St. Margaret of Cortona

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Margaret of Cortona. St. Margaret was born in Laviano, Tuscany during the year 1247. St. Margaret’s family were very hardworking farmers.

St. Margaret’s mom passed away when St. Margaret was only seven years old. After the passing of her mom, St. Margaret’s life with her stepmother was extremely difficult. The life with her stepmother was so hard for St. Margaret that she decided to move out.

St. Margaret spent nine years of her life with a man named Arsenio, even though the two were not married, she ended up having a son with him. During those years, St. Margaret had many doubts about the situation that she was in. St. Margaret was very similar to St. Augustine, due to the fact that she prayed for purity but not just yet.

During one occasion, St. Margaret was waiting for Arsenio, however while she was waiting she ended up being meeting his dog instead. The dog met with St. Margaret and led St. Margaret to the place where she found Arsenio murdered.

The murder had shocked St. Margaret into a life of deep penance. After the murder had occurred St. Margaret and her son decided to return to Laviano, where she was not accepted by her stepmother. Therefore they decided to go to Cortona, when they were in Cortona her son decided to become a friar.

During the year 1277, three years had passed since her powerful conversion, during that year St. Margaret decided to become a Franciscan tertiary.

Her confessor at the time would sometimes have to order her to moderate all of the self-denial she was doing. When in Cortona St. Margaret fully pursued a life of prayer and penance at Cortona.

Also, while St. Margaret was in Cortona she was able to established a very nice hospital and she also founded a congregation of tertiary sisters. St. Margaret’s was a very poor and humble person poor and she had a deep devotion to the Eucharist and to the passion of Jesus.

These powerful devotions that she had motivated her great charity and drew sinners to her who searched for a lot of advice and inspiration. St. Margaret died on February 22, 1297 and she was canonized during the year 1728.

Through St. Margaret’s life it is evident that Jesus is extremely merciful. All we have to do is repent for the sins we have done and open our hearts to Him, so that He may enter into our hearts and truly change our lives. When we sin, it may feel as if we have failed Jesus and we are unworthy of His love, however when we repent Jesus is asking us to give Him another chance. I picture as if Jesus is waiting for us to open the door to our hearts and He is asking us if we can give Him another chance. We must allow ourselves to repent for the sins we have done and we must allow Jesus into our hearts so that we may become better people and spread his love to everyone.

Prayer to St. Margaret:

St. Margaret help us to repent for all the past sins we have done, help us to repent and seek to deepen our relationship with Christ. St. Margaret help us to realize that in our daily lives we are so prone to sin without Christ and help us to be able to surrender ourselves to Christ so that he may protect us from all temptation and trials that we may encounter during our lives.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord and Mary Our Mother in Heaven

Amen

St. Margaret pray for us

St. Joseph pray for us

May we continue to strengthen our journey to sainthood and keep others in our prayers.

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Works Cited

Information (read from, not taken):

Franciscan Media. "Saint Margaret of Cortona. ”Saint Margaret of Cortona | Franciscan Media. Accessed 16, May 2021.

Images:

St. Margaret of Cortona. May 16, 2021. st. margaret cortona - Google Search.