Saint
Margaret in a stained-glass window (1922) by Douglas
Strachan in St Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh
Saint
Margaret in a stained-glass window (1922) by Douglas
Strachan in St Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh
Sainte Marguerite
d'Ecosse
Reine d'Écosse (+ 1093)
Petite-fille du roi
d'Angleterre, elle se réfugia en Ecosse lors de l'invasion normande. Elle
deviendra l'épouse du roi Malcom III dont la piété était fort grande. Il
associait sa femme aux affaires du royaume et son règne durant quarante ans fut
des plus heureux : huit enfants dans un foyer très uni et un pays bien géré
malgré des luttes avec les envahisseurs normands. Elle meurt quelques jours
après l'assassinat de son époux par les Normands d'Angleterre. Elle introduisit
la liturgie romaine dans l'Eglise écossaise.
Elle était fêtée le 10
juin et maintenant le 16 novembre, date de sa mort le 16 novembre 1093.
Fêtée le 16 juin en
Ecosse.
Lire aussi (en anglais)
sa biographie sur le site de la paroisse Saint Margaret of Scotland à Chicago :
http://www.stmargaretofscotland.com/biography.htm
Mémoire de sainte
Marguerite d’Écosse. Née en Hongrie et mariée au roi d’Écosse Malcolm III, à
qui elle donna huit enfants, elle s’intéressa grandement au bien du royaume et
de l’Église, joignant à la prière et aux jeûnes la générosité envers les
pauvres et donnant ainsi un exemple excellent d’épouse, de mère et de reine.
Elle mourut en 1003 à Édimbourg, après avoir appris la nouvelle de la mort de
son mari et de son fils aîné dans une bataille.
Martyrologe romain
La main des pauvres est
l’assurance des trésors royaux. Ce coffre-fort, les cambrioleurs les plus
retors ne sauraient le forcer.
Prpos de sainte
Marguerite
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/9878/Sainte-Marguerite-d-Ecosse.html
Saint Margaret of Scotland in the Genealogical Chronicle of English kings.
SAINTE MARGUERITE
Reine d'Écosse
(1046-1093)
Sainte Marguerite était
nièce de saint Étienne de Hongrie. Elle vint au monde en 1046, et montra
bientôt de merveilleuses dispositions pour la vertu; la modestie rehaussait sa
rare beauté, et dès son enfance elle se signalait par son dévouement aux malheureux,
qui lui mérita dans la suite le nom de mère des orphelins et de trésorière des
pauvres de Jésus-Christ.
Forcée de chercher un
asile en Écosse, elle donna l'exemple d'une sainteté courageuse dans les
épreuves, si bien que le roi Malcolm III, plein d'estime pour elle et épris des
charmes de sa beauté, lui offrit sa main et son trône. Marguerite y consentit,
moins par inclination que dans l'espoir de servir à propager le règne de
Jésus-Christ. Elle avait alors environ vingt-trois ans (1070).
Son premier apostolat
s'exerça envers son mari, dont elle adoucit les moeurs par ses attentions
délicates, par sa patience et sa douceur. Convertir un roi, c'est convertir un
royaume: aussi l'Écosse entière se ressentit de la conversion de son roi: la
cour, le clergé, le peuple furent bientôt transformés.
Marguerite, apôtre de son
mari, fut aussi l'apôtre de sa famille. Dieu lui donna huit enfants, qui firent
tous honneur à la vertu de leur pieuse mère et à la valeur de leur père. Dès le
berceau elle leur inspirait l'amour de Dieu, le mépris des vanités terrestres
et l'horreur du péché.
L'amour des pauvres, qui
avait brillé dans Marguerite enfant, ne fit que s'accroître dans le coeur de la
reine: ce fut peut-être, de toutes les vertus de notre sainte, la plus remarquable.
Pour les soulager, elle n'employait pas seulement ses richesses, elle se
dépensait tout entière: "La main des pauvres, aimait-elle à dire, est la
garantie des trésors royaux: c'est un coffre-fort que les voleurs les plus
habiles ne sauraient forcer." Aussi se fit-elle plus pauvre que les
pauvres eux-mêmes qui lui tendaient la main; car elle ne se privait pas
seulement du superflu, mais du nécessaire, pour leur éviter des privations.
Quand elle sortait de son
palais, elle était toujours environnée de pauvres, de veuves et d'orphelins,
qui se pressaient sur ses pas. Avant de se mettre à table, elle servait
toujours de ses mains neuf petites orphelines et vingt-quatre vieillards; l'on
vit même parfois entrer ensemble dans le palais jusqu'à trois cents pauvres.
Malcolm se faisait un plaisir de s'associer à sa sainte épouse pour servir les
pauvres à genoux, par respect pour Notre-Seigneur, dont ils sont les membres
souffrants. La mort de Marguerite jeta le deuil dans tout le royaume.
Abbé L. Jaud, Vie
des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, Tours, Mame, 1950.
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/sainte_marguerite_reine_d_ecosse.html
Malcolm and Margaret from the Forman Armorial,1562
Sainte Marguerite Reine d'Ecosse
Au martyrologe, on relève
vingt-et-une Marguerite (dont le nom signifie perle précieuse),
depuis la jeune martyre, décapitée à Antioche vers 303, jusqu'aux deux
religieuses guillotinées à Orange le 9 juillet 1794 : Marguerite de
Justaumont et Marguerite Charransol. La Margaret anglo-saxonne fêtée
aujourd’hui, arrive chronologiquement en seconde position, et mérita si bien
son prénom que l’introït de sa messe, la salue comme admirable par son
exquise charité envers les pauvres ; de plus, l'évangile (Matthieu XIII,
45-46) est la parabole de la perle précieuse.
Petite nièce du saint roi
Edouard le Confesseur1 , née vers 1045, Marguerite naquit
exilée en Hongrie où elle resta jusqu'à l'âge de neuf ans. Revenue en
Angleterre, elle dut fuir l'invasion normande (1066), et se réfugier en Ecosse
où elle fut accueillie par le roi Malcolm III2 qui l’épousa en 1070, au palais de
Dunfermline3. En vingt-trois ans de mariage, ce couple
exemplaire eut huit enfants : six garçons (Edouard, Ethelred, Edmond, Edgard4, Alexandre5, David6) et deux filles (Edith7 et Marie) dont deux auront l’honneur
des autels (David, roi d’Ecosse, et Edith, reine d'Angleterre).
Malcolm III était un rude
guerrier, peu lettré, bien qu'il parlât trois langues vivantes, mais
profondément amoureux et admiratif de sa femme qui, avec intuition et tact,
devint l’inspiratrice des réformes du royaume : plusieurs conciles nationaux où
la reine s’entretenait doctement avec les théologiens et les pontifes,
ramenèrent les Ecossais aux pratiques romaines ; rappel des commandements de
l'Eglise, spécialement la communion pascale et le repos dominical ; extirpation
des rites païens, fâcheusement mêlés au culte, surtout pendant la messe ;
proscription des mariages entre proches parents ; début du carême fixé au
mercredi des cendres ; fondation d'une abbaye locale sur le modèle de Cluny ;
construction d'une église dédiée à la Sainte Trinité.
Chaque matin de l'avent
et du carême, la souveraine lavait les pieds de six pauvres et soignait
personnellement neuf orphelins, puis, l'après-midi, avec le roi, elle servait
trois cents miséreux comme des hôtes privilégiés. Si le peuple les
surnommait la providence des pauvres gens, certains courtisans
craignaient la ruine des finances publiques ; la reine leur répondit :
« La main des pauvres, voilà bien la sûre et unique assurance des trésors
royaux. Ce coffre-fort, les voleurs les plus habiles ne parviendront jamais à
le forcer ! » Son ami et confesseur Thierri, son premier biographe
écrivit : « Malcolm apprend de son épouse comment passer une nuit
d'adoration. La ferveur du roi étonne. N'acquiert-il pas l'esprit de
componction et le don des larmes, signe extérieur de repentir !...
Constamment, la souveraine encourage son illustre époux aux œuvres de justice
et de miséricorde aussi bien qu'à la pratique de toutes vertus chrétiennes. »
La chambre de la reine
Marguerite était un véritable atelier tout rempli des ornements liturgiques
qu’elle confectionnait avec de précieux tissus qu’elle faisait importer
d’Italie. La nuit, après avoir pris quelque repos, elle se relevait pour prier,
récitait les matines de la Sainte-Trinité, à quoi elle ajoutait celles de la
Sainte-Croix ou celles de la Sainte-Vierge ; souvent, elle disait aussi
l’office des morts et lisait des psaumes avant que de dire des laudes. Au
matin, elle faisait quelques charités, entendait une ou plusieurs des messes
basses de ses chapelains, puis assistait à la messe solennelle.
« Elle gardait la
plus rigoureuse sobriété dans ses repas, ne mangeant qu’autant qu’il fallait
pour ne pas mourir, et fuyant tout ce qui aurait pu flatter la sensualité. Elle
paraissait plutôt goûter que manger ce qu’on lui présentait. En un mot , ses
œuvres étaient plus étonnantes que ses miracles : car le don d’en faire lui fut
aussi communiqué. Elle possédait l’esprit de componction dans un degré éminent.
Quand elle me parlait des douceurs ineffables de la vie éternelle, ses paroles
étaient accompagnées d’une grâce merveilleuse. Sa ferveur était si grande en
ces occasions, qu’elle ne pouvait arrêter les larmes abondantes qui coulaient
de ses yeux ; elle avait une telle tendresse de dévotion, qu’en la voyant, je
me sentais pénétré d’une vive componction. Personne ne gardait plus exactement
qu’elle le silence à l’église ; personne ne montrait un esprit plus attentif à
la prière. »
Réaliste et lucide,
Marguerite d’Ecosse établit la religion, la justice et la paix, pour le bonheur
de ses sujets, et ses contemporains lui rendirent un hommage unanime :
« Si, dans tout notre pays, des Higlandes au Cheviot Hills, elle fonde
églises, hospices et monastères, sa réalisation principale demeure celle du
bienfait. » Sous son impulsion, Malcolm fit bâtir la cathédrale de Durham,
fonda le monastère de la Trinité à Dunferline, et, avec l’accord du pape, créa
les évêchés de Murray et Carthneff qui s’ajoutèrent aux quatre évêchés
existants. Pour l'Ecosse, les vingt-et-une années de ce règne demeurent un âge
d'or venu, dirent les vieux hagiographes, de ce qu’« Une source pure donne
de belles eaux ; une sainte mère, une sainte reine, forment de belles
âmes. »
En 1093, Malcolm III
défendait l’Ecosse contre Guillaume le Roux8, fils de Guillaume le Conquérant,
quand, le 13 novembre, à Alnwick (Northumberland), il fut tué au combat, avec
son fils-aîné, comme la reine en eut le pressentiment : « Le jour même de
la mort du monarque, la reine apparaît triste et pensive. Elle confie à ses
suivantes : Aujourd'hui, ce 13 novembre, peut-être l'Ecosse est-elle
frappée d'un malheur si grand qu'elle n'en éprouva pas de semblable depuis de
longues années. Le quatrième jour (16 novembre), lors d'une accalmie
de santé car elle est malade depuis six mois, la souveraine se fait porter dans
son oratoire. De retour en ses appartements, la fièvre qui redouble et les
douleurs qui augmentent, l'obligent à s'aliter. Les chapelains recommandent son
âme à Dieu. Elle envoie chercher une croix. Marguerite embrasse délicatement le
crucifix et forme à plusieurs reprises, sur elle-même, le signe sacré du salut.
Ensuite, serrant la croix entre ses mains, la pieuse reine y fixe don regard et
récite le Miserere ... Sur ce, arrive du front son fils Edouard qui croit
prudent d'énoncer la pieuse restriction mentale : Malcolm se porte
bien ! La reine réplique doucement : Certes, il se porte si bien que
je vais vite le rejoindre là-haut. Et puis, tous les assistants, émus jusqu'aux
larmes, écoutent la dernière prière de la moribonde : Dieu tout-puissant,
merci de m'avoir envoyé si grande peine, à la fin de ma vie. Puisse-t-elle,
avec votre miséricorde, me purifier de mes péché ! Seigneur Jésus qui, par
votre mort, avez donné la vie au monde, délivrez-moi du mal ! Marguerite
expira. Il y avait dans sa mort tant de tranquillité, tant de paix,
qu’ on ne saurait douter que son âme ait été admise dans le séjour de
l’éternelle tranquillité, de la paix éternelle. Chose prodigieuse ! son visage
sur lequel la mort avait mis sa pâleur habituelle, reçut, après la mort même,
une teinte si pure et si parfaite de rose et de blanc, qu’on eût pas dit que la
reine était décédée, mais qu’elle dormait. »
On enterra la reine
Marguerite dans l’église de la Sainte-Trinité de Dunfermline, contre l’autel,
en face de la croix qu’elle avait plantée, où elle fut bientôt rejointe par son
époux. Le 21 septembre 1249, le pape accorda une indulgence à qui visiterait
l’église de Dunferline au jour de sa fête ; elle fut canonisée en 1251 par
Innocent IV. A l'époque de la réforme protestante (1538), ses restes
furent pieusement enlevés par les catholiques et transportés en Espagne où,
pour les accueillir, Philippe II édifia une chapelle à l'Escurial. En 1673, à la
demande instante du recteur de l'église romaine Saint-André des Ecossais,
Clément X, proclama Marguerite patronne de l'Ecosse. A ce titre,
ses clients, descendants des Pictes, des Scots et des Angles, vénèrent et
invoquent dans une même prière « le bon et pieux roi Malcolm, avec
son épouse, la charitable Marguerite qui, tous deux, jamais les pauvres
n'oublièrent. » Le chef de sainte Marguerite, donné à Marie Stuart, fut
sauvé par un bénédictin qui le porta à Anvers (1597) ; on le donna aux
jésuites écossais de Douai d’où il disparut à la Révolution.
1 Saint Edouard le
Confesseur, né en 1002 et mort en 1066, fut roi d’Angleterre de 1042 à 1066.
Guillaume le Conquérant et Harold II se disputèrent son héritage.
2 Malcolm
III Canmore, né vers 1031 et mort en 1093, fut roi d’Ecosse de 1058 à 1093.
3 Dunfermline était
une résidence royale où, en souvenir de son mariage, la reine Marguerite fit
construire une église en l'honneur de la Sainte-Trinité, et, selon toute
vraisemblance, y plaça trois moines envoyés de Cantorbéry par l'archevêque
Lanfranc (avant 1089). Les fils de Malcolm et de Marguerite poursuivirent
l'œuvre commencée : la grande nef romane, qui existe encore, fut
construite sous Alexandre I°, mais c'est sous David I° que la fondation prit
toute son ampleur : le roi obtint de Cantorbéry (1128) une nouvelle
colonie de moines avec un abbé. L'église abbatiale fut consacrée en 1150. Elle
fut longtemps, la nécropole des rois d'Écosse.
4 Edgard,
déposséda l’usurpateur Donald VIII (1093-1097) et fut roi d’Ecosse de 1097 à
1107.
5 Alexandre
I° le Farouche, fut roi d’Ecosse de 1107 à 1124.
6 Saint
David I°, né vers 1084 et mort en 1153, fut roi d’Ecosse de 1124 à 1153.
7 Sainte
Edith, dite Mathilde, épousa Henri I° d’Angleterre (1100) et mourut en
1118.
8 Guillaume
II le Roux, né en 1056, fut roi d’Angleterre de 1087 à 1100.
SOURCE : http://missel.free.fr/Sanctoral/11/16.php
Sainte Marguerite
d’Écosse, reine et veuve
Morte à Édimbourg en
1093. Canonisée avant 1249. Fête en 1693.
Leçons des Matines avant
1960
Quatrième leçon.
Marguerite, reine d’Écosse, qui avait la gloire de descendre des rois
d’Angleterre par son père, et des Césars par sa mère, devint plus illustre
encore par la pratique des vertus chrétiennes. Elle naquit en Hongrie, où son
père était alors exilé. Après avoir passé son enfance dans la plus grande
piété, elle vint en Angleterre avec son père qui était appelé par son oncle,
saint Édouard, roi des Anglais, à monter sur le trône de ses aïeux. Bientôt,
partageant les revers de sa famille, Marguerite quitta les rivages
d’Angleterre, mais une tempête, ou plus véritablement un dessein de la divine
Providence, la conduisit sur les côtes d’Écosse. Là, pour obéir à sa mère, elle
épousa le roi de ce pays, Malcolm III, qui avait été charmé par ses belles qualités,
et se rendit merveilleusement utile à tout le royaume par ses œuvres de
sainteté et de piété pendant les trente années qu’elle régna.
Cinquième leçon. Au
milieu des délices de la cour, elle affligeait son corps par des macérations,
des veilles, et réservait une grande partie de la nuit à ses pieuses oraisons.
