her days, as did Little Maggie herself. Nearing the end of her short life, Maggie said to friends: “If only you knew what I carry in my heart.”

It was only after she died that the significance of this remark became apparent. Maggie died aged just thirtythree, in 1320, and a miracle was witnessed by the Dominican abbot who celebrated her funeral Mass. He had initially declared that Margaret must be buried in the cloister graveyard with the deceased members of the Order of Preachers, but the people clamoured for her to be buried in the church as a saint. During the heated exchanges, a mother put her disabled child by the side of the uncovered body of Margaret to pray for a healing. The arm of the deceased was seen to move and touch the child who was instantly cured. Never having walked or spoken, the child was now able to move about unaided and praised aloud Margaret and God. The Prior acknowledged that the people were right.

It was not unusual at this time for the inner organs of those deemed especially holy to be extracted and preserved for veneration as relics when a presumed saint died. When Maggie’s heart was examined, astonishingly, three pebbles ‘leaped out,’ each bearing an image. One was a crowned effigy of Our Lady; another, the infant Jesus at His Nativity; the third a bald man with a staff beside a kneeling woman in the habit of a Dominican, taken to be St Joseph and Margaret herself. Also on this pebble was a very white dove taken to be the Holy Spirit. These stones from Margaret’s heart have been kept by the Order of Preachers and are occasionally displayed. At last, the people understood what Margaret had meant by that reference to what she carried in her heart.

Images: Three depictions of St Margaret of Castello: ‘She led an inspirational life of sanctity’