In the year 1277, Margaret, pure in mind and fervent of heart, was praying before the crucifix which is now on the side altar of the Church of the Friars Minor, when she seemed to hear these words: "What is thy wish, poverella ?" And the Saint, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, replied: "I neither seek nor wish for aught but only Thee, my Lord Jesus."
St. Margaret of Cortona, the mediaeval Magdalen, was not precisely a wanton, or an "abandoned woman," but a girl who fell through excessive gayety, and over-great affection. She lived nine years with her lover "in defiance of law and convention," the only mitigation of her sin being her constant hope of lawful marriage with the man who had deluded her. He was murdered, his promise remaining unfulfilled. But his death was the occasion of the conversion of Margaret. Her reversion to virtue and to God was characteristically whole-hearted. She fought her way through many temptations, gave her life to the poor, outdoing them in voluntary poverty; merited admission to the third order of St. Francis, and died a saint. Her "legend" by her confessor, Fra Giunta, is given with the delicious simplicity and naïveté of the early Franciscan chroniclers. The introduction to it, in seventy-five pages, by Father Cuthbert, is an admirable little treatise on her religious psychology, with not a little unobtrusive moralizing. The contrast between the modern touch of Father Cuthbert and the mediaeval artlessness of Fra Giunta, is most striking, but each in his own way is extremely enjoyable. -Catholic World, Volume 8
In the year 1277, Margaret, pure in mind and fervent of heart, was praying before the crucifix which is now on the side altar of the Church of the Friars Minor, when she seemed to hear these words: "What is thy wish, poverella ?" And the Saint, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, replied: "I neither seek nor wish for aught but only Thee, my Lord Jesus."
This Franciscan classic, first published in 1907, and written by a famous Capuchin scholar, tells the story of a young woman in thirteenth-century Italy who shocked everyone by openly living with a rich nobleman outside of marriage and bearing him a son. After her lover was murdered, she was alone and rejected by her family. Filled with remorse and guilt, she finally found peace with the Franciscans as a penitent in the Third Order, and eventually became a saint. Fr. Cuthbert tells Margaret's story with great sensitivity and literary skill. The book also contains his translation of her Legend, written by her confessor, Fra Giunta Bevegnati, detailing her spiritual struggles and revelations from God, as told to him by Margaret herself. Together the two works provide a moving portrait of her growth in holiness. This new edition is provided with a new introduction, giving background on the author and his work, along with notes and a bibliography.
MARGARET OF CORTONA was born in the year 1247 at Laviano, a little town in Tuscany. Her father was a small farmer, whose chief thought was for his farm and the soil he tilled. Of her mother we know only that she died when her daughter was but seven years old, and that she was a good woman of simple faith. "0 Lord Jesus, I beseech Thee for the salvation of all whom Thou wouldst have me pray for," was a prayer she impressed upon the memory of her daughter, a prayer which Margaret never forgot. And without doubt the thought of her mother was a saving influence in Margaret's life. Two years after her mother's death, Tancred, her father, took to himself another wife, and with that Margaret's history may be said to begin. The situation is not difficult to reconstruct.A high-spirited, sensitive girl, full of vitality, her whole being athirst for life; and a stepmother whose nature had no response for the girl's, a woman who would brook no contradiction, who worshipped the respectabilities and the order of her own household, and expected others to walk in the narrow way of her own decalogue. With two such natures brought into daily contact, you may forecast disaster. Nor could the father's influence have availed Inuch, even had he had the will. to smooth his child's path. He had committed the error of marrying a woman who most misunderstand his child. Consciously or unconsciously, he had by that act sacrificed his daughter to his own pleasure or convenience; perhaps he had not thought of her at all in his anxiety to provide his house hold with a careful Inistress. At any rate, such evidence as we have points to the conclusion that the new wife ruled her husband as well as his farm-house, and that Margaret was left to bear her burden as best she might.