Indépendamment des autres jeûnes qu’elle observait en diverses circonstances,
elle avait l’habitude de jeûner quarante jours entiers avant les fêtes de Noël,
et cela avec une telle rigueur, qu’elle persévérait à le faire malgré les plus
vives souffrances. Dévouée au culte divin, elle construisit à nouveau ou
restaura plusieurs églises et monastères, qu’elle enrichit d’objets précieux et
d’un revenu abondant. Par son très salutaire exemple, elle amena le roi son
époux à une conduite meilleure et à des œuvres semblables à celles qu’elle
pratiquait. Elle éleva ses enfants avec tant de piété et de succès, que
plusieurs d’entre eux embrassèrent, comme Agathe sa mère et Christine sa sœur,
le genre de vie le plus saint. Pleine de sollicitude pour la prospérité du
royaume entier, elle délivra le peuple de tous les vices qui s’y étaient
glissés insensiblement, et le ramena à des mœurs dignes de la foi chrétienne.
Sixième leçon. Rien
cependant ne fut plus admirable en elle que son ardente charité envers le
prochain et surtout à l’égard des indigents. Non contente d’en soutenir des
multitudes par ses aumônes, elle se faisait une fête de fournir tous les jours,
avec une bonté maternelle, le repas de trois cents d’entre eux, de remplir à
genoux l’office d’une servante envers ces pauvres, de leur laver les pieds de
ses mains royales, et de panser leurs plaies, n’hésitant même point à baiser
leurs ulcères. Pour ces générosités et autres dépenses, elle sacrifia ses
parures royales et ses joyaux précieux, et alla même plus d’une fois jusqu’à
épuiser le trésor. Enfin, après avoir enduré des peines très amères avec une
patience admirable et avoir été purifiée par six mois de souffrances
corporelles, elle rendit son âme à son Créateur le quatre des ides de juin. Au
même instant, son visage défiguré pendant sa longue maladie par la pâleur et la
maigreur, s’épanouit avec une beauté extraordinaire. Marguerite fut illustre,
même après sa mort, par des prodiges éclatants. L’autorité de Clément X l’a
donnée pour patronne à l’Écosse ; et elle est dans le monde entier très
religieusement honorée.
Bleiglasfenster in der katholischen Pfarrkirche Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Sceaux im Département Hauts-de-Seine in der Île-de-France, Darstellung: hl. Margareta von Schottland
Dom Guéranger, l’Année
Liturgique
Une semaine s’est écoulée
depuis le jour où, s’élevant de la terre de France dédiée au Christ par ses
soins, Clotilde apprenait au monde le rôle réservé à la femme près du berceau
des peuples. Avant le christianisme, l’homme, amoindri par le péché dans sa
personne et dans sa vie sociale, ne connaissait pas la grandeur en ce point des
intentions divines ; la philosophie et l’histoire ignoraient l’une et l’autre
que la maternité pût s’élever jusqu’à ces hauteurs. Mais l’Esprit-Saint, donné
aux hommes pour les instruire de toute vérité [1], théoriquement et
pratiquement, multiplie depuis sa venue les exemples, afin de nous révéler
l’ampleur merveilleuse du plan divin, la force et la suavité présidant ici
comme partout aux conseils de l’éternelle Sagesse.
L’Écosse était chrétienne
depuis longtemps déjà, lorsque Marguerite lui fut donnée, non pour l’amener au
baptême, mais pour établir parmi ses peuplades diverses et trop souvent
ennemies l’unité qui fait la nation. L’ancienne Calédonie, défendue par ses
lacs, ses montagnes et ses fleuves, avait jusqu’à la fin de l’empire romain
gardé son indépendance. Mais, inaccessible aux armées, elle était devenue le
refuge des vaincus de toute race, des proscrits de toutes les époques. Les
irruptions, qui s’arrêtaient à ses frontières, avaient été nombreuses et sans
merci dans les provinces méridionales de la grande île britannique ; Bretons
dépossédés, Saxons, Danois, envahisseurs chassés à leur tour et fuyant vers le
nord, étaient venus successivement juxtaposer leurs mœurs à celles des premiers
habitants, ajouter leurs rancunes mutuelles aux vieilles divisions des Pictes
et des Scots. Mais du mal même le remède devait sortir. Dieu, pour montrer
qu’il est le maître des révolutions aussi bien que des flots en furie, allait
confier l’exécution de ses desseins miséricordieux sur l’Écosse aux
bouleversements politiques et à la tempête.
Dans les premières années
du XIe siècle, l’invasion danoise chassait du sol anglais les fils du dernier
roi saxon, Edmond Côte de fer. L’apôtre couronné de la Hongrie, saint Etienne
Ier, recevait à sa cour les petits-neveux d’Édouard le Martyr et donnait à
l’aîné sa fille en mariage, tandis que le second s’alliait à la nièce de
l’empereur saint Henri, le virginal époux de sainte Cunégonde. De cette
dernière union naquirent deux filles : Christine qui se voua plus tard au
Seigneur, Marguerite dont l’Église célèbre la gloire en ce jour, et un prince,
Edgard Etheling, que les événements ramenèrent bientôt sur les marches du trône
d’Angleterre. La royauté venait en effet de passer des princes danois à Édouard
le Confesseur, oncle d’Edgard ; et l’angélique union du saint roi avec la douce
Édith n’étant appelée à produire de fruits que pour le ciel, la couronne
semblait devoir appartenir après lui par droit de naissance au frère de sainte
Marguerite, son plus proche héritier. Nés dans l’exil, Edgard et ses sœurs
virent donc enfin s’ouvrir pour eux la patrie. Mais peu après, la mort
d’Édouard et la conquête normande bannissaient de nouveau la famille royale ;
le navire qui devait reconduire sur le continent les augustes fugitifs était
jeté par un ouragan sur les côtes d’Écosse. Edgard Etheling, malgré les efforts
du parti saxon, ne devait jamais relever le trône de ses pères ; mais sa sainte
sœur conquérait la terre où le naufrage, instrument de Dieu, l’avait portée.
Devenue l’épouse de
Malcolm III, sa sereine influence assouplit les instincts farouches du fils de
Duncan, et triompha de la barbarie trop dominante encore en ces contrées
jusque-là séparées du reste du monde. Les habitants des hautes et des basses
terres, réconciliés, suivaient leur douce souveraine dans les sentiers nouveaux
qu’elle ouvrait devant eux à la lumière de l’Évangile. Les puissants se
rapprochèrent du faible et du pauvre, et, déposant leur dureté de race, se
laissèrent prendre aux charmes de la charité. La pénitence chrétienne reprit
ses droits sur les instincts grossiers de la pure nature. La pratique des
sacrements, remise en honneur, produisait ses fruits. Partout, dans l’Église et
l’État, disparaissaient les abus. Tout le royaume n’était plus qu’une famille,
dont Marguerite se disait à bon droit la mère ; car l’Écosse naissait par elle
à la vraie civilisation. David Ier, inscrit comme sa mère au catalogue des
Saints, achèvera l’œuvre commencée ; pendant ce temps, un autre enfant de
Marguerite, également digne d’elle, sainte Mathilde d’Écosse, épouse d’Henri
Ier fils de Guillaume de Normandie, mettra fin sur le sol anglais aux rivalités
persévérantes des conquérants et des vaincus par le mélange du sang des deux
races.
Nous vous saluons, ô
reine, digne des éloges que la postérité consacre aux plus illustres
souveraines. Dans vos mains, la puissance a été l’instrument du salut des
peuples. Votre passage a marqué pour l’Écosse le plein midi de la vraie
lumière. Hier, en son Martyrologe, la sainte Église nous rappelait la mémoire
de celui qui fut votre précurseur glorieux sur cette terre lointaine : au VIe
siècle, Colomb-Kil, sortant de l’Irlande, y portait la foi. Mais le
christianisme de ses habitants, comprimé par mille causes diverses dans son
essor, n’avait point produit parmi eux tous ses effets civilisateurs. Une mère
seule pouvait parfaire l’éducation surnaturelle de la nation. L’Esprit-Saint,
qui vous avait choisie pour cette tâche, ô Marguerite, prépara votre maternité
dans la tribulation et l’angoisse : ainsi avait-il procédé pour Clotilde ;
ainsi fait-il pour toutes les mères. Combien mystérieuses et cachées
n’apparaissent pas en votre personne les voies de l’éternelle Sagesse ! Cette
naissance de proscrite loin du sol des aïeux, cette rentrée dans la patrie,
suivie bientôt d’infortunes plus poignantes, cette tempête, enfin, qui vous
jette dénuée de tout sur les rochers d’une terre inconnue : quel prudent de ce
monde eût pressenti, dans une série de désastres pareils, la conduite d’une
miséricordieuse providence faisant servir à ses plus suaves résolutions la
violence combinée des hommes et des éléments ? Et pourtant, c’est ainsi que se
formait en vous la femme forte [2], supérieure aux tromperies de la vie
présente et fixée en Dieu, le seul bien que n’atteignent pas les révolutions de
ce monde.
Loin de s’aigrir ou de se
dessécher sous la souffrance, votre cœur, établi au-dessus des variations de
cette terre à la vraie source de l’amour, y puisait toutes les prévoyances et
tous les dévouements qui, sans autre préparation, vous tenaient à la hauteur de
la mission qui devait être la vôtre. Ainsi fûtes-vous en toute vérité ce trésor
qui mérite qu’on l’aille chercher jusqu’aux extrémités du monde, ce navire qui
apporte des plages lointaines la nourriture et toutes les richesses au rivage
où les vents l’ont poussé [3]. Heureuse votre patrie d’adoption, si jamais elle
n’eût oublié vos enseignements et vos exemples ! Heureux vos descendants, si
toujours ils s’étaient souvenus que le sang des Saints coulait dans leurs
veines ! Digne de vous dans la mort, la dernière reine d’Écosse porta du moins
sous la hache du bourreau une tête jusqu’au bout fidèle à son baptême. Mais on
vit l’indigne fils de Marie Smart, par une politique aussi fausse que
sacrilège, abandonner en même temps l’Église et sa mère. L’hérésie desséchait
pour jamais la souche illustre d’où sortirent tant de rois, au moment où
l’Angleterre et l’Écosse s’unissaient sous leur sceptre agrandi ; car la
trahison consommée par Jacques Ier ne devait pas être rachetée devant Dieu par
la fidélité de Jacques II à la foi de ses pères. O Marguerite, du ciel où votre
trône est affermi pour les siècles sans fin, n’abandonnez ni l’Angleterre à qui
vous appartenez par vos glorieux ancêtres, ni l’Écosse dont la protection
spéciale vous reste confiée par l’Église de la terre. L’apôtre André partage
avec vous les droits de ce puissant patronage. De concert avec lui, gardez les
âmes restées fidèles, multipliez le nombre des retours à l’antique foi, et
préparez pour un avenir prochain la rentrée du troupeau tout entier sous la
houlette de l’unique Pasteur [4].
[1] Johan. XVI, 13.
[2] Prov. XXXI, 10-31.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Johan. X, 16.
St Margaret of Scotland, Scottish Episcopal Church, Aberdeen
Bhx Cardinal
Schuster, Liber Sacramentorum
Cette sainte reine
confirme ce qu’écrivait jadis saint Paul : Une femme remplie de foi peut
sanctifier son mari et toute sa maison. Marguerite fut l’ange tutélaire de son
peuple, c’est pourquoi Clément X la proclama patronne de l’Écosse.
La messe est semblable à
celle de sainte Françoise Romaine, le 9 mars. Seule la première collecte est
spéciale : « Seigneur qui avez inspiré à la bienheureuse reine Marguerite un
tendre amour pour les pauvres ; à son exemple et par ses prières, faites que la
charité embrase de plus en plus notre cœur ».
Il est meilleur de donner
que de recevoir, a dit le Seigneur (Act., XX, 35). Dieu a imprimé sur les
puissants et sur les riches comme un rayon de sa magnificence, afin que
ceux-ci, partageant entre les malheureux les ressources qu’il leur a accordées,
soient les organes et les ministres de la divine Providence. La richesse est
donc une mission sacrée et divine, et c’est la raison pour laquelle Dieu nous
déclare si souvent dans la sainte Écriture qu’il a lui-même créé le riche comme
le pauvre.
Dom Pius Parsch, le Guide
dans l’année liturgique
Que Dieu donne de bonnes
mères !
Sainte Marguerite. Jour
de mort : 10 juin 1093. Tombeau : La plus grande partie des reliques se trouve
au couvent de l’Escurial, en Espagne. Image : On la représente en reine,
secourant les pauvres. « Elle naquit en Hongrie (vers 1045) où son père était alors
exilé. Elle y passa son enfance dans une profonde piété. Elle vint plus tard en
Angleterre. Son père avait, en effet, été élevé par son oncle, le saint roi
Édouard III d’Angleterre, aux plus hautes dignités du royaume. Après la mort
subite de son père, en 1057, elle quitta l’Angleterre. Une violente tempête, ou
plutôt une disposition spéciale de la Providence, la jeta sur les côtes
écossaises. Là, elle épousa, sur l’ordre de sa mère, le roi d’Écosse, Malcolm
III (1070). Sa sainteté et sa charité en firent pendant ses trente ans de règne
la bénédiction du pays. Au sein même des grandeurs royales, Marguerite
mortifiait sa chair par des austérités et des veilles. Ce qui était surtout
admirable dans cette sainte reine, c’était sa charité pour le prochain et particulièrement
pour les nécessiteux. Elle ne se contentait pas de secourir les nombreux
nécessiteux par des aumônes ; elle nourrissait encore chaque jour à sa table
environ 300 pauvres, elle les servait de sa propre main et baisait leurs plaies
». Elle a été déclarée patronne du royaume d’Écosse.
Encore deux traits de sa
vie : La reine insistait souvent auprès de son confesseur pour qu’il lui
indiquât sans pitié tous ses défauts. Elle fit convoquer plusieurs synodes et
manifesta beaucoup de zèle pour faire observer les commandements de l’Église.
Pratique. — L’oraison de
la fête fait ressortir « son amour pour les pauvres » et demande que, « par son
intercession et son exemple, l’amour de Dieu grandisse chaque jour dans nos
cœurs ». La charité doit toujours être cultivée avec un soin particulier. « Ce
que vous aurez fait au plus petit d’entre les miens, c’est à moi que vous
l’aurez fait », dit le Seigneur. — La messe est du commun des saintes femmes
(Cognóvi).
SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/10-06-Ste-Marguerite-d-Ecosse
_-_Saint_Margaret_(c.1045%E2%80%931093)%2C_Queen_of_Scotland_-_998409_-_National_Trust.jpg)
Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746), Queen St Margaret, Queen of Scotland (1045/6–1093), circa 1692, 135 x 103, National Trust
Also
known as
Margaret of Wessex
formerly 10 June
Profile
Granddaughter of King Edmund
Ironside of England.
Great-niece of Saint Stephen
of Hungary. Born in Hungary while
her family was in exile due
to the Danish invasion
of England,
she still spent much of her youth in the British Isles. While fleeing the
invading army of
William the Conqueror in 1066,
her family’s ship wrecked on
the Scottish coast.
They were assisted by King Malcolm
III Canmore of Scotland,
whom Margaret married in 1070. Queen of Scotland.
They had eight children including Saint Maud, wife of
Henry I, and Saint David
of Scotland and Blessed Edmund
of Scotland. Margaret founded abbeys and
used her position to work for justice and improved conditions for the poor.
Born
16
November 1093 at
Edinburgh Castle, Scotland,
four days after her husband and son died in
defense of the castle
buried in
front of the high altar at Dunfermline, Scotland
relics later
removed to a nearby shrine
the bulk of her relics were
destroyed in stages during the Protestant Reformation and the French
Revolution
1251 by Pope Innocent
IV
–
–
in Scotland
queen dispensing gifts to
the poor,
often while carrying a black cross
Additional
Information
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
Mothers
of History, by J T Moran, C.SS.R.
Our
Island Saints, by Amy Steedman
Panegyric
on Saint Margaret, by James Augustine Stothert
Roman
Martyrology, 1914 edition
Saints
of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
Short
Lives of the Saints, by Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly
The
Book of Saints and Heroes, by Leonora Blanche Lang
The Life and Times of
Saint Margaret, Queen and Patroness of Scotland, by A Secular Priest
books
Favourite Patron Saints, by Paul Burns
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
Oxford Dictionary of Saints, by David Hugh Farmer
other
sites in english
Christian
Biographies, by James Keifer
How Saint Margaret Came to Scotland, by Malcolm Canmore
Life
and Times of Saint Margaret, Queen and Patroness of Scotland
images
video
The Life and Times of Saint Margaret, Queen and Patron of
Scotland (Librivox audiobook with image montage)
sitios
en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
sites
en français
Abbé
Christian-Philippe Chanut
fonti
in italiano
strony
w jezyku polskim
Conference
of the Polish Espiscopate
Saint Margaret of Scotland, by Peter Drzyzga
Strong
Scottish Patron, by Father Tomasz Jaklewicz
MLA
Citation
“Saint Margaret of
Scotland“. CatholicSaints.Info. 11 February 2024. Web. 11 January 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-margaret-of-scotland/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-margaret-of-scotland/
St Margaret of Scotland. The sixth north nave window of St Mark's Church, Staplefield, West Sussex. It was designed by Joseph E Nuttgens and produced by James Powell and Sons in 1924.
