Sketch of an introduction to Life of Saint Margaret, translated by Ron Lacy

The average saint lives in opposition to the world. In the case of martyrs, often encountered in martyrologies (ecclesiastical epics), this can be a very brief but dramatic (read: violent) opposition. The martyrologies can be reasonably historical documents, as in the case of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity: that is to say, they are more or less contemporary accounts of real people who suffered historically verifiable persecution. (Precious little else in the story is believable.) Martyrologies can also be entirely non-historical, and take the form of romances; this becomes very popular in the thirteenth century. The hero(in)es are generally fictitious: e.g., Agnes, Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret (an Egyptian), among the most popular.

The confessors (non-martyrs) are no less opposed to the world. Unlike the martyrs, however, they do not have the one defining moment of heroic and deadly opposition. They therefore live lives of destruction. They are always unmarried (almost always virgins), because marriage is, among other things, the most basic social institution and carries with it countless social obligations--economic and sexual. They reject all the products of civilization, even fire to cook their food, because civilization is sinful. They eat their food raw--fruit or herbs that they find by Providence--for they no longer live in communion with the fallen children of Adam, who still till the earth in the sweat of their brow. (And fire, of course, is the most elemental sign of humanity's separation from the other animals and rebellion against the gods.) A confessor is, in a word, another Adam, living in restored innocence. The Egyptian saints of Late Antiquity, therefore, are often found naked or covered only with foliage; clothes are reminders of the First Parents' banishment from Paradise. They also tame wild animals--generally the more dangerous sort, like snakes and lions--because, in his created (and innocent) state, Adam enjoyed dominion over the beasts.

In Late Antiquity, the confessors build other "Edens" deep in the desert, in lonely opposition to the civilized world. In the early and central Middle Ages, they flee to monasteries deep in the woods, far from the towns. In both cases, hagiographers make these places lush and fertile. In the Lausiac History, the deeper the narrator journeys into the desert, the holier the hermits he encounters--and the more fabulously fertile the gardens in which he finds these hermits. Moreover, countless disciples settle around the hermits or at least visit them, so that, in the famous words of Saint Athansius: "The desert became a city"--a new city, built in opposition to the city of Adam's fallen children.

Things change with the Franciscans. Saints' Lives become altogether less fabulous and unbelievable. Europe is decidedly more urban at the turn of the thirteenth century, when the friars appear on the scene, and the saints too become more urban; there is, after all, no realistic way to destroy the cities. In Saint Margaret's Legend you will notice a rather new reluctance to talk about miracles. Giunta, her confessor and the Legend's author, is almost embarrassed to speak of her levitation: "A poor woman saw her in the air," and he says no more on the subject.

Notice that Franciscan saints don't leave the cities; they are non-destructive. Francis returns to Assisi after his conversion. (Extremely few saints live and work in their native cities.) Margaret becomes an intimate part of Cortona. She starts out as a midwife and seems to have been something of a status symbol (later in the Legend there are stories of people who consider it a "social coup" to have her as their children's godmother; and people get very upset when she moves from cell to cell). She makes her spiritual progress by frequent confession and communion--inherently communal acts; saintly hermits, and even monks, have previously lived relatively unsacramental lives, but Margaret lives just a few decades after the church makes the requirement to go to confession and take communion at least once a year. Most importantly, Margaret does not attack the family. Her first impulse after her lover's death is to go home to her parents; the average saint's Life begins with the saint leaving his or her family. She has with her at all times her illegitimate son. Even the few saints who have had a sexual past, rarely have children; if the saints are to be other Adams, after all, the bloodline of the old Adam must die out. Of course, in the passages you have seen, Margaret is not very nice to her son; but if you look closely, her bad parenting is mentioned to show how good she is to the poor--which further entrammels her in the local economy.

