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Saint Margaret of Cortona, 1247 - 1297
When Margaret was seven years old she lost her loving and pious mother. Her father remarried shortly afterwards but his new wife wanted nothing to do with Margaret and made her life very difficult. Lonely and craving for affection she fell in love with a wealthy young man and went to live with him (without marriage) in his castle for nine years. She bore him a son and often pleaded with him to marry her, but though he would assure her that he would, he but never did. In her writings she states that she (*conceded to her lover's importunities unwillingly, for even in these days she was drawn to God. Once some of her neighbors bade her look to her soul before it was too late. She replied that they need have no fear of her, for that she would die a saint and that her critics would come as pilgrims to her shrine.)

Margaret was very beautiful and it was of course this beauty that drew her into such temptations, she also was of a gay and light-hearted disposition. She wore elaborate dresses with many fine jewels and yet at the same time she was also very compassionate towards the poor and would often help them as best as she could. She would also seek out quiet places to pray and meditate upon God. Then one day when her lover had gone away to check on some property he was a long time in returning. Finally his dog returned without him, whinning and pulling at her robes to follow. She did and there deep in the woods, found her loved one, brutually murdered. Stunned and shaken, filled with terror she asked herself, "Where is his soul now?"

From that moment on, she resolved to do pennance and turn her life completely to God. Determined to follow a new way of life, she cut her hair short as a penitent and with a cord around her neck knelt at the door of the church and publicly asked all the congregation to forgive the scandal she had given. She tried to return to her home, but her father's wife embittered and hard refused to allow it. Inspired then by Divine Grace she went to Cortona and made a general confession to a Franciscan Priest. For three years she lived in a small hovel with her son. Then finally after much pleading she was given the habit of the Third Order, and a few years later her son also joined the Franciscans.

Saint Margaret performed rigourous penances, so severe that often she had to be counseled by her confessor to be more restrained. As she grew in closeness to God she was filled with many divine favors. Often when people would come to her from great distances she would recall their greivous sins and by her words and prayers she would aid in bringing about their conversion. Many sick were restored to health, a dead boy was brought to life, and many possessed were freed by her prayers and returned to spiritual wholeness.

She died at the age of fifty, after 23 years of unceasing prayer and strict pennances. Her body remains incorrupt and frequently emits a pleasant perfume. She was canonized in 1728 by Pope Benedict XIII.

*quote taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

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