Book of Saints
– Margaret of Scotland
(Saint)
(June
10) Queen, Widow. (11th
century) The grand-daughter of King Edmond Ironside, sister of Edgar
Atheling, and through her mother related to Saint Stephen, King of Hungary. In
exile during the Danish domination in England, Saint Margaret with the rest of
the Royal Family lived in England during the reign of Saint Edward the
Confessor. After the death of the latter, Saint Margaret’s mother, a Hungarian
princess, was compelled to seek refuge for her children and herself on the
Continent from the Normans, who had become masters of England. A storm drove
the ship on which she had embarked on to the coast of Scotland. They were
welcomed by King Malcolm III, who made Margaret his Queen. The Saint used her
influence as Queen for the good of religion and for the promotion of justice.
She had especial thought for the poor, nor would suffer any to be oppressed.
Among the pious foundations she made was the Abbey of Dunfermline. In her
private life she was devoted to prayer. The Book of the Gospels she studied is
still preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. She foretold the day of her
death, which occurred November 16, A.D. 1093, on which day her festival is
still celebrated in Scotland, though in other countries, by Papal Decree, kept
on June 10.
MLA
Citation
Monks of Ramsgate.
“Margaret of Scotland”. Book of Saints, 1921. CatholicSaints.Info.
24 November 2014. Web. 11 January 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-margaret-of-scotland/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-margaret-of-scotland/
Statue of Queen Margaret, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Statue of Queen Margaret, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Pictorial
Lives of the Saints – Saint Margaret of Scotland
Article
Saint Margaret’s name
signifies “pearl;” “a fitting name,” says Theodoric, her confessor and her
first biographer, “for one such as she.” Her soul was like a precious pearl. A
life spent amidst the luxury of a royal court never dimmed its lustre, or stole
it away from Him who had bought it with His blood. She was the granddaughter of
an English king; and in 1070 she became the bride of Malcolm, and reigned Queen
of Scotland till her death in 1093. How did she become a Saint in a position
where sanctity is so difficult? First, she burned with zeal for the house of
God. She built churches and monasteries; she busied herself in making
vestments; she could not rest till she saw the laws of God and His Church
observed throughout her realm. Next, amidst a thousand cares, she found time to
converse with God—ordering her piety with such sweetness and discretion that
she won her husband to sanctity like her own. He used to rise with her at night
for prayer; he loved to kiss the holy books she used, and sometimes he would
steal them away, and bring them back to his wife covered with jewels. Lastly,
with virtues so great, she wept constantly over her sins, and begged her
confessor to correct her faults. Saint Margaret did not neglect her duties in
the world because she was not of it. Never was a better mother. She spared no
pains in the education of her eight children, and their sanctity was the fruit
of her prudence and her zeal. Never was a better queen. She was the most
trusted counsellor of her husband, and she labored for the material improvement
of the country. But, in the midst of the world’s pleasures, she sighed for the
better country, and accepted death as a release. On her deathbed she received
the news that her husband and her eldest son were slain in battle. She thanked
God, who had sent this last affliction as a penance for her sins. After
receiving Holy Viaticum, she was repeating the prayer from the Missal, “O Lord
Jesus Christ, who by Thy death didst give life to the world, deliver me.” At
the words “deliver me,” says her biographer, she took her departure to Christ,
the Author of true liberty.
Reflection – All
perfection consists in keeping a guard upon the heart. Wherever we are, we can
make a solitude in our hearts, detach ourselves from the world, and converse
familiarly with God. Let us take Saint Margaret for our example and
encouragement.
MLA
Citation
John Dawson Gilmary Shea.
“Saint Margaret of Scotland”. Pictorial Lives of
the Saints, 1889. CatholicSaints.Info.
24 May 2014. Web. 11 January 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-saint-margaret-of-scotland/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-saint-margaret-of-scotland/
Santa Margarita reina de Escocia. Obra de Juan de Roelas, c. 1605. Iglesia de
San Miguel and San Julián, Valladolid.
St. Margaret of Scotland
Born about 1045, died 16
Nov., 1093, was a daughter of Edward "Outremere", or "the
Exile", by Agatha, kinswoman of Gisela, the wife of St.
Stephen of Hungary. She was the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. A
constant tradition asserts that Margaret's father and his brother Edmund were
sent to Hungary for
safety during the reign of Canute,
but no record of the fact has been found in that country. The date of
Margaret's birth cannot be ascertained with accuracy, but it must have been
between the years 1038, when St.
Stephendied, and 1057, when her father returned to England.
It appears that Margaret came with him on that occasion and, on his death and
the conquest of England by
the Normans, her mother Agatha decided to return to the Continent. A storm
however drove their ship to Scotland,
where Malcolm III received the party under his protection, subsequently taking
Margaret to wife. This event had been delayed for a while by Margaret's desire
to enter religion, but it took place some time between
1067 and 1070.
In her position as queen,
all Margaret's great influence was thrown into the cause
of religion and piety.
Asynod was
held, and among the special reforms instituted the most important were the
regulation of theLenten
fast, observance of the Easter communion,
and the removal of certain abuses concerning marriage
within the prohibited degrees. Her private life was given up to
constant prayer and
practices of piety.
She founded several churches, including the Abbey
of Dunfermline, built to enshrine her greatest treasure, a relicof
the true
Cross. Her book of the Gospels,
richly adorned with jewels, which one day dropped into a river and was
according to legend miraculously recovered,
is now in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
She foretold the day of her death, which took place at Edinburgh on
16 Nov., 1093, her body being buried before
the high
altar at Dunfermline.
In 1250 Margaret
was canonized by Innocent
IV, and her relics were
translated on 19 June, 1259, to a new shrine, the base of which is still
visible beyond the modern east wall of the restored church. At theReformation her
head passed into the possession of Mary
Queen of Scots, and later was secured by theJesuits at Douai,
where it is believed to
have perished during the French
Revolution. According to George Conn, "De duplici statu religionis
apud Scots" (Rome, 1628), the rest of the relics,
together with those of Malcolm, were acquired by Philip
II of Spain, and placed in two urns in the Escorial.
When, however, Bishop
Gillies of Edinburgh applied
through Pius
IX for their restoration to Scotland,
they could not be found.
The chief authority for
Margaret's life is the contemporary biography printed in "Acta SS.",
II, June, 320. Its authorship has been ascribed to Turgot,
the saint's confessor,
a monk of Durham and
later Archbishop of St.
Andrews, and also to Theodoric, a somewhat obscure monk;
but in spite of much controversy the point remains quite unsettled. The feast of St.
Margaret is now observed by the whole Church on
10 June.
Sources
Acta SS., II, June, 320;
CAPGRAVE, Nova Legenda Angliae (London, 1515), 225; WILLIAM OF
MALMESBURY, Gesta Regum in P.L., CLXXIX, also in Rolls Series,
ed. STUBBS (London, 1887-9); CHALLONER, Britannia Sancta, I (London,
1745), 358; BUTLER, Lives of the Saints, 10 June; STANTON, Menology
of England and Wales (London, 1887), 544; FORBES-LEITH, Life of St.
Margaret. . . (London, 1885); MADAN, The Evangelistarium of St. Margaret
in Academy (1887); BELLESHEIM, History of the Catholic Church in
Scotland, tr. Blair, III (Edinburgh, 1890), 241-63.
Huddleston,
Gilbert. "St. Margaret of Scotland." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1910. 9
Jun. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09655c.htm>.
Transcription. This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Anita G. Gorman.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Knight.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09655c.htm
Edward
Burne-Jones (1833, Birmingham - 1898, Fulham). Sainte Marguerite, 1894
Carton de vitrail réalisé par la firme W. Morris, pour l'Eglise
Sainte-Marguerite de Rottingdean (Grande-Bretagne) Craies de couleur sur papier
marouflé sur toile 214 x 61 cm H.G.: Rotting Dean.St.Margaret's Ch. two light
window right hand light.S.Margareth. Achat à Georges Martin du Nord
(Paris) en 1968 Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain de la Ville de Strasbourg. Inv. :
2326
St. Margaret Queen of
Scotland (1047-1093)
Queen Margaret of
Scotland was by birth an English Princess, grand-daughter of Edmund Ironside.
When Edmund died and the English people chose Cnut to be their king, Edmund’s
infant sons were sent abroad to the protection of King Stephen of Hungary. One
of the twins died young, but the other, Edward Atheling, was brought up as a
protégé of Stephen’s Queen, Gisela, and regarded in that foreign Court as the
heir to the Anglo-Saxon throne. He married a cousin of Gisela, the Princess
Agatha. Their marriage was blessed by one son, Edgar, and two daughters,
Christian and Margaret.
Much has been written
about the significance of the name, Margaret. It came originally from the
Greek, margaron, meaning pearl. For that reason Margaret was sometimes called
“The Pearl of Scotland,” to which her biographer, Turgot, comments, “the
fairness pre-shadowed in her name was eclipsed in the surpassing grace of her
soul.”
When Cnut died in 1035,
his sons Harold and Harthacnut reigned for seven years. Then the English
determined they must have a king of their own blood, thus paving the way for
Edward (afterwards the Confessor) to be chosen. He, too, was an exile, brought
up in Normandy under Benedictine influences. Never attracted by worldly things,
his palace was more monastery than court. He himself was a virtuous man who
protected the kingdom by means of peace rather than violence. The ruling of an
earthly kingdom, however, was of little interest to him. Having vowed to live
in virginity, he resolved to bring Edward the Exile and his family back from
Hungary in order to secure the succession to the throne of England.
Edward, his wife and
three children set out from Hungary in 1054, but whether from natural or
sinister causes, Edward died immediately on landing. His widow and three
children found themselves again living in dependence at court. Now, however,
they were in a position of importance, Edgar being the heir to the throne.
Margaret was about ten
years old when she came to England. The impression seems to have been that she
was a tall, handsome girl of Saxon type, but the early chronicles were so busy
describing the beauty of her nature that they say little about her appearance.
We know that she read the Scriptures in Latin, and it is almost certain that
she was familiar with the writings of St. Augustine.
During some of these
years another prince enjoyed the hospitality of Edward the Confessor. When his
father, Duncan, was murdered by Macbeth, Malcolm III of Scotland was sent for
safety to the English Court. There he met Margaret, his future wife and Queen.
When Edward the Confessor
died, the only direct heirs to the throne of England were Edgar, Margaret, and
Christian. According to the law of the land, however, they had no
constitutional claim to the throne: Edgar not having been born in England and
not being the son of the crowned king, and a princess not being eligible (at
that time) to reign in her own right. And so, the people unanimously chose
Harold, son of Earl Godwine, to be their king. But William of Normandy,
England’s rival across the water, was only biding his time until all his
preparations were made. Then, at the Battle of Hastings, Harold was killed.
Upon Harold’s death,
Edgar was halfheartedly chosen king (he was a very weak character), but was
never crowned. Edgar’s supporters soon saw they had no chance against the
well-equipped Norman forces, and so Edgar and the leaders of Church and State
waited at Berkhampstead to offer William the Conqueror homage. Seeing the
affairs of the English disturbed on every side, and fearing retaliation by his
conqueror, the royal family resolved to return to Hungary. They took ship, but
a fierce gale drove them northwards forcing their vessel to take shelter in the
Firth of Forth. The royal travelers landed in a sheltered bay on the Fifeshire
coast, since called St. Margaret’s Hope, where Malcolm, now King of Scotland,
hastened to welcome the friends he had known in England.
Margaret was about twenty
years old. She would find a primitive style of life at Dunfermline, where the
royal residence was located. It was a time of great poverty in Scotland and
though the people were nominally Christian, Church life was at a low ebb.
Malcolm was then about
forty years old, a widower with one son. He was deeply attracted to Margaret,
whose own inclination and upbringing had prepared her for the cloister rather
than the throne. It was only after long consideration, yielding to her friends
and advisors, that Margaret was married in 1070 at age twenty-four to the King
of Scotland. Through the influence she acquired over her husband, she softened
her husband’s temper, polished his manners, and rendered him one of the most
virtuous kings who have ever occupied the Scottish throne.
What she did for her
husband, Margaret also did in a great measure for her adopted country. Though a
contemplative by nature, she lived the ordered life of prayer and work taught
by St. Benedict, combining the virtues of Martha and Mary in an exemplary
fashion. Through her tireless efforts, she reformed both the spiritual and
social milieu in Scotland, supported in these endeavors by her devoted husband.
She promoted education and religion, made it her constant effort to obtain good
priests and teachers for all parts of the country, founded several churches,
built hospitals, and cared for the poor. Despite her royal position, she
regarded herself merely as the steward of God’s riches, living in the spirit of
inward poverty, looking on nothing as her own, but recognizing that everything
she possessed was to be used for the purposes of God. The miracle is that the
Scots, ever jealous of their liberties, accepted the reforms she introduced!
Her charity was unbounded.
She thought of her poorest subjects before herself, often feeding orphans,
taking in the homeless, and performing other acts of charity. Tradition says
that Margaret used to sit on a stone outside the castle so that anyone in
trouble might come to her. Another tradition describes a daily custom at
Dunfermline in which any destitute poor could come in the morning to the royal
hall where the King and Queen themselves would serve provide for their needs.
She also had great compassion on the English captives in Scotland, often paying
their ransoms and setting them free.
Such a life could not
fail to be a power for good, and for centuries Margaret was honored as the
ideal of a holy woman who lived in the world. She was a reformer of life and
religion rather than the institutional Church. In the process, she improved the
standard of living in Scotland and revived the religious life of the people.
Margaret had eight
children, six sons and two daughters. Of the sons, Edward, the eldest, was
killed in battle, Ethelred died young, and Edmund “fell away from the good.”
But the three youngest sons were the jewels in the crown: Edgar, Alexander, and
David are remembered among the best kings Scotland ever had.
It is an interesting fact
that of all the saints canonized by the Church of Rome, Margaret stands alone
as the happy mother of a large family. It is that image which we use as our
parish logo.
Towards the end of her
life she and King Malcolm lived in the Castle of Edinburgh, none of which
remains with the exception of her little chapel, pictured on the opposite page
of this article. It was here that she died, a few days after she heard that her
husband and eldest son had been killed in battle. Margaret was not yet fifty
when she died.
Though Margaret’s achievements
were great, her selfless spirit in which she achieved them was greater still,
for the height of perfection and blessedness does not consist in the
performance of wonderful works but in the purity of love.
Margaret was canonized in
1250, and was named Patroness of Scotland in 1673. Her feast day had been June
10th, but is presently celebrated on November 16th.
(...)
SOURCE : http://saintmargaret.com/pages/stmargaret.htm
Holy Trinity Church in Crockham Hill : Stained glass window of Saint Margaret of Scotland and Saint Cecilia.
Calendar
of Scottish Saints – Saint Margaret, Queen
A.D. 1093. It is
impossible here to say much in detail of the life of the saintly queen who is
regarded as one of the heavenly patrons of the Kingdom of Scotland; but to omit
all notice of her would make our calendar incomplete. It will be sufficient to note
briefly the chief events of her life. Saint Margaret was granddaughter to
Edmund Ironside. Her father, Edward, having to fly for his life to Hungary,
married Agatha, the sister-in-law of the king. Three children were born to
them. When Edward the Confessor ascended the English throne, Prince Edward
returned with his family to his native land, but died a few years after. When
William the Conqueror obtained the crown, Edgar, the son of Edward, thought it
more prudent to retire from England, and took refuge with his mother and
sisters at the court of Malcolm III of Scotland, having been driven on the
Scottish coast by a tempest. Malcolm, attracted by the virtue and beauty of
Margaret, made her his bride, and for the thirty years she reigned in Scotland
she was a model queen. The historian Dr. Skene says of her: “There is perhaps
no more beautiful character recorded in history than that of Margaret. For
purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her
lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the
unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her, and for entire
self-abnegation she is unsurpassed, and the chroniclers of the time all bear
witness to her exalted character.” Her solicitude for the nation was truly
maternal. She set herself to combat, with zeal and energy, the abuses which had
crept into the practice of religion, taking a prominent part—with her royal
husband as the interpreter of her southern speech—in many councils summoned at
her instigation. She loved and befriended clergy and monks, and was lavish in
her charity to the poor. Her own children, through her training and example,
were one and all distinguished for piety and virtue. Her three sons, Edgar,
Alexander and David, were remarkable for their unparalleled purity of life:
David’s two grandsons, Malcolm IV and William, and William’s son and grandson,
Alexander II and III, were noble Catholic kings. Thus did the influence of this
saintly queen extend over the space of two hundred years and form monarchs of
extraordinary excellence to rule Scotland wisely and well.