The other big change in hagiography that you see with Saint Margaret is the amplified conversion process. Thomas of Celano does this in the Vita Prima of Saint Francis. This greatly upsets the hierarchy--traditionally, saints do not have a "past," and if they do, it is quickly abbreviated--and so he writes the Vita Secunda, which (not very successfully) casts Francis in the more conventional light. Margaret, however, is being held up, in the first two of twelve chapters (and passim in the remaining ten), as a model for penitents; Giunta uses the phrase, again and again, a "mirror for sinners." There are places where he seems to be giving us instructions: this is how you go about fasting; this is how you go about meditating; take Margaret, for example.

Margaret, quite simply, has been too public a sinner and too public a penitent for him to abbreviate the more thrilling details. Moreover, there really is no need for him to do this, as she is already, at the time he writes (ten years after her death), a wildly popular object of veneration. His interest is, instead, to get her body back under Franciscan control. She is buried at a secular church, St. Basil's, and this is why we hear the friars mentioned, ad nauseam, as those "to whom I have entrusted you."

Life of Saint Margaret

Chapter I: Her Life in Secular Garb

1. In the year of Christ's nativity 1277, Margaret humbly gave herself to the Order of Blessed Francis. She knelt before the Custos of Arezzo, Friar Rainaldo of happy memory, folded her hands, and wept: and so gave herself, body and soul, of her own accord. After much prayer and pleading, she had at last taken the habit of the Third Order of our Blessed Father Francis.

Now devoted to Christ her God, pure of mind, and fervent of heart, the devout woman was praying one day before the image of Christ which is now on the side altar in the church of the Friars Minor at Cortona, and it seemed to say to her: "What do you want, my little poor one?" Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, she answered: "I ask for nothing, I want nothing but you, my Lord Jesus!"

2. As she was praying on another occasion, she heard the Lord speaking to her, recalling to her grateful memory the steps of her vocation and the way she had lived before her conversion. "Remember, my little poor one," he said, " the many graces I have given you and the light I shed on your soul that you might return to me. Remember when the enemy of your salvation died and you returned to your father in Laviano. You were wearing black and your face was lacerated and soaked with tears. You were afflicted with sorrow and utterly despondent. But your father forgot a father's pity, remember, and at your step-mother's goading turned you out of his house. You were thus left without any counsel or assistance, not knowing what to do; and so you sat under the fig tree in his garden and humbly bewept the wretched state of your mind and body. It was then that you asked me to be your master, your father, your spouse and your Lord.

"But when the ancient serpent saw that your father had turned you out, he decided to turn this occasion to his further shame and to your peril. He filled your heart with musings on the youthful beauty of your body: since you were so destitute, he told you, you might sin without fault; you might go wherever you wanted and the great lords of the flesh would love you for the beauty of your body.

"But I, your living lover, had formed your inner beauty, and I wanted to reform it still. I enlightened your conscience and ordered you to go to Cortona, where you were to promise obedience to my servants the Friars Minor. And so you mustered all your spiritual strength and went there without delay. You handed yourself over to the Friars, as I had ordered, and placed your soul under their discipline and instruction.

"Remember that this was the beginning of your conversion, when your heart found its remedy in the fear of daughterly reverence. I implanted this fear of the Friars Minor in your mind because I had entrusted you to their care. It terrified the invisible enemy when this fear had taken root in you, for my grace worked with it to choke his audacious endeavor to secure your ruin. How you trembled whenever you saw the Friars Minor! Your face blushed with shame whenever you met them. It mattered not whether you saw them in a church, in a house, or along the roadside: whenever they came near you, you dreaded to be found keeping the company of secular people.

"It was also at this time, remember, that I directed your soul to the total contempt of all earthly ornamentation, and kindly persuaded you that you must begin severing yourself from the company of worldly women. You will recall, moreover, that your body had become accustomed to rich delicacies; but I gave you the gift of abstinence, not only from rich and delicate foods, but even from the more common. Remember how my grace fortified and strengthened you as you tormented yourself with unbroken fasting. You came to despise soft garments and took only the hardest surfaces for your bed, sleeping one night on twigs, the next on the bare ground, using blocks of wood or stone for your pillow.

