Margaret: Compared Stories

Margaret: Compared Stories

Saint Margaret: An Old Story (from The Golden Legend as reported in Wikipedia)

 

Saint Margaret the Virgin also known as Margaret of Antioch (died in 304) is remembered in the Western Churches on July 20^th and in the Eastern Churches on July 17^th.  (Picture above is a painting of St Margaret as it is found in the Church Notre-Dame-des-Montiers, Tinchebray - France).

She is a very legendary saint. Her historical existence has been questioned and was even declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in 494. However, her devotion revived in the West with the crusades. She is identified with Pelagia in the East and Marina in the West.

Margaret was daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. She was scorned by her father for her Christian faith, and lived in the country with a foster-mother keeping sheep. A governor offered her marriage at the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured during which various miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon’s innards.

The cult of Saint Margaret became very widespread in England where more than 250 churches are dedicated to her. Some consider her a patron saint of pregnancy and in art she is usually pictured escaping from, or standing above a dragon.

            Margaret: A Story of Today

            There was once a first born baby girl born in a French rural village and her parents called and baptised her Margaret. It used to be a common name within the area. Margaret did nothing spectacular. She lived her life according to the expectations of her time. She soon married a farmer and together worked hard cultivating the land. They had four children. She was very devout, but without excess, having sometimes clear opinions about matters of the Church. Her marriage was not particularly a happy one, and when her husband died she remained in the village farm on her own.

            At the age of 77 she started to develop a cancer but she would not talk about it. For long years, she suffered in silence, hiding as much as possible the hurts and progression of the disease. But then she had to be hospitalised and to be taken care of. At this point, she developed a depression resulting in a clear refusal to be helped. She also tended to refuse visits from her own children.

            However, despite the progression of the disease, she made a request to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Even though she had to face tremendous difficulties she did so. In Lourdes, no physical healings happened but witnesses reported some special graces she would have received during some of her visits.

            She came back with the same sickness but more reconciled with herself. She was not refusing visits any more. On the contrary, she was looking forward to receive visitors and to talk to them. She soon died and now reposes at a few metres from a copy of a famous painting from Raphael representing Saint Margaret killing the dragon.

            What is depression? Depression when there is no hope of healing, when the forces of suffering, darkness and death progressively take over and overwhelm somebody’s personality. Is not depression well represented by the metaphor of a dragon swallowing somebody alive? The unique identity, character and goodness of a person may well be affected and destroyed by the powers of physical disease. Margaret was on the point of being swallowed up alive by such forces, annihilating in a short while the human person as slowly built after a long life of learning and experience.

            But Margaret had the cross with her. And in a brave gesture of courage and faith, she made the act of retrieving within herself counter-powers which would bring her back to her best self. And these are the powers of faith, faith for which ultimate salvation is to be gained from elsewhere, from somebody who can now show, guide and lead us. The pilgrimage to Lourdes though difficult as it must have been for Margaret was the proof that she was no longer relying solely on her own powers any more.

And despite the progression of the disease, the depression disappeared.

 

The name ‘Margaret’ comes from the Latin ‘Margarita’ which means ‘precious pearl.’ Through the power of the cross, the pearl remains for ever a precious pearl.