Saint Margaret died on
the 16th of November at the age of forty-seven. Her body was buried with that
of King Malcolm, who had been killed in battle only four days before her own
death, in the church they had founded at Dunfermline. At the Reformation her
relics were secretly carried into Spain, together with the remains of her
husband, and placed in the Escurial. Her head, with a quantity of her long,
fair hair, was preserved for a time by the Scottish Jesuits at Douai. The
sacred relics disappeared in the French Revolution. Fairs on the saint’s
feast-day, known as “Margaretmas,” were held at Wick, Closeburn (Dumfries
shire) and Balquhapple (now Thornhill) in Kincardineshire. Saint Margaret’s
Well at Restalrig near Edinburgh, was once covered by a graceful Gothic
building, whose groined roof rested on a central pillar; steps led down to the
level of the water. It is thought to have been erected at the same period as
that covering Saint Triduana’s Well in the same place.
When the North British
Railway required the spot for the building of storehouses, the well-house was
removed to Queen’s Park, where it still stands, but the spring has disappeared
(see October 8th). Innocent XII at the petition of James VII (and II) in 1693,
placed Saint Margaret’s feast on June 10th, the birthday of the King’s son
James (stigmatised the “Old Pretender”), but Leo XIII, in 1898, restored it for
the Scottish calendar to the day of her death.
MLA
Citation
Father Michael
Barrett, OSB.
“Saint Margaret, Queen”. The Calendar of Scottish
Saints, 1919. CatholicSaints.Info.
8 December 2019. Web. 11 January 2025. <https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-margaret-queen/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-margaret-queen/
Saint Barbara, Saint Cecilia, Saint Margaret. Second window on the north side of the nave of St Peter's parish church, Cowfold, West Sussex, with glass made by James Powell and Sons
Mothers
of History – Saint Margaret of Scotland
Saint
Margaret was born in Hungary in the year 1048. She was of royal stock, whose
history is intimately bound up with the history of England.
On the death of King
Edmund Ironsides, Canute of Denmark usurped the English throne and exiled
Edmund’s two young sons, Edmund and Edward, to Sweden. Canute asked the Swedish
King to put them to death. He, however, secretly sent them to Saint Stephen,
King of Hungary, who treated them as his own children.
Prince Edmund, on
reaching maturity, married Saint Stephen’s only daughter. Of this union were
born a son and two daughters, of whom Margaret was the elder.
An ancient biographer
records of the child Margaret that ‘she was more beautiful than any other girl
of her time.’ Margaret was endowed with great intelligence. Saint Stephen’s
court was a model one, and from the saintly king, Margaret learned the lessons
of holiness, which rendered her so illustrious as Queen of Scotland. Renowned
for her beauty, she was deeply admired for the modesty of her demeanour and
gentle disposition. At an early age, she showed a great love of prayer and
liked to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament and at shrines of Our Lady.
Taught by Saint Stephen,
she was prodigal in her generosity to the poor. So much so, that she earned the
beautiful title of ‘Mother of the Motherless and Treasurer of God’s poor.’ At
the death of her father, Prince Edmund, Margaret resolved to leave the Court
and enter the convent. Such, however, was not the Will of God. It was left for
her younger sister, Christina, to become the nun.
History was being made in
England all this while. Canute, the usurper, died and Saint Edward the
Confessor became King of England. He immediately sent for the exiles. Margaret
and her brother, Edgar, thus came to the English court. Great joy attended
their return. But Edward the Confessor died soon after their arrival. Prince
Edgar, Margaret’s brother, was now heir to the throne. Edgar was young and
Harold, who was afterwards defeated by William the Conqueror, seized the
throne. Edgar was forced to flee for his life. Margaret accompanied him. They
were shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland. Malcolm III of Scotland received
them royally and gave them a permanent home at his court.
The characteristics that
distinguished Margaret in Hungary were to the fore in Scotland. All admired
beauty, fortitude under trials, evenness of temper, and unbounded sympathy for
the sick and the poor. King Malcolm requested Margaret’s hand in marriage.
Margaret still longed for the religious life, but, persuaded she was fulfilling
the Divine Will, gave her consent. In 1070, at Dunfermline, she became Queen of
Scotland. She was then twenty-four years of age.
As a thanksgiving to God,
she endowed Dunfermline with a magnificent church, dedicated to the Most Holy
Trinity. ‘Whilst honouring the Three Divine Persons,’ she said, ‘I wish to
ensure, as far as I can, the salvation of my beloved husband and of any
children God may give me, as also my own.’
God blessed her with
children. Six sons and two daughters were born to the royal couple. The
children were early trained to virtue by their saintly mother. She personally
superintended their education.
She chose their
instructors herself so that none but virtuous tutors should influence them. She
even administered corporal punishment, if she deemed it necessary.
Her love for the poor
increased, if anything, with her years. Malcolm gave her free access to the
royal coffers. She dotted the country with abbeys, schools, monasteries and
hospices for travellers and the sick.
Margaret had her
slanderers, but her virtue was proof against all evil tongues. There were those
who would play Iago to Malcolm’s Othello. Their filthy suggestions were refuted
by Malcolm’s own investigations.
Following her to a
supposed assignation in the forest, the mentally tortured King found her in a
cave she had transformed into a chapel. Burning with shame and self-reproach,
the royal eavesdropper heard her praying aloud, beseeching God to “fill the
mind of my dear spouse with Your Divine light. Incline his heart to all that is
highest and best. May he love You more dearly, follow You more nearly and
realize the truth of Your Divine words: ‘What does it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?’ Amen.”
Malcolm burst in with the
heartfelt prayer, ‘My God, forgive me. All unworthy that I am, I render You
thanks for the woman You have given me, my holy queen.’ Falling on his knees,
he humbly confessed his unworthy thoughts and begged Margaret’s pardon, which
she lovingly granted.
From then on, the
chronicler of the times tells us, Malcolm would often ‘watch the night in
prayer by her side.’
Margaret passed to her
eternal reward on the day the now pious Malcolm fell in battle at Alnwick. On
November 16, 1093, she heard from Our Divine Lord the ‘Well done’ of the good
and faithful servant.
Saint Margaret of
Scotland, wife, mother, queen, pray for us.
– text taken from Mothers of History, by J T Moran, C.SS.R., Australian
Catholic Truth Society, 1954>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/mothers-of-history-saint-margaret-of-scotland/
Statua di Santa Margherita di Scozia nella grotta situata a Dunfermline
Statue of Saint Margaret of Scotland in her cave at Dunfermline
Statua di Santa Margherita di Scozia nella grotta situata a Dunfermline
Statue of Saint Margaret of Scotland in her cave at Dunfermline
Statua di Santa Margherita di Scozia nella grotta situata a Dunfermline
Statue of Saint Margaret of Scotland in her cave at Dunfermline
St
Margaret's Cave. This small building which is situated in the Glen Bridge car
park is the entrance to the cave which is named after Queen Margaret, who used
to meditate and pray here in the 11th century. She was Queen of Scotland,
canonised in 1250 and made patron saint of Scotland in 1673. The cave is one of
Scotland's holiest shrines.
During
the construction of the car park in 1969 the council wanted to bury the cave
under tons of concrete. This sparked a public outcry and the council then
agreed to build a tunnel under the car park to allow access to the cave.
From this building 84 steps lead down to a tunnel which then turns into a single chamber 10 feet long by 8 feet wide and 8 feet high. 225048 225037
June 10
ST MARGARET OF SCOTLAND,
MATRON [1] (A.N. 1093)
Margaret was a daughter
of Edward d'Outremer ("The Exile"), next of kin to Edward the
Confessor, and sister to Edgar the Atheling, who took refuge from William the
Conqueror at the court of King Malcolm Canmore in Scotland. [She was born in
Hungary from Edward's Hungarian wife, Agatha.] There Margaret, as beautiful as
she was good and accomplished, captivated Malcolm, and they were married at the
castle of Dunfermline in the year 1070, she being then twenty-four years of
age. This marriage was fraught with great blessings for Malcolm and for
Scotland. He was rough and uncultured but his disposition was good, and
Margaret, through the great influence she acquired over him, softened his
temper, polished his manners, and rendered him one of the most virtuous kings
who have ever occupied the Scottish throne. To maintain justice, to establish
religion, and to make their subjects happy appeared to be their chief object in
life. "She incited the king to works of justice, mercy, charity and other
virtues", writes an ancient author, "in all which by divine grace she
induced him to carry out her pious wishes. For he, perceiving that Christ dwelt
in the heart of his queen, was always ready to follow her advice." Indeed,
he not only left to her the whole management of his domestic affairs, but also
consulted her in state matters.
What she did for her
husband Margaret also did in a great measure for her adopted country, promoting
the arts of civilization and encouraging education and religion. She found
Scotland a prey to ignorance and to many grave abuses, both among priests and
people. At her instigation synods were held which passed enactments to meet
these evils. She herself was present at these meetings, taking part in the
discussions. The due observance of Sundays, festivals and fasts was made
obligatory, Easter communion was enjoined upon all, and many scandalous
practices, such as simony, usury and incestuous marriages, were strictly
prohibited. St Margaret made it her constant effort to obtain good priests and
teachers for all parts of the country, and formed a kind of embroidery guild
among the ladies of the court to provide vestments and church furniture. With
her husband she founded several churches, notably that of the Holy Trinity at
Dunfermline.
God blessed the couple
with a family of six sons and two daughters, and their mother brought them up
with the utmost care, herself instructing them in the Christian faith and
superintending their studies. The daughter Matilda afterwards married Henry I
of England and was known as Good Queen Maud, [2] whilst three of the sons,
Edgar, Alexander and David, successively occupied the Scottish throne, the last
named being revered as a saint. St Margaret's care and attention was extended
to her servants and household as well as to her own family; yet in spite of all
the state affairs and domestic duties which devolved upon her, she kept her
heart disengaged from the world and recollected in God. Her private life was
most austere: she ate sparingly, and in order to obtain time for her devotions
she permitted herself very little sleep. Every year she kept two Lents, the one
at the usual season, the other before Christmas. At these times she always rose
at midnight and went to the church for Matins, the king often sharing her
vigil. On her return she washed the feet of six poor persons and gave them
alms.
She also had stated times
during the day for prayer and reading the Holy Scriptures. Her own copy of the
Gospels was on one occasion inadvertently dropped into a river, but sustained
no damage beyond a small watermark on the cover: that book is now preserved
amongst the treasures of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Perhaps St Margaret's
most outstanding virtue was her love of the poor. She often visited the sick
and tended them with her own hands. She erected hostels for strangers and
ransomed many captives -- preferably those of English nationality. When she
appeared outside in public she was invariably surrounded by beggars, none of
whom went away unrelieved, and she never sat down at table without first having
fed nine little orphans and twenty-four adults. Often -- especially during
Advent and Lent -- the king and queen would entertain three hundred poor
persons, serving them on their knees with dishes similar to those provided for
their own table.
In 1093 King William
Rufus surprised Alnwick castle, putting its garrison to the sword. King Malcolm
in the ensuing hostilities was killed by treachery, and his son Edward was also
slain. St Margaret at this time was lying on her death-bed. The day her husband
was killed she was overcome with sadness and said to her attendants,
"Perhaps this day a greater evil hath befallen Scotland than any this long
time." When her son Edgar arrived back from Alnwick she asked how his
father and brother were. Afraid of the effect the news might have upon her in
her weak state, he replied that they were well. She exclaimed, "I know how
it is!" Then raising her hands towards Heaven she said, "I thank
thee, Almighty God, that in sending me so great an affliction in the last hour
of my life, thou wouldst purify me from my sins, as I hope, by thy mercy."
Soon afterwards she repeated the words, "O Lord Jesus Christ who by thy
death hast given life to the world, deliver me from all evil!" and
breathed her last. She died four days after her husband, on November 16, 1093,
being in her forty-seventh year, and was buried in the church of the abbey of Dunfermline
which she and her husband had founded. St Margaret was canonized in 1250 and
was named patroness of Scotland in 1673.
The beautiful memoir of
St Margaret which we probably owe to Turgot, prior of Durham and afterwards
bishop of St Andrews, a man who knew her well and had heard the confession of
her whole life, leaves a wonderfully inspiring picture of the influence she
exercised over the rude Scottish court. Speaking of the care she took to
provide suitable vestments and altar linen for the service of God, he goes on:
These works were
entrusted to certain women of noble birth and approved gravity of manners who
were thought worthy of a part in the queen's service. No men were admitted
among them, with the sole exception of such as she permitted to enter along
with herself when she paid the women an occasional visit. There was no giddy
pertness among them, no light familiarity between them and the men; for the
queen united so much strictness with her sweetness of temper, so pleasant was
she even in her severity, that all who waited upon her, men as well as women,
loved her while they feared her, and in fearing loved her. Thus it came to pass
that while she was present no one ventured to utter even one unseemly word,
much less to do aught that was objectionable. There was a gravity in her very
joy, and something stately in her anger. With her, mirth never expressed itself
in fits of laughter, nor did displeasure kindle into fury. Sometimes she chid
the faults of others -- her own always -- with that commendable severity
tempered with justice which the Psalmist directs us unceasingly to employ, when
he says "Be ye angry and sin not". Every action of her life was
regulated by the balance of the nicest discretion, which impressed its own
distinctive character upon each single virtue. When she spoke, her conversation
was seasoned with the salt of wisdom; when she was silent, her silence was
filled with good thoughts. So thoroughly did her outward bearing correspond
with the staidness of her character that it seemed as if she had been born the
pattern of a virtuous life. I may say, in short, every word that she uttered,
every act that she performed, showed that she was meditating on the things of
Heaven.
By far the most valuable
source for the story of St Margaret's life is the account from which the above
quotation is taken, which was almost certainly written by Turgot who, in spite
of his foreign-sounding name, was a Lincolnshire man of an old Saxon family.
The Latin text is in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. ii, and elsewhere; there is
an excellent English translation by Fr W. Forbes-Leith (1884). Other materials
are furnished by such chroniclers as William of Malmesbury and Simeon of
Durham; most of these have been turned to profit in Freeman's Norman Conguest.
An interesting account of the history of her relics will be found in DNB., vol.
xxxvi. There are modern lives of St Margaret by S. Cowan (1911), L. Menzies
(1925), J. R. Barnett (1926) and others. For the date of her feast, see the
Acta Sanctorum, Decembris Propylaeum, p. 230.
[1] In Scotland the feast
of St Margaret is observed on the anniversary of her death, November 16.
[2] Through this marriage
the present British royal house is descended from the pre-Conquest kings of
Wessex and England.
Butler's Lives of
the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995
SOURCE : http://www.katolikus.hu/hun-saints/margaret-sc.html
Karl Parsons (1884–1934), St. Margaret stained glass window, St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh 1915
Margaret of Scotland
c. 1045 - 1093
Margaret, despite her
appellation, was born a Saxon in 1046 and raised in Hungary. She came to
England in 1066 when her uncle, King Edward the Confessor, died and Margaret's
brother, Edgar Atheling, decided to make a claim to the English throne. The
English nobles preferred Harold of Wessex over Edgar, but later that year Duke
William of Normandy made it all rather a moot point by invading England and
establishing himself as King. Many members of the English nobility sought
refuge in the court of King Malcolm III Canmore of Scotland, who had himself
been an exile in England during the reign of Macbeth. Among the English
refugees were Margaret and Edgar. While King Malcom was hospitable to all his
new guests, he was rather more hospitable to Margaret, marrying her in 1070 to
make her Queen of Scotland.
Margaret impressed not
only Malcolm but many other members of the Scottish Court both for her
knowledge of continental customs gained in the court of Hungary, and also for
her piety. She became highly influential, both indirectly by her influence on
Malcolm as well as through direct activities on her part. Prominent among these
activities was religious reform. Margaret instigated reforms within the
Scottish church, as well as development of closer ties to the larger Roman
Church in order to avoid a schism between the Celtic Church and Rome. Further,
Margaret was a patroness both of the célidé, Scottish Christian hermits, and
also the Benedictine Order. Although Benedictine monks were prominent
throughout western continental Europe, there were previously no Benedictine
monasteries known to exist in Scotland. Margaret therefore invited English
Benedictine monks to establish monasteries in her kingdom.
On the more secular side,
Margaret introduced continental fashions, manners, and ceremony to the Scottish
court. The popularization of continental fashions had the side-effect of
introducing foreign merchants to Scotland, increasing economic ties and communication
between Scotland and the continent. Margaret was also a patroness of the arts
and education. Further, Malcolm sought Maragret's advice on matters of state,
and together with other English exiles Margaret was influential in introducing
English-style feudalism and parliament to Scotland.
Margaret was also active
in works of charity. Margaret frequently visited and cared for the sick, and on
a larger scale had hostels constructed for the poor. She was also in the habit,
particularly during Advent and Lent, of holding feasts for as many as 300
commoners in the royal castle.