"Remember that I generously endowed you with the gifts of fear and sorrow and ceaseless weeping. You shed your tears before the Friars Minor, to whom I had entrusted you, and asked them whether I would ever show you my mercy; whether I, your father and Lord, would end your exile in sin and restore you to my grace. You moved even secular people with these heart-wrenching supplications and caused them to weep with you whenever you asked about my mercy and shed your tears of sorrow.

"Do not forget, however, that I was very good to you; for every time you wept over the mystery of my virginal birth, I turned your bitter weeping into tears of joy. I did the same whenever you wept in contemplation of my Virgin Mother's exalted state or thought on the glories of the other saints; for these tears were the beginning of your salvation.

For nine years your deceiver had laid snares against your purity and integrity, and had done so against your will; but now he was dead. Remember when you first went to him, my little poor one, when you set out to renew the pains of my Passion. Remember the journey that you made alone at night across the water. The ancient enemy would have drowned you then, but I did not forget a father's pity; I mercifully watched over you and delivered you from danger. And remember that I, the true Master, then became your Teacher, even though the world was still pleasing to you, and though you were still living in the shadow of vice. I gave you a maternal compassion for the poor and downtrodden. And I gave you such a love of remote and isolated places that you were often inflamed with devotion towards them. 'O how sweetly one might pray there,' you would say. 'Gifts of praise could be offered to God so solemnly and devoutly in such places as these. One might perform her saving penance there in good order, so peacefully and securely.'

"But you were still in the state of darkness when at last you took to living in such lonely houses and huts. Even so, you received my illumination and began to beweep your dejection. You now felt compelled to correct passers-by whenever they greeted you. It mattered not whether they were noble or low-born, from the town or the countryside: since they knew that your life was so reprehensible, you told them, they would do better to withdraw their greeting from you and never speak to you again.

"Remember, however, that I tore you away from your dissolute way of life. I placed you in the company of the noble Ladies Marinaria and Raneria, and left you to their care, particularly in the early days of your conversion. You had hitherto sought only to preserve your beautiful appearance, and you had always adorned it to my greater injury, but now you came to despise your beauty, and you desired to destroy it by abstinence. You even struck yourself with stones, and you often drew blood by slashing your face with shards of broken pottery. But in the end, remember, the fire of my love transformed you into me. This transformation was so perfect that you wanted only to be close to me, to be but a pilgrim in this world. And so you often wept and prayed insistently, begging the guardian of the Friars Minor at Cortona to give you the habit of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance."

3. Perhaps the reader is wondering why the Friars were so long to give Margaret the habit? It was because they doubted her constancy of mind, and she was very beautiful and very young. In time, however, they realized that Margaret could not be separated from Christ, and they saw that she reached up to God more and more in the fervor of her spirit. At last she said to them: "My fathers, the Lord has entrusted me to you. Do not doubt me. For if I were to pass my entire life in the vast and lonely desert, still I would love my God. The Almighty has strengthened my mind, and I no longer fear any creature or temptation. I have put my hope in God, and he has restored me to his grace. I have fled the world, as you can see, and sought the company of religious persons. I have changed my life for the better, through the grace that Christ has given me. So why are you afraid? Why are you reluctant to clothe me in the habit?"

And so for love of him who had clothed Margaret with his holiness, the Friars could no longer refuse her request to take the habit. And as she changed her bodily garb, she likewise adorned her spirit with virtues, as will become clear to those who devoutly read the following chapters.

Margaret had once foretold this change of spirit, though when she did so she could scarcely have known that she was speaking in prophecy. Some high-born female companions had taken her to task over her rich bodily adornment. "Margaret," they said, "you are so vain, what ever will become of you?" She answered them: "The day will come when you will address me as Saint Margaret, for I shall be holy. And you will come to me carrying the pilgrim's staff, with the