King Malcolm, meanwhile,
was engaged in a contest with William the Conqueror over Northumbria and
Cambria. After an unsuccessful 1070 invasion by Malcom into Northumbria
followed by an unsuccessful 1072 invasion by William into Scotland, Malcom paid
William homage, resulting in temporary peace. William further made assurance of
this peace by demanding Malcolm's eldest son Donald (by Malcolm's previous wife
Ingibjorg) as a hostage. Time passed, William the Conqueror died, and The
Conqueror's son William Rufus took the throne of England. Hostilities again
arose between Scotland and England, and in the ensuing unpleasantness Malcolm
was killed along with Edward, the eldest son of Malcom and Margaret.
Margaret had already been
ill when Malcolm and Edward went off to battle. Her surviving children tried to
hide the fact of their deaths, for fear of worsening her condition. But
Margaret learnt the truth, and whether due to her illness or a broken heart,
Margaret died four days after her husband and son, on November 16, 1093.
The death of both King
and Queen led, unfortunately, to yet another unpleasant disagreement, this time
over who should take their places on the throne. The most likely candidate was
Malcom's eldest son Donald, the one who had been taken hostage by William the
Conqueror. This was also the favorite candidate of William Rufus, for during
his stay in England Donald had developed a favorable view of the Normans.
However, Donald's claim to the throne was contested by Malcom's brother, Donald
Bàn, together with Malcom and Margaret's son Edmund. Donald Bàn was opposed to
having a Norman sympathizer on the throne of Scotland, and claimed the throne
for himself. Both Donald MacMalcom and Donald Bàn held the throne briefly, and
lost it violently, before Edgar, son of Malcom and Margaret, came to the
throne. He was succeeded by his brothers, Alexander and David. Alexander
smoothed over relations with England by marrying the daughter of King Henry I
and arranging for Henry to marry Alexander's sister Matilda. Edgar and David
carried on their mother's reputation for sanctity, both in their service to the
poor and their patronage of religious orders, and David was later canonized. Quite
a celebrated family when you consider that Margaret's uncle is also known as
Saint Edward the Confessor.
Margaret herself was
declared a saint in 1250, particularly for her work for religious reform and
her charitable works. She herself was considered to be an exemplar of the just
ruler, and also influenced her husband and children to be just and holy rulers.
She was further declared Patroness of Scotland in 1673.
Feast Day: June 10
(celebrated November 16 in Scotland)
Sources
• Barrow, G.W.S. The
Kingdom of the Scots. Edward Arnold, London, 1973.
• Glover, J.R. The
Story of Scotland. Faber and Faber, London, 1960.
• Mitchison, R. A
History of Scotland. Methuen & Co., London, 1970.
• Thurston, H.J.,
Attwater, D. Butler's Lives of the Saints. Christian Classics, Inc.,
Westminster, MD 1938.
SOURCE : http://www.pitt.edu/~eflst4/MofScotland.html
Edimburgo, cattedrale di Sant'Egidio - Vetrate - Santa Margherita di Scozia
Edinburgh,
Saint Giles cathedral - Stained-glass windows - Saint Margaret of Scotland
ST. MARGARET OF SCOTLAND.
SAINT MARGARET'S name
signifies "pearl;" "a fitting name," says Theodoric, her
confessor and her first biographer, "for one such as she." Her soul
was like a precious pearl. A life spent amidst the luxury of a royal court never
dimmed its lustre, or stole it away from Him who had bought it with His blood.
She was the granddaughter of an English king; and in 1070 she became the bride
of Malcolm, and reigned Queen of Scotland till her death in 1093. How did she
become a Saint in a position where sanctity is so difficult? First, she burned
with zeal for the house of God. She built churches and monasteries; she busied
herself in making vestments; she could not rest till she saw the laws of God
and His Church observed throughout her realm. Next, amidst a thousand cares,
she found time to converse with God—ordering her piety with such sweetness and
discretion that she won her husband to sanctity like her own. He used to rise
with her at night for prayer; he loved to kiss the holy books she used, and
sometimes he would steal them away, and bring them back to his wife covered
with jewels. Lastly, with virtues so great, she wept constantly over her sins,
and begged her confessor to correct her faults. St. Margaret did not neglect
her duties in the world because she was not of it. Never was a better mother.
She spared no pains in the education of her eight children, and their sanctity
was the fruit of her prudence and her zeal. Never was a better queen. She was
the most trusted counsellor of her husband, and she labored for the material
improvement of the country. But, in the midst of the world's pleasures, she
sighed for the better country, and accepted death as a release. On her deathbed
she received the news that her husband and her eldest son were slain in battle.
She thanked God, who had sent this last affliction as a penance for her sins.
After receiving Holy Viaticum, she was repeating the prayer from the Missal,
"O Lord Jesus Christ, who by Thy death didst give life to the world,
deliver me." At the words " deliver me," says her biographer,
she took her departure to Christ, the Author of true liberty.
REFLECTION.—All
perfection consists in keeping a guard upon the heart. Wherever we are, we can
make a solitude in our hearts, detach ourselves from the world, and converse
familiarly with God. Let us take St. Margaret for our example and
encouragement.
INTERCESSORY PRAYER:
Today, ask Saint Margaret to intercede for your needs. Saint Margaret, please
pray for (state your prayer request to this saint).
SOURCE : http://jesus-passion.com/saint_margaret_scotland2.htm
Sousoší svaté Barbory z Nikomédie, svaté Markéty Skotské a svaté Alžběty Uherské (Durynské) na Karlově
mostě bylo vytvořeno v roce 1707 a pochází z dílny rodiny Brokoffů.
Sculptural group of Saint Barbara of Nicomedia, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary (also of Thuringia) was made in 1707 by the Brokoff family.
Margaret of Scotland, Queen (RM)
Born in Hungary in 1045; died in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1083; additional feast
day is June 10.
Margaret was the daughter
of the exiled Aetheling Prince Edward (of the line of Saxon kings and son of
King Edmund Ironsides) and Agatha (kinswoman of Saint Stephen of Hungary--in
the line of the Roman emperors). It is believed that she and her
siblings--Edgar and Christina--were all born in exile in Hungary. When Margaret
was 12, her family was received at the court of her great uncle Saint Edward
the Confessor. Her father died soon after their arrival in England. Although
the family did not remain there long, Margaret watched the initial erection of
Westminster Abbey. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, the three
children and their mother escaped to Scotland, where they were received by King
Malcolm, who succeeded the usurper Macbeth. Malcolm immediately fell in love
with 21-year-old Margaret and asked Edgar for his sister's hand. Margaret
wanted, like her sister who later became an abbess, to enter religious life,
but after much prayer, she realized that her vocation was for marriage.
Malcolm (a widower) and
Margaret married at Dunfermline around 1068 (their daughter Matilda married the
Norman Henry I to reinstitute the old royal blood of England into the
descendents of William the Conqueror).
Margaret's first task was
to civilize Malcolm, an illiterate barbarian. He was jealous of her, but this
allowed him to be molded, "like wax in her hands." She prayed for his
conversion, taught him how to pray, and how to show mercy to the poor. After
his conversion, they often prayed together. "Turgot tells how `there grew
up in the King a sort of dread of offending one whose life was so venerable,
for he could not but perceive from her conduct the Christ dwelt within
her'" (S. P. Delany).
They were married for 16
years, had six sons and two daughters. Margaret gave them their early religious
education. She never spoiled her children (see Douay Chronicles). Edward (son)
killed in same battle as Malcolm. Ethelred became a lay abbot; Edmund went
astray for a time, but later became a monk; Edgar, Alexander and David (David
reigned 29 years) became three of Scotland's best kings; Matilda married Henry
I of England (known as Good Queen Maud, who washed and kissed the feet of
lepers); Mary married Count Eustace of Bologna and was the mother of Matilda of
whom was born Stephen, the English king.
Margaret urged Malcolm to
reform his kingdom. She ransomed slaves. She also used her influence to reform
abuses in the national Church to bring the Scottish Church into harmony with
the rest of the Catholic Church. She wrote to Archbishop of Canterbury, who
sent Friar Goldwin and two other monks to instruct her. They settled in a
Benedictine priory at Dunfermline, Fife, where she built a new and exquisite
church in 1072, dedicated to the Blessed Trinity. Then an ecclessiastical
council was held with Malcolm acting as interpreter. She restored the monastery
at Iona, provided vestments and chalices, etc. for churches, and established a
palace workshop to train women in the making of ecclessiastical vestments.
Margaret developed a deep
friendship with her confessor, Prior Turgot, who built the superb Norman
cathedral at Durham. He had been one of William the Conqueror's prisoners and
had escaped to Norway where he had taught sacred music at the royal court. He
told the story of her spiritual life in Latin (translated by W. Forbes-Leith,
S.J.).
Margaret's faithful
prayer brought blessings on her family and nation. She kept herself humble
through severe self-discipline. She repeated Breviary daily, attended five or
six Masses daily, and waited on 24 poor people before partaking of her frugal
meals. Endless days of toil, nights of prayer and self-discipline brought on an
early death, which she accurately predicted (Bentley, S. P. Delany).
Returning thanks after
meals is known as Saint Margaret's Blessing.
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1116.shtml
.jpg)
Statue de Sainte Marguerite d'Ecosse, Sanctuaire de Lourdes
2.jpg)
St. Margaret, Queen of
Scotland
St. Margaret was an
English princess. She and her mother sailed to Scotland to escape from the king
who had conquered their land. King Malcolm of Scotland welcomed them and fell
in love with the beautiful princess. Margaret and Malcolm were married before too
long.
As Queen, Margaret
changed her husband and the country for the better. Malcolm was good, but he
and his court were very rough. When he saw how wise his beloved wife was, he
listened to her good advice. She softened his temper and led him to practice
great virtue. She made the court beautiful and civilized. Soon all the princes
had better manners, and the ladies copied her purity and devotion.
The king and queen gave
wonderful example to everyone by the way they prayed together and fed crowds of
poor people with their own hands. They seemed to have only one desire: to make
everyone happy and good.
Margaret was a blessing
for all the people of Scotland. Before she came, there was great ignorance and
many bad habits among them. Margaret worked hard to obtain good teachers, to
correct the evil practices, and to have new churches built. She loved to make
these churches beautiful for God’s glory, and she embroidered the priest’s
vestments herself.
God sent this holy Queen
six sons and two daughters. She loved them dearly and raised them well. The
youngest boy became St. David. But Margaret had sorrows, too. In her last
illness, she learned that both her husband and her son, Edward, had been killed
in battle. Yet she prayed: “I thank You, Almighty God, for sending me so great
a sorrow to purify me from my sins.”
Let us take this saintly
Queen for our example. While we do our duties, let us keep in mind the joys
that God will give us in Heaven. Her feast day is November 16th.
SOURCE : http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/saint-margaret/
Relief sculpture of St. Margaret of Scotland, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.
St. Margaret, Queen of
Scotland
From her life written by
Theodoric, a monk of Durham, her Confessarius, and afterwards by St. Aëlred:
also from the Scottish and English historians. See Fordun, Scoti-chron. l. 5,
c. 15, vol. 2, p. 413, ed. Hearne.
A.D. 1093.
ST. MARGARET was little
niece to St. Edward the Confessor, and granddaughter to Edmund Ironside. Upon
the death of the latter, who was treacherously murdered by Count Edric in 1017,
Canute or Canutus the Dane, who had before obtained by agreement Mercia and the
northern provinces, caused himself to be acknowledged by the bishops,
ealdormen, and other chief men of the nation, king of all England, and guardian
to the two infant sons of his late colleague, Edward and Edmund, till they
should be of age to succeed to the crown of the West-Saxons. But Canute, though
he punished the traitor Edric, yet seemed to love the treason, and secretly
sent the two young princes to the King of Sweden, that they might by him be
made away with. The Swede refused to imbrue his hands in their innocent blood,
though he feared the power of Canute, who had added Norway to his native
kingdom of Denmark by a treachery no less execrable than that by which he
usurped the dominions of these innocent royal children in England. The Swede
therefore generously sent the two princes to Solomon, king of Hungary, by whom
they were kindly received and educated. Edmund, the elder of them, died; but
Edward, the younger, marrying Agatha, sister to the queen, and according to
some authors, niece to the Emperor Conrad, a most virtuous and accomplished
princess, had by her Edgar, surnamed Etheling, Christina a nun, and St.
Margaret. Canute reigned in such a manner as to appear worthy to wear the
crown, had it been acquired without ambition and injustice. He was succeeded
after his death in Norway by his eldest son Swane, in Denmark by his favourite
second son Hardecnute; and in England in 1036, Harold was chosen king, who is
said to have been also a son of Canute, though he much degenerated from his
virtues both in peace and war. After his death in 1039, Hardecnute came into
England, and was acknowledged king, but died two years after. Whereupon Edward
the Confessor was called to the crown in 1041. He by ambassadors invited
Edward, surnamed Outremer or Etheling, over from Hungary with his children, and
received them honourably at London in 1054, where Edward Outremer died three
years after, and was buried in St. Paul’s church. At the death of St. Edward,
Edgar being but young, and a stranger born, had not interest enough to oppose
the powerful party by which Count Harold was placed on the throne in 1066,
pretending the crown to have been bequeathed him by the late king, as Hoveden
and others relate. But William the Norman affirmed that it had been promised
him by St. Edward, and invading England, slew Harold in a great battle near
Hastings on the 14th of October, 1066. Many English desired to raise Edgar, the
lawful Saxon heir, to the throne; but he was unable to make good his claim by
arms, and therefore with the rest of the nobility received the victorious
Norman at London. But some time after, he secretly fled from the tyranny of the
conqueror, and left the kingdom. The ship in which he put to sea was by a
tempest driven upon the coast of Scotland, where Malcolm or Milcolumb III. entertained
him and his sister in the most courteous manner. He had the more tender feeling
for the misfortune of, the royal exile, having formerly been himself in a like
situation. For Macbeth, general of part of the troops, having killed his
father, King Donald or Duncan VII., usurped the throne, and Malcolm only saved
his life by flight. After wandering over many places, he found a secure retreat
in the court of Edward the Confessor, who assisting him with ten thousand men,
he marched into Scotland, was joined by his friends, and overcame and slew
Macbeth, who had then held his usurped crown seventeen years. Malcolm having
thus recovered his dominions, was declared king at Scone in 1057. When Edgar
arrived in his dominions, the sight of the young prince and princess made him
feel all the weight of their affliction. He gave them the best reception his
kingdom could afford, and it gave him the highest pleasure that it was in his
power to show them courtesy. William the Norman sent to demand them to be
delivered into his hands. Malcolm rejected with horror so base a treachery.
Whereupon a war ensued. The Scots defeated Roger, a Norman general, in
Northumberland, and afterwards Richard, earl of Gloucester. Upon which William
sent his brother Odo, earl of Kent, into Northumberland; but Malcolm gave him a
considerable overthrow, and recovered the booty which he had taken. After this,
the haughty Norman sent his son Robert at the head of an army who encamped on
the Tyne, but without doing anything, except building the city of Newcastle
upon Tyne; and soon after the Norman agreed to a peace on these conditions,
that he should restore Sibert, earl of Northumberland, and leave Cumberland as
formerly to the Scots; that he should treat Prince Edgar as his friend, and
that the boundaries of the two kingdoms should be King’s Cross on Stanemoor,
between Richmonshire and Cumberland, which should have the statues and arms of
the two kings of England and Scotland on each side.
Malcolm was so much taken
with the virtues of the Princess Margaret, that he most impatiently desired to
make her his royal consort. She had learned from her cradle to contemn the
vanities of the world, and to regard its pleasures as a poison to the heart,
and the bane of virtue. Her amazing beauty, her rare prudence, her wit, and her
extraordinary virtue could not fail to excite the admiration of the whole
court. But it was her only desire and ambition to render herself agreeable to
the King of kings. She seemed to relish no earthly pleasure, finding all delight
in the incomparable charms of divine love, which flowed into her pure soul
chiefly by the means of assiduous prayer and meditation, in which holy
exercises she often spent whole days. She took great pleasure in relieving and
serving the poor, and in comforting all who were in distress, considering
Christ in his necessitous members. Her consent being obtained, she was married,
and crowned queen of Scotland in 1070, being twenty-four years of age. The
marriage was solemnized at the king’s royal castle of Dumfermline, built in the
midst of a beautiful plain, surrounded with woods, rocks, and rivers, by its
situation almost inaccessible to men or beasts, says Fordun, and strongly
fortified by art. The Scottish historian adds, that she brought a great fortune
to the king in the immense treasures she had carried off from England, together
with many most precious relics. Among these was the Black Cross, held in the
highest veneration in Scotland in succeeding ages. Malcolm was rough and
unpolished, but neither haughty nor capricious; and had no evil inclinations.
Margaret, by the most tender complaisance, and the most condescending and
engaging carriage, always full of respect, gained so great an ascendant over
him, as to seem entirely mistress of his heart; which influence she only
exerted to make religion and justice reign, to render her subjects happy, and
her husband one of the most virtuous kings that have adorned the Scottish
throne. She softened his temper, cultivated his mind, polished his manners, and
inspired him with the most perfect maxims and sentiments of all Christian
virtues. And so much was the king charmed with her wisdom and piety, that he
not only left to her the whole management of his domestic affairs, but followed
her prudent advice in the government of the state. In the midst of the most
weighty concerns and cares of a kingdom, Margaret always kept her heart
disengaged from the love of the world, and recollected in God. The continual
attention of her soul to him in all her actions, assiduous prayer, and the
constant practice of self-denial were the means by which chiefly she attained
to this perfection. At the same time her prudence and care in all things, her
application to public and private affairs, her watchfulness in providing for
the good of her subjects, and the wonderful ease and wisdom with which she
discharged every duty of the regal authority, showed her most extensive genius
to the astonishment of foreign nations.
God blessed this pious
royal couple with a numerous and virtuous offspring, which did not degenerate
from the piety of their holy parents. The queen was mother of six boys: Edward,
Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David: and of two daughters; namely,
Maud or Mathildes, married to Henry I., king of England, and Mary who married
Eustache, count of Bologne. Of the sons Edgar, Alexander, and David I.,
successively came to the crown of Scotland, and all governed with the highest
reputation of wisdom, valour, and piety; especially king David, who may be
justly styled the brightest ornament of that throne. The happiness of these
princes and that of the whole kingdom in them, was owing, under God, to the
pious care of queen Margaret in their education. She did not suffer them to be
brought up in vanity, pride, or pleasures, which is too often the misfortune of
those who are born in courts. She inspired them with an early indifference to
the things of the world, with the greatest ardour for virtue, the purest love
of God, fear of his judgments, and dread of sin. She chose for them the ablest
preceptors and governors, persons eminently endued with the spirit of piety and
religion; and would suffer none but such to approach them, being sensible that
tender minds receive the strongest and most lasting impressions from the
behaviour of those with whom they converse, especially masters. Instructions
are dry, but the words and actions of persons breathe the spirit and sentiments
of their hearts, and insensibly communicate the same to others, especially
where this influence is strengthened by authority. The zealous mother watched
over the masters, examined the progress of her children, and often instructed
them herself in all Christian duties. No sooner were the young princesses of an
age capable of profiting by her example, than she made them her companions in
her spiritual exercises and good works. She daily by most fervent prayers and
tears conjured Almighty God to preserve their innocence, and fill their souls
with the sentiments of those virtues which she endeavoured to instil into them.
She extended her care and attention to her servants and domestics, and the
sweetness and tender charity with which she seasoned her lessons, rendered her
endeavours the more effectual. By her prudent zeal and example, concord,
charity, modesty, religion, piety, and devotion reigned in the whole court, in
which virtue was the only recommendation to the royal favour, and to want
devotion was the most certain disgrace.
The holy queen remembered
that by the rank in which Providence had placed her, and by the authority which
the king lodged in her, the whole kingdom was her family. She found it overrun
with many abuses, and plunged in shameful ignorance of many essential duties of
religion. It was her first care to procure holy and zealous pastors and
preachers to be established in all parts of her dominions. She seconded their
ministry with the weight of the royal authority, and that of all the
magistrates, to abolish the criminal neglect of abstaining from servile work on
Sundays and holydays, and of observing the fast of Lent, with many other
abuses; and had the comfort to see, by her zealous endeavours, the strict
observance of Lent restored, and the devout celebration of Sundays and
festivals enforced, the people consecrating those days to God both by assisting
at the whole church office, and instructions, and by private devotions. Simony,
usury, incestuous marriages, superstition, sacrileges, and other scandalous
abuses were also banished. Many neglected to receive the holy communion even at
Easter, alleging a fear of approaching it unworthily. She showed this pretence
to be only a cloak for sloth and impenitence, engaged sinners to cancel their
crimes by worthy fruits of repentance, and contributed very much to revive the
spirit of penance, and frequent communion. She laboured most successfully to
polish and civilize the Scottish nation, to encourage among that people both
the useful and polite arts, and to inspire them with a love of the sciences,
and with the principles of all the social and moral virtues. All which she
incited her husband to promote by many salutary laws and regulations. Charity
to the poor was her darling virtue. Her own coffers could not suffice her
liberality to them; and often she employed upon them part of what the king had
reserved for his own use and necessities; which liberty he freely allowed her.
Whenever she stirred out of her palace, she was surrounded by troops of widows,
orphans, and other distressed persons who flocked to her as to their common
mother; nor did she ever send any one away without relief. Within doors, when
she went into the hall of the palace, she found it filled with poor people: she
washed their feet, and served them herself. She never sat down to table without
having first fed and waited on nine little orphans and twenty-four grown-up
poor. Often, especially in Lent and Advent, the royal couple called in three
hundred poor, served them at table on their knees, she the women on one side,
the king the men on the other; giving them the same dishes that were served up
at their own royal table. She frequently visited the hospitals, attending the
sick with wonderful humility and tenderness. By her extensive alms insolvent
debtors were released, and decayed families restored; and foreign nations,
especially the English, recovered their captives. She was inquisitive and
solicitous to ransom those especially who fell into the hands of harsh masters.
She erected hospitals for poor strangers. The king most readily concurred with
her in all manner of good works. “He learned from her,” says Theodoric, “often
to watch the night in prayer. I could not sufficiently admire to see the
fervour of this prince at prayer, and to discover so much compunction of heart
and such tears of devotion in a secular man.” “She excited the king,” says
another ancient author, “to the works of justice, mercy, almsdeeds, and other
virtues; in all which, by divine grace, she brought him to be most ready to
comply with her pious inclinations. For he seeing that Christ dwelt in the
heart of his queen, was always willing to follow her counsels.”
The small time which the
queen allowed herself for sleep, and the retrenchment of all amusements and
pastimes, procured her many hours in the day for her devotions. In Lent and
Advent she always rose at midnight, and went to church to Matins. Returning
home she found six poor persons ready for her: she washed their feet and gave
to each a plentiful alms to begin the day. She then slept again an hour or two;
and after that rising returned to her chapel, where she heard four or five low
masses, and after these a high mass. She had other hours in the day for prayer
in her closet, where she was often found bathed in tears. “As to her own
eating, it was so sparing that it barely sufficed to maintain life, and by no
means to gratify the appetite,” says Theodoric. “She seemed rather only to
taste than to take her meal. In a word, her works were more wonderful than her
miracles; though these were not wanting to her.” The same author, who was her
confessor, writes: “She was endowed with a wonderful spirit of compunction.
When she would be speaking to me of the sweetness of everlasting life, her
words were full of all grace. So great was her fervour and compunction on these
occasions, that she seemed as if she would quite melt into tears; so that her
devotion drew also from me tears of compunction. In the church no one was more
still in silence, no one more intent than she at prayer.” She often importuned
her confessor to admonish her of whatever he perceived blameworthy in her words
or actions; and was displeased that he was, as she thought, remiss in this
charitable office. Her humility made her desire reprehensions and correction,
which the pride of others cannot brook. Every year she kept two Lents of forty
days each; the one at the usual time, the other before Christmas; both with
incredible rigour. She recited every day the short offices of the Holy Trinity,
of the passion of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the dead.
King Malcolm, after his
war against William the Conqueror in Northumberland, was disturbed by a
rebellion of the Highlanders both in the north and west of Scotland. He
composed the north in person; and Walter his general reduced to obedience the
rebels in the west. 1 Malcolm
from that time applied himself to improve his kingdom by the arts of peace. He
first reformed his own family; and afterwards enacted sumptuary laws, and
remedied abuses which had crept in among the people. He built the cathedral of
Durham, 2 and
made the abbot of that place bishop of St. Andrew’s, and added the bishoprics
of Murray and Caithness to the former four in Scotland. He concurred with his
queen in founding the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin. St. Margaret,
by her wise counsels, had perfectly convinced her royal consort that the love
of peace is the first duty of him who is the common father of his people; war
being the greatest of all temporal calamities. Those warlike princes whose
heads were crowned with laurels, and whose triumphs dazzle the world, and swell
the pages of history with so much pomp, were the scourges of the earth,
especially of their own nations, at least in the ages wherein they lived; and
their sounding achievements and victories, when placed in the light in which
faith commands us to consider them, will appear no better than a long series of
boundless ambition, murders, plunder of whole countries, and the most heavy
oppression of their own people. Malcolm, however, did not forget that it is an
indispensable duty of a king to be expert in war, and always in readiness, that
he be not wanting to the protection which he owes his people. William Rufus,
who came to the throne of England in 1037, surprised the castle of Alnwick in
Northumberland, and put the garrison to the sword. Malcolm demanded
restitution, which being denied, he besieged it. The English garrison being
reduced to great extremity, offered to surrender, and desired the king to come
and receive the keys with his own hand; but the soldier who presented them to
him upon the point of a spear, by a base treachery thrust the spear into his
eye whilst the king was stretching out his hand to take the keys, and killed
him. His son Edward carried on the siege to revenge the death of his father,
but advancing too eagerly was slain in an assault. Whereupon the Scots were so
much afflicted that they raised the siege and retired, having buried their king
and prince at Tinmouth. Their bodies were soon after removed to Dumfermlin.
Malcolm reigned thirty-three years, and died in 1093. His name is found in some
Scottish calendars enrolled among the saints.
This misfortune was to
the good queen an affliction which only her heroic virtue enabled her to bear
with resignation. She lay at the same time on her death-bed. Theodoric gives
the following account of her last sickness: “She had a foresight of her death
long before it happened; and speaking to me in secret, she began to repeat to
me in order her whole life, pouring out floods of tears at every word with
unspeakable compunction; so that she obliged me also to weep; and sometimes we
could neither of us speak for sighs and sobs. At the end she spoke thus to me:
Farewell; for I shall not be here long: you will stay some little time behind
me. Two things I have to desire of you: the one is, that so long as you live,
you remember my poor soul in your masses and prayers: the other is, that you
assist my children, and teach them to fear and love God. These things you must
promise me here in the presence of God, who alone is witness of our discourse.”
She survived this about half a year, during which she was seldom able to rise
out of bed, and her pains daily increased upon her, which she bore with
incredible patience, in silence and prayer. In the expedition into
Northumberland mentioned above, she endeavoured to dissuade her husband from
marching with his army; but he that only time dissented from her advice,
imagining it to proceed only from concern for his safety, and reflecting that
the presence of a sovereign raises the courage of the soldiery. His death
happened four days before that of the queen. She, on the day he was killed,
appeared melancholy and sad, and said to those about her: “Perhaps this day a
greater evil hath befallen Scotland than any this long time.” On the fourth
day, her pains being somewhat abated, she got up, and went into her oratory,
where she received the holy Viaticum. Then feeling the redoublement of her
fever with her pains return upon her, she laid herself down again, and desired
her chaplains to recite the psalms by her, and to recommend her soul to God. In
the mean time she called for the black cross. She embraced, and signed herself
frequently with it; then held it with both her hands before her, and with her
eyes fixed upon it, recited the Miserere psalm and other prayers. Her son Edgar
coming in from the army, she asked him how his father and brother did? He,
fearing to alarm her, said they were well. She answered him: “I know how it
is.” Then, lifting up her hands to heaven, she praised God, saying: “I thank
thee Almighty God that in sending me so great an affliction in the last hour of
my life, thou wouldst purify me from my sins, as I hope by thy mercy.” Not long
after, finding her last moments to approach, she repeated from the prayers of
the church for that occasion, the following aspiration: “O Lord Jesus Christ,
who by thy death hast given life to the world, deliver me from all evil.”
Praying thus, she was loosed from the bonds of her mortal body on the 16th of November,
1093, in the forty-seventh year of her age. She was canonized by Pope Innocent
IV. in 1251. Her feast was removed by Innocent XII. in 1693, from the day of
her death to the 10th of June. Her body was interred, according to her desire,
in the church which she had built in honour of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin,
fifteen miles from Edinburgh. 3 At
the change of religion in Scotland the remains of St. Margaret and her husband
were privately rescued from the plundering mob, and the principal parts
afterwards carried into Spain, when king Philip II. built a chapel in the
palace of the Escurial, in honour of St. Margaret, for their reception. They
still continue there with this inscription on the shrine: “St. Malcolm King, and
St. Margaret Queen.” But the head of St. Margaret having been carried to
Edinburgh, to Queen Mary Stuart, after her flight into England, it was by a
Benedictin monk conveyed to Antwerp in 1597, and afterwards by him given to the
Scots Jesuits at Douay, in whose church it is still kept in a silver case. 4
The succession of saints
which in the posterity of St. Margaret afterwards filled the throne of
Scotland, 5 the
sanctification of a court, and of a kingdom was, under God, the fruit of her
zeal and pious example. So great and public a blessing is a virtuous wife, and
a virtuous mother of a family. Every neighbour is bound at least by example and
prayer, especially every parent, master and mistress, also by correction and
exhortation, to endeavour to impart to others, particularly those under their
care, this inestimable happiness of piety. As St. Charles Borromeo inculcates, 6 parents
can leave no treasure to their children, nor can masters bestow on servants any
recompense for their fidelity in any respect comparable to this of virtue. Let
all superiors who neglect this duty tremble, and reflect that an account will
be required of them at the dreadful tribunal of Christ for the sins of those
under their care, which by a faithful discharge of their duty they might have
prevented. In this sense, as St. Austin observes, is every master bound to be
bishop or pastor of his family; and every Christian, at least by example, to
his neighbour. But alas! how many make themselves apostles of Satan, and become
to others an odour not of life but of death. The baneful example of tepidity
and sin, especially in those who are placed in authority, lays families, and
the whole world desolate; for to the influence of scandal is owing the
universal inundation of vice, ignorance, and insensibility with regard to
spiritual duties, which no floods of tears can ever sufficiently lament. On
this account is the world declared the enemy of Christ, and is loaded with his
curses.
Note 1. In
recompense the king created him high steward of Scotland, from which office his
posterity took their surname of Stuart: they came to the crown in King Robert
II. nephew to King David Bruce, or David II. in 1371. [back]
Note 2. Fordun,
Scoti-chron. l. 5, c. 17, vol. 2, p. 417. [back]
Note 3. Fordun,
Scoti-chron. ed Hearne, t. 2, l. 5, c. 21, p. 425. [back]
Note 4. See Bolland.
Acta Sanct. [back]
Note 5. Maud, the
daughter of St. Margaret, and first wife to Henry I. of England, to faithfully
imitated the humility, charity, and other virtues of our saint, that she has
been ranked by our ancestors in the catalogue of the saints, on the 30th of
April. She built two great hospitals in London, that of Christ’s-Church, within
Aldgate, and that called St. Giles’s, and was buried at Westminster, near the
body of St. Edward the Confessor. (See Hoveden, ad an. 1118. Westm. et Paris
eodem anno.) As to the surviving sons of St. Margaret, after a short usurpation
of Duncan, Edgar reigned in peace nine years, reverenced by all the good and
feared by the bad. Alexander I. succeeding him, with uncommon bravery
extinguished several rebellions in the beginning of his reign; after which he
built several churches and monasteries, particularly one in the isle of Emona,
in honour of St. Colm, endowing them, and principally the church of St. Andrew,
with large revenues. He filled the throne seventeen years. After him David I.
reigned twenty-nine years. He equalled the most pious of his predecessors in
condescension and charity to the poor, and surpassed them all in prudence and justice,
condemning his judges most rigorously in cases of false judgment. He founded
and endowed four bishoprics, namely, those of Ross, Brechin, Dunkelden, and
Dunblaine; and fourteen abbeys, six of which were of the Cistercian Order.
After the death of his virtuous wife Sibyl, niece to William the Conqueror, he
lived twenty years a widower. He bore the death of his own most hopeful son
with astonishing patience amidst the mourning of the whole kingdom. Upon that
occasion he invited the chief nobility to supper, and comforted them, saying:
“That it would be foolish and impious to repine in anything whatever, at the
will of God, which is always most holy, just, and wise; and that seeing good
men must die, we ought to comfort ourselves, because no evil can happen to them
that serve God, either alive or dead.” He recommended his three grandsons,
especially Malcolm the eldest, to the nobility, and afterwards died in the
greatest sentiments of piety at Carlisle, on the 29th of May, 1153. His name
was placed among the saints in many Scottish calendars. His grandson King
Malcolm IV. surnamed the Maiden, is also esteemed a saint. He was so great a
lover of peace that he bore the most manifest wrongs rather than he would see a
war lighted up. He built many churches and monasteries, and was remarkable for
his angelical purity, meekness, and humility. His extraordinary virtues are
highly extolled by Neubrigensis, one of our most exact historians, l. 1, c. 25,
l. 2, c. 18, and Fordun, from p. 689 to 700, ed. Hearne. [back]
Note 6. In Conc.
Mediol. v. parte 3. [back]
Rev. Alban
Butler (1711–73). Volume VI: June. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
SOURCE : http://www.bartleby.com/210/6/101.html
William Hole (7 November 1846 – 22 October
1917), Malcolm greeting Margaret on her arrival in Scotland; detail of a mural
(circa 1898) in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
A
Panegyric on Saint Margaret, by James Augustine Stothert
“The just shall be in
everlasting remembrance.” – Psalm 111:7
Heroic Sanctity is
limited to no age, or rank, or nation. It has adorned every period of the
Church’s history; even times that now seem to have been the rudest, and the
darkest, have felt the humanizing, and enlightening influence of its presence.
It has shone brightly in the fiery trial of the martyrs; and not less so, in
the periods of peace and rest from persecution, which have been from time to
time granted to the Church. It has anticipated for youth, the wisdom and the
commanding influence of age; it has secured for the aged, the unchanged
simplicity, humility, and innocence of childhood. It has shed a glory around
the hoary head, and made its feebleness venerable; while, in a short space, it
has often been made perfect; and has consummated the labours, and received the
reward of a long life, ere the sun had passed the meridian. The peasant’s
cottage, the humble calling of the artisan, have been dignified by its
presence; it has added a new, and more enduring splendour, to the laurels of
honourable victory; to the hereditary rank of nobility; to the crown of kings.
It has flourished on the soil of every land visited by the eye of day; from
America to the farthest shores of Asia, from the extreme north, to the African
coast, the surface of the earth is thickly strewn with spots, holy and
memorable, as the birth-place, or the resting-place of a saint of God.
Sanctity, in a word, is eminently Catholic; universal in time; in place, in
rank, and age; always, everywhere, and among all.
And if the earth is
covered with its monuments, every one of them is immortal. Wherever it has
been, its recollections have never ceased to be. Whole nations may fall away
from the Faith; bnt the memory of their Saints does not therefore perish. Their
names, and the tradition of their virtues, of the sleepless nights passed by
them in prayer, of their apostolic labours, of their inexhaustible charity,
remain among the people, handed down from father to son, through a long series
of ages. Often, too, the places where they were born, or where they lived, or
preached, or fell asleep in the Lord, are pointed out to the traveller; green
spots in the desert, watered by the dews of heaven, amidst the arid wastes of
ignorance and heresy, and sin, that stretch far and wide around him; like those
beautiful enclosures which he comes upon suddenly, in a secluded valley, or on
the lonely mountain-side; where the tomb-stones of thirty generations lie buried
beneath the freshest verdure, overshadowed by the boughs of aged trees, that
were not planted by the hand of man.
We need not travel far
from home for illustrations of these remarks. Scotland is but a small section
of the Universal Church; three hundred miles are about the measure of its
length; its extreme breadth is considerably less; yet up and down, on its rocky
shores, in its inland glens, and its populous cities, the records of its Saints
are written in unfading characters. There is hardly a county, for example, in
which the name of Saint Ninian is not preserved, in some church, or chapel, or
cave, or holy well. At Whithorn in Galloway, the traveller is shown the place
where he built the first church of stone in this country. Beneath the crypt of the
old Cathedral of Glasgow, the guide points out to strangers the tomb of its
bishop, Saint Mungo. If we sail among the islands of the Western Hebrides, we
shall come to Iona, where Saint Columba’s is stall a most familiar name; whose
antiquaries still speculate about the probable site of his holy tomb. Even on
the farthest point of habitable land, at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, there stands
an ancient cathedral church, in perfect preservation, bearing the name of Saint
Magnus. Turn whither we will, the names of Saints Serf, and Fillan, and Paldy,
or Palladios, and Cuthbert, meet the traveller at every step. Lastly, arriving
in this city, he will find it not inferior to other places, in the number and
the interest of its saintly memorials. As is befitting the capital of Scotland,
it is inseparably associated with the dosing hours of a holy queen; on its
highest and most conspicuous eminence, a centre of observation throughout a
wide range of country, is the spot whence the purified spirit of Saint Margaret
passed away to heaven. The people of this country have been alienated from the
Saints who were once its glory; they have even voted in their parliament that
the offence of going on pilgrimage to chapels, crosses, and holy wells, and of
observing the festival days of the Saints, should for the first time be
punished with fine; and for the second, with death; they have forgotten the
history that lies beneath the surface of their soil, and they boast of their
forgetfulness. But the very soil bears witness against their ingratitude; its
mute rocks and stones are more eloquent than its faithless people. God shall
not be defrauded of His praise, nor His Saints of their honour; even though the
stones most cry out. If the solitary tomb, on the wave-beaten island, or the
deserted well, must be their only monument, “the just shall be in everlasting
remembrance.”
And yet, thanks to the
Divine goodness, the memory of our Saints has not been left to depend entirely
on those inanimate monuments; they have never been wholly robbed of their
tribute of vocal praise. He who inspired the lips of children to cry, “Hosanna
to the Son of David,” amidst the silence of an apostate nation, has preserved a
faithful remnant of their spiritual successors, to keep alive the flame of
devotion, and the annual festival, in the secrecy of the concealed chapel; in
the obscure alleys of cities, or in the remote and unsuspected chamber of the
country-house. If it stint the heart to remember the beauty of Scotland’s
ancient temples on an evening like this, when they put on their bravest array
to honour the first Vespers of Saint Margaret’s Day; when the altars of a
thousand churches shone with gold, and silver, and jewels; but not so
gloriously in the eye of heaven, as the living temples of the body of Christ,
as the thousands of penitents, who flocked thither to prepare by holy
confession for their happy communion on the morrow morning; if the thought of
all this stirs the heart, and enlarges its conception of the glory of Catholic
Scotland, there are yet more affecting recollections of the patient fortitude;
the tried firmness of devotion that could cherish so well 1 the memory of her
Saints, with nothing to assist the senses, or to stimulate the imagination; in
poverty and obscurity; pointed at by every idle finger, suspected and shunned
by all. They honoured the Saints well who built, and adorned, and consecrated
to their memory the many noble churches that lie in ruins all over the country;
but they honoured them better, who, in an evil rime, were content to bear the
reproach of Christ for their sake; if needful, to die for the preservation of
their memory. The kings, and nobles, and princely-hearted prelates, who
lavished their wealth upon the shrines of the Saints, did a great and a good
work, and their reward is great; but the poor priest who recited his Breviary
in his garret, the handful of his faithful flock who stole np the dingy winding
stair that led to it, to kneel in silence before the altar, and praise God on
this day for the graces given to their country in, and through Saint Margaret,
had a spirit within them nearly akin to the martyrs’. So it has been; whether
in the solemnities of the elder time, or in the earnest piety of more recent
days of trial, the just have been in everlasting remembrance.
In the office which is
just concluded, the Church teaches us to pray that divine charity may
continually increase in, our hearts, through the example and the intercession
of Saint Margaret. Accepting this twofold division, and that we may understand
the value of her example, let us recall a few particulars of her history. Just
eight hundred and thirty-three years ago, a great commotion happened in
England. The king was assassinated by his rival; and his children two infant
princes, were doomed to the same fate. But, the usurper did not choose to
irritate the nation still more, against him, by openly taking their life; so he
put them on board of a ship, that was going to Sweden; and secretly requested
his friend, the king of that country, to despatch them, for him. Providence,
however, had other designs, for one of, them; and overruled events in their
behalf. The heart of the king of Sweden was touched with pity for their extreme
youth, and their misfortunes; yet he was afraid to offend the king of England,
if he spared them, and entertained them kindly, as he was disposed to do. He,
therefore, sent them away privately to a friendly court; to the king of
Hungary. The elder of those boys died young; his brother Edward grew up to be a
man, and married Agatha, the sister of the queen. The youngest of their three
children was Saint Margaret.
The tender infant at a
German court, her father in exile, and his crown in the possession of a
usurper, seemed unlikely enough ever to become the Patroness of Scotland. But,
in the course of time, it all came about; thus. Another revolution had placed
the crown of England on the head of her father’s uncle, the great Saint Edward
the Confessor; who invited his nephew to return with his family. The little
Margaret was then eight years old. Those were rough and troubled times in
Britain; war and revolution were then of constant occurrence. Twelve years had
hardly passed since Margaret and her family came to England, when Saint Edward
gave up his holy soul to God, a few days after the solemn consecration of
Westminster Abbey, in London. Before the end of the same year, William, Duke of
Normandy, commonly called the Conqueror, became master of the throne of
England, by the defeat and death of a rival claimant, who had kept brief
possession of it.
Margaret’s family did not
immediately leave the country; her brother Edgar even remained with the
nobility to receive William on his arrival in London; her sister Christina had
by this time retired from the world into a convent. By and bye, however,
Margaret and her brother found their residence in England so irksome, under the
tyrannical rule of the Conqueror, that they once more set out upon the world,
intending to return to the bid home of their childhood in Germany. Just sixteen
years after their arrival, they sailed from the shores of England.
And now the future Queen
of Scotland has turned her back on this inhospitable island, and is going away
to the South, to her friends and relations in Hungary. She had probably never
heard of Scotland, hot as the bleak mountain-home of savages, the natural
enemies of her father’s nation. But, little as she thought it, she is on her
way to Scotland, and not to Germany; it is not among the companions of her
early years, but among our rude forefathers, that her life is to be spent, her
heavenly crown is to be won. It is often said that there are no incidents in
romance to equal the events of real life; and the truth of the remark cannot be
doubted. If daily experience did not prove its truth, we might infer it from
the simple fact, that those events are the means and ways designed by Divine
Providence for a certain end, which is often wonderful, surpassing our feeble
understanding; it cannot, therefore, surprise us if the means are also,
sometimes, extraordinary; and if the tales of real life read like the pages of
imagination. Providence is, at least, as fertile in resources as the novelist,
and the best writer of fiction is he who best studies and copies the order of
Providence in nature.
The winds and waves were
its ministers in bringing Saint Margaret to our native land. A violent storm
drove the vessel in which she sailed, out of its course, into the northern
seas, and dashed it against the coast of the Firth of Forth. News of the
disaster was quickly carried to king Malcolm, who then kept his court at
Dunfermline. He had himself, once been an exile, and had met with great
kindness at the court of Saint Edward, by whose timely assistance he had
finally recovered his crown. He, therefore, hastened to repay the debt which he
owed; he brought the royal fugitives to his palace, and entertained them
hospitably. Margaret soon after became his wife; his counsellor; his good
angel; the mother of his people. Twice an exile, before she was
four-and-twenty, she had learnt what it was to suffer; to want; to be
oppressed. Her life henceforth was devoted to the relief of suffering, of
poverty, and of oppression. That the comforts of a palace might not enervate
her soul, already trained in the school of adversity, she chastised her body
with Saint Paul, and brought it into subjection by fasting, and nightly
watching. Like many of the Saints, she was much afflicted with weak health; bat
it never afforded her a pretext for mitigating the rigorous discipline which she
had imposed upon herself. To all around her, her behaviour was lull of
sweetness and charity. She obtained great influence over her husband, and used
it in softening his rougher nature, in leading him on with herself in the love
of God, and in suggesting and completing many social improvements among his
subjects. The observance of God’s holy law, and the beauty of His house, were
favourite objects of her care. She procured the appointment of devoted clergy
to the parishes and sees, and enforced with the weight of her authority, the
due observance of Sundays and Festivals, and the Fast of Lent. Her children
were educated by herself in virtue and piety. Three of them sat in succession,
with honour, on the throne of Scotland; one of them on the throne of England.
Her son David inherited from his mother the munificence in endowing churches
and religious houses, which has made his name celebrated.
It must surely have been
a sweet and blessed influence that pervaded the kingdom of Scotland, while this
wise and holy lady sat in her palace at Dunfermline, devising new measures for
reforming and humanising the manners of its people; teaching its future
sovereigns the faith and fear of God; and planning new gifts for His altar. A
queen denying herself in food and the luxuries of the age, spending long nights
in prayer, must have been a strange and remarkable right. But the wonders of
her sanctity are not yet disclosed. All else was surpassed, and thrown into the
shade by het burning love for the poor. She never sat down at her own table
till she had waited upon nine little orphans, and twenty-four poor people.
During Advent and Lent, her hospitality included three hundred of them every
day. In imitation of her blessed Redeemer, she washed their feet, and gave them
alms; and in the hospitals of the sick, she lovingly tended them in the most
loathsome diseases. Charity so boundless must often have exhausted its means;
she did not hesitate to part with her royal robes, and her jewels; and, more
than once, she drained the treasury.
Three-and-twenty summers
had now passed since the crown was placed on her brow, in the Abbey church of
Dunfermline. Malcolm had been forced to go to war with England; the country was
unsettled, and it was deemed prudent that the Queen should retire to the
fortress of Edinburgh Castle, then deemed impregnable. Her husband and her sons
were beyond the Borders, laying siege to the Castle of Alnwick. It was in the
chill month of November; a sharp illness of six months, borne with miraculous
patience, had exhausted her strength; and her holy soul was on the eve of its
dismissal from its earthly tabernacle, though her years numbered only
forty-seven. Her chief consolation was derived from the exercises of religion,
from the ministrations of the man of God to whom she confided the secrets of
her conscience, and who has left us a graphic description of her passage.
The last morning of her
life, she rose with great difficulty, and was carried into her little oratory
to bear Mass, and to receive for the last time, the blessed Body and Blood of
our Lord. The effort was too much for her weakness, and she was carried back to
her couch, where she lay awaiting her change. The ministers of religion stood
about her, and commended her soul to God. In her bands she held the Black Cross
of Scotland; and she often kissed it, and signed herself with it. The approach
of death was visible on her face, and her extremities were growing cold; but
she still could sing, in a faint voice, the 50th psalm, throughout, holding the
cross before her eyes.
Presently a step was
heard approaching her chamber. It was her second son, come from Alnwick to tell
her, what she already knew by inspiration, that her husband and her eldest son
lay dead upon the field. The news did not agitate her; but raising her eyes and
her hands to heaven, she replied, “I thank Thee, O Almighty God, because Thou
hast willed that I should bear so great trials at my departure; and because
Thou hast willed my purification, as I hope, from some sinful stain, by my
bearing them.”
Then she began to recite
the prayer at Mass, “O Lord Jesus Christ, who by the will of the Father, and
the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, hast given new life to the world by thy
death, deliver me — she went no further; her voice died away; her lips ceased
to move; her spirit was in heaven.
Bitter was the wailing of
her children, her orphans, her poor. Their tears and prayers followed her bier
to the Abbey of Dunfermline, where she was laid beside her husband. Then the
love for her memory sank deep into the heart of her country, which eight
hundred years have not been able to extinguish. There are those who will not
believe good of our ancient Saints; but the traditions of a whole nation are
not so baseless as they suppose. Human nature is not so senseless as to lavish
its gratitude on those to whom it owes nothing; common instinct teaches it to
remember its benefactors, to forget those who have done nothing to deserve
remembrance. If Saint Margaret is still mentioned with honour, if her name and
her recollections are stamped on the natural features of the country, the very
fact affords a convincing proof that she did some signal service, at least to
the cause of humanity.
We are farther taught to
pray that charity may increase in our hearts, through her intercession. A walk
of a few minutes would bring us to the spot, where she murmured her last prayer
on earth; whence she passed to her new office of patroness and friend of her
adopted country, in heaven. But even that time is long, compared to the brief
moment that is needed to secure for our requests the gracious notice of her
glorified spirit. Oh, say not that heaven is so far off, that its blessed
inhabitants can have no cognisance of us, and of our affairs; when it takes but
an instant for a soul, perfectly purified from the stain of sin, to pass
thither; when “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Holy
Scripture assures us that our Christian race is run in the immediate presence
of an innumerable cloud of witnesses; Christ himself teaches us that there is
joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance; the Saints, as we know, are with
the Lamb, who hears all thoughts, and reads every heart. Time is the measure of
space, even in our conceptions; where time is annihilated, space no longer
divides the absent from ns. Heaven is not far from us; it lies close above us,
and around us. Wherever Christ is, there is heaven; there are some of the
heavenly hosts. Every Catholic tabernacle is a gate of heaven, through which
holy souls often catch passing visions of the glory within the veil; angelic
ministers wait and hover around it. This holy house of prayer and sacrifice is
filled with them.
Without doubt, then, or
mistrust, let us beseech Saint Margaret, at this time, to remember Scotland.
Many graces are, doubtless, preparing to descend upon it, through the
intercession of her whose Festival we are about to celebrate tomorrow, and of
another Saint, Colombo, the Apostle of the Isles, whose anniversary occurs
today. We call to mind, with grateful joy, that after every house of religion
in this land had been levelled with the dust for three hundred years, the first
that arose from the ruins of the past, was one dedicated in her honour, and
bearing her blessed name, the Convent of Saint Margaret. An association for
protecting the interests of the poor was instituted two years ago, on her
Festival, and is called, the Association of Saint Margaret. We argue happy
things for the future, from our experience of the past. We wait for the time
when still more precious favours shall descend upon us, as our practical sense
of the share allotted to the Saints of God, in the promotion of the designs of
His Providence, grows stronger and more lively; when the relics of Saint
Margaret shall be brought back in solemn state from the distant land whither
they were carried in the day of Scotland’s apostacy; when the pilgrim shall
again kneel at her shrine, and feel the influence of her power. Then we may
humbly hope to see the virtues which she had so much at heart once more adorning
our native land; to see its churches rising from the dust, reflecting once more
the beauty of holiness; to see its beloved children renouncing the unamiable
systems that have so long deceived and perverted their manly understanding, and
returning to the bosom of the great Catholic family.
Or if we shall sleep with
our fathers before that time arrives, we shall bequeath our hopes to those that
shall succeed us; not disturbed, if, like our holy Patroness, we are called
away from expectations unfulfilled, from labours that seem unfinished, from
sight unsatisfied, from spiritual privations harder to bear than even the
bitter sorrows that threw their cloud upon her dying pillow. Be the same
sacraments the solace of our last hour; be her intercession, to us then, a
source of grace; inspiring confidence, anticipating heaven; be her society, and
that of all the Angels and Saints of God, our joy and glory for evermore.
– James Augustin
Stothert, Missionary Apostolic in the Eastern District of Scotland, Edinburgh,
Scotland, 27 July 1850
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/a-panegyric-on-saint-margaret-by-james-augustine-stothert/
The St. Margaret of Scotland painting in Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport, Iowa. The painting originally hung in the former St. Margaret's Cathedral in Davenport.
Santa Margherita di
Scozia Regina e vedova
- Memoria Facoltativa
Ungheria, circa 1046 -
Edimburgo, Scozia, 16 novembre 1093
Figlia di Edoardo, re
inglese in esilio per sfuggire all'usurpatore Canuto, Margherita nacque in
Ungheria intorno al 1046. Sua madre, Agata, discendeva dal santo re magiaro
Stefano. Quando aveva nove anni suo padre potè tornare sul trono; ma presto
dovette fuggire ancora, questa volta in Scozia. E qui Margherita a 24 anni
fu sposa del re Malcom III, da cui ebbe sei figli maschi e due femmine. Il
Messale romano la descrive come «modello di madre e di regina per bontà e
saggezza». Si racconta che il re non sapesse leggere e avesse un grande
rispetto per questa moglie istruita: baciava i libri di preghiera che la vedeva
leggere con devozione. Caritatevole verso i poveri, gli orfani, i malati, li
assisteva personalmente e invitava Malcom III a fare altrettanto. Già
gravemente ammalata ricevette la notizia dell'uccisione del marito e del figlio
maggiore nella battaglia di Alnwick: disse di offrire questa sofferenza come
riparazione dei propri peccati. Morì a Edimburgo il 16 novembre 1093. (Avvenire)
Etimologia: Margherita =
perla, dal greco e latino
Martirologio Romano:
Santa Margherita, che, nata in Ungheria e sposata con Malcolm III re di Scozia,
diede al mondo otto figli e si adoperò molto per il bene del suo regno e della
Chiesa, unendo alla preghiera e ai digiuni la generosità verso i poveri e offrendo,
così, un fulgido esempio di ottima moglie, madre e regina.
Nel suo celebre quadro,
rappresentante il Paradiso, il Beato Angelico pose fra molti frati, anche un Re
e una Regina, volendo significare che la corona reale può unirsi felicemente
all'aureola della santità.
La Santa di oggi fu infatti Regina di Scozia, e Regina abbastanza fortunata,
fatto insolito questo, perché le altre coronate, si santificarono quasi sempre
attraverso la disgrazia, l'umiliazione e l'infelicità.
Molte sono le Margherite di sangue reale iscritte nel Calendario cristiano: Margherita figlia del Re di Lorena, benedettina del XIII secolo; Margherita figlia del Re d'Ungheria, domenicana dello stesso secolo; Margherita figlia del Re di Baviera, vedova del XIV secolo; Margherita di Lorena, allevata come figlia del Re Renato d'Angiò; alle quali si potrebbero aggiungere Margherita dei Duchi di Savoia e Margherita dei Conti Colonna.
Quella di oggi nacque nel 1046, nipote di Edmondo 11, detto Fianchi di Ferro, e figlia di Edoardo, rifugiatosi in terra straniera per sfuggire a Canuto, usurpatore del trono d'Inghilterra.
Sua madre, Agata, sorella della Regina d'Ungheria, discendeva dal Re Santo Stefano. Morto l'usurpatore Canuto, Edoardo poteva tornare in Inghilterra, quando Margherita non aveva che 9 anni, ma dopo qualche tempo, la famiglia reale dovette fuggire ancora, in Scozia, dove il Re Malcom III chiese la mano di Margherita, che a ventiquattro anni s'assideva così sul trono di Scozia.
Ebbe sei figli maschi e due femmine, che educò amorosamente e che non le diedero mai nessun dolore. Suo marito non era né malvagio né violento, soltanto un po' rude e ignorante. Non sapeva leggere, ed aveva un grande rispetto per la moglie istruita. Baciava i libri di preghiera che le vedeva leggere con devozione; chiedeva costantemente il suo consiglio.
Ella non insuperbì per questo. Si mantenne discreta, rispettosa e modesta. E caritatevole verso i poveri, gli orfani, i malati, che assisteva e faceva assistere al Re. Per la Scozia non corsero mai anni migliori di quelli passati sotto il governo veramente cristiano di Malcom III e di Margherita, la quale, benvoluta dai sudditi, amata dal marito, venerata dai figli, dedicava tutta la sua vita al bene della sua anima e al benessere degli altri.
Non avendo dolori propri, cercò di lenire quelli degli altri; non avendo disgrazie familiari o dinastiche, cercò di soccorrere gli altri disgraziati, non conoscendo né, miseria né mortificazioni, cercò di consolare i miseri e gli umiliati. E accolse con animo lieto l'unica brutta notizia, che le giunse sul letto di morte. Il marito ed un figlio erano caduti combattendo in una spedizione contro Guglielmo detto il Rosso. A chi, con cautela, cercava di attenuare la crudeltà della notizia, Margherita fece capire di averla già avuta. E ringraziò Dio di quel dolore che le sarebbe servito a scuotere, nelle ultime ore, i peccati di tutta la vita.
Ciò non significava disamore e insensibilità verso il marito e il figlio morti. Ella sperava, anzi ne era certa, di riunirsi a loro, dopo quel doloroso passo, oltre la porta della morte, nella luce della Redenzione.
La Chiesa la venera come santa dal 1691.
Fonte : Archivio
Parrocchia
Colonnade de l'église de la Madeleine. Façade ouest. fr:François Augustin Caunois. Statue de
Sainte-Marguerite-d'Écosse.
_%C3%89glise_de_la_Madeleine_Ext%C3%A9rieur_Statue_20.JPG)
Colonnade de l'église de la Madeleine. Façade ouest. fr:François Augustin Caunois. Statue de Sainte-Marguerite-d'Écosse.
Margherita nasce nel 1045
a Mecseknádasd, in Ungheria, dove suo padre Edoardo, erede al trono di Edmondo
II di Inghilterra, era stato esiliato dopo che il re di Danimarca Canuto si era
impossessato del regno. Della madre Agata sono incerte le origini. Margherita è
la secondogenita di tre figli. È ancora bambina quando, morto Canuto, il padre
decide di fare ritorno in Inghilterra. Edoardo muore poco dopo e l’arrivo del
normanno Guglielmo il Conquistatore spinge Agata a riparare altrove assieme ai
figli. Si rifugia in Scozia, alla corte di Malcom III, ospitale, cortese e
generoso. Vedovo e padre di un figlio, questi s’invaghisce della bella e
intelligente Margherita, educata alle buone maniere e alla fede cattolica. Ne
chiede la mano. È il 1070: all’età di 24 anni Margherita è regina di Scozia.
Una sovrana esemplare
Residenza di Malcom e Margherita è il castello di Edimburgo, dove la vita di
corte si arricchisce di pii esercizi e preghiere quotidiane. Otto i figli che
allietano la coppia reale: sei maschi e due femmine. Gentile, paziente, mite e
affettuosa, Margherita è una moglie perfetta. Madre premurosa, è amorevole con
il marito: lo affianca nelle difficoltà quotidiane, lo coinvolge nelle sue
pratiche religiose, gli offre il suo consiglio nelle questioni politiche e
amministrative. A lei si deve l’introduzione in terra scozzese del feudalesimo
sul modello inglese e l’idea di un parlamento, mentre le porte del castello
vengono aperte per accogliere, aiutare e assistere poveri e ammalati. Per loro
la sovrana fa anche costruire ospizi e ostelli.
Riformatrice
Con Margherita i culti delle Chiese locali vengono uniformati e resi più
conformi a quelli della Chiesa di Roma. La regina dispone che venga rispettato
il digiuno quaresimale e celebrata la Pasqua nello stesso giorno, raccomanda la
confessione frequente e l’astensione dal lavoro domenicale, diffonde
l’educazione religiosa e incentiva la costruzione di chiese, monasteri,
cappelle e scuole. Grazie a lei i monaci benedettini fondano monasteri in
Scozia, ritrovano splendore antiche abbazie e vengono costruiti ricoveri per i
pellegrini. Nell’intimità del castello Margherita si dedica al ricamo di
paramenti sacri, intrattiene il marito con letture spirituali e decora libri.
Più grande della morte
Cagionevole di salute, nel 1093 Margherita si ammala, mentre il marito e il
primogenito devono impugnare le armi contro Guglielmo il Rosso che invade la
Scozia. Vengono uccisi entrambi il 13 novembre, nella battaglia di Alnwick. È
nota la preghiera della regina dopo aver appreso la notizia. Le sue parole
vengono raccolte dal monaco Teodorico Turgot, priore del monastero di Durham,
poi arcivescovo di S. Andrew’s nonché confessore, padre spirituale e biografo
di Margherita: “Dio onnipotente, ti ringrazio di avermi inviato una così grande
afflizione negli ultimi istanti della mia vita. Spero che, con la tua
misericordia, servirà a purificarmi dai miei peccati”. Il 16 novembre
Margherita muore nel castello di Edimburgo. Viene canonizzata nel 1250 da Papa
Innocenzo IV per l’esempio offerto con la sua vita, la fedeltà alla Chiesa e la
carità verso il prossimo. La più antica chiesa a lei dedicata è la Saint
Margaret’s Chapel nel castello di Edimburgo.
Fonte : www.vaticannews.va
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/30000
St Margaret of Scotland, Scottish Episcopal Church, Aberdeen
Santa Margherita di
Scozia
Mecseknádasd 1057 cs. -
Edimburgo (Scozia) 1093
Margherita nacque sul continente, in una data e un luogo imprecisati, ma sicuramente verso la metà o la fine degli anni ’40 dell’XI secolo. Era figlia di Edoardo, detto “l’esiliato”, figlio del re inglese Eadmund Irenside. Dopo la morte del padre (novembre 1016), Edoardo era stato esiliato dall’Inghilterra da Cnut di Danimarca e visse gran parte della sua vita in Europa (forse una probabile prima tappa in Svezia, poi Kiev e l’Ungheria). La madre di Margherita era una nobildonna di nome Agatha, di cui le fonti medievali riferiscono che era imparentata con i sovrani ungheresi e l’imperatore di Germania e aveva legami con la Rus’ di Kiev.
Benché la genealogia
della donna non possa essere stabilita con certezza, a causa della confusione
presente nelle fonti, tre ipotesi hanno plausibilmente corso:
1) Agatha era forse
figlia di Bruno di Augusta, pertanto nipote di Gisela di Baviera, sorella di Bruno
e dell’imperatore Enrico II e moglie di Stefano il Santo d’Ungheria;
2) era una delle figlie
nate dal primo matrimonio di Gisela di Svevia col conte Liudolfo II di Frisia,
pertanto nipote di Enrico III, figlio di Gisela e del suo terzo marito, l’imperatore
Corrado II, e cugina di Enrico IV;
3) era una figlia di Jaroslav di Kiev (un’altra figlia di Jaroslav, Anastasia, fu moglie di Andrea d’Ungheria e madre di Salomone I d’Ungheria, che sposò a sua volta Giuditta, figlia più piccola di Enrico III di Germania).
Margherita aveva una sorella, Cristina, poi monaca nel monastero di Romsey, e un fratello minore, Edgar.
Nel 1057 la famiglia
venne richiamata in Inghilterra dal re Edoardo il confessore, fratellastro del
nonno paterno di Margherita; Edoardo l’esiliato morì poco dopo il ritorno in
patria. Alla morte di Edoardo il confessore, al principio del 1066, Edgar
rimaneva l’unico erede maschio diretto e legittimo della casa del Wessex, ma
poiché era un ragazzo appena adolescente il suo diritto venne sopravanzato
prima da Harold Godwinson, poi da Guglielmo di Normandia.
Dopo la conquista, la famiglia di Margherita inizialmente si mostrò fedele a Guglielmo, ma venne coinvolta nella sollevazione dei nobili del Nord del 1067 e costretta alla fuga in Scozia, dove venne accolta dal re Malcolm III. La Cronaca anglosassone (ms. D) racconta che Malcolm si innamorò di Margherita e insistette per sposarla, anche se la giovane avrebbe voluto dedicarsi alla vita religiosa; sembra che il re scozzese abbia messo alle strette Edgar, il quale non era nella posizione di potergli opporre un rifiuto.
Il matrimonio ebbe luogo tra la fine degli anni ’60 e il 1070 e produsse sei figli e due figlie: Edward, Æthelred, Edmund, Edgar, Alessandro, Davide, Edith e Maria. Edward, il primogenito, morì insieme al padre nel novembre 1093, durante una spedizione nell’Inghilterra del Nord; Edgar, Alessandro e Davide furono in successione re di Scozia dal 1097 al 1153; Edith, ribattezzata Matilda dopo il matrimonio, sposò il re d’Inghilterra Enrico I, da cui ebbe i figli William e Matilda; Maria sposò il conte Eustachio III di Boulogne, da cui ebbe Matilda, poi moglie di Stefano di Blois, re d’Inghilterra.
Margherita aveva un senso
altissimo delle responsabilità legate al suo lignaggio, era incline a pratiche
ascetiche e si dedicava ad opere di carità. Ebbe rapporti molto stretti
con la chiesa inglese e promosse la diffusione delle abitudini ecclesiastiche
continentali in Scozia, anche se pare abbia avuto un grande rispetto per alcuni
aspetti della religiosità celtica, come la vita eremitica dei cosiddetti céli
dé. Trasformò la chiesa di Dunfermline nel priorato della Santissima Trinità,
con l’aiuto di Lanfranco di Canterbury; volle altresì che l’attraversamento del
Firth of Forth da parte dei pellegrini nel loro viaggio verso Dunfermline fosse
reso gratuito e si interessò alla ricostruzione della chiesa di Iona.
Morì presso il castello di Edimburgo il 16 novembre 1093, dopo aver saputo della morte del marito e del figlio maggiore; venne seppellita presso l’abbazia di Dunfermline.
Una venerazione informale
della sua figura si sviluppò già pochi anni dopo la sua morte; nei primi anni
del XII secolo il priore Turgot di Durham, ex cappellano presso la corte
scozzese, scrisse una sua biografia, dal sapore fortemente agiografico, dietro
richiesta della figlia di Margherita, la regina d’Inghilterra Edith/Matilda. Il
processo ufficiale di canonizzazione fu concluso da Innocenzo IV solo nel
1249-1250. Nel 1673 Margherita venne proclamata patrona della Scozia da papa
Clemente X.
Oggi la commemorazione
tradizionale e quella ufficiale cadono entrambe il 16 novembre.
Fonti, risorse
bibliografiche, siti su Santa Margherita di Scozia
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative edition, voll. 1-8, curatori vari, MSS C-F, Cambridge, 1996-2004.
W. S. Barrow, Margaret (St Margaret) (d. 1093), in Oxford Dictionary of the National Biography online, 2004, <www.oxforddnb.com>, DOI <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18044> (ultima consultazione 26.12.2021).
PASE (Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England), www.pase.ac.uk, s.v. Margaret 1 (ultima consultazione 28.12.2021).
Simeone di Durham, Simeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, vol. II, London, 1885.
Turgot di Durham, Vita
Margaretae Scotorum reginae, ed. J. Hodgson-Hinde, in Symeonis Dunelmensis
opera et collectanea, vol. I, Durham et al., 1868, pp. 234-254, Surtees Society
51.
Referenze
iconografiche: St. Margareths Chapel, Edinburgh. Foto di Kjetil Bjørnsrud
New york. Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 Unported license.
SOURCE : https://www.enciclopediadelledonne.it/biografie/santa-margherita-di-scozia
The Life Of St Margaret, Queen Of Scotland. By Turgot, Bishop Of St Andrews Ed. William Forbes-Leith, S.J. Third Edition. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1896 : http://mw.mcmaster.ca/scriptorium/margaret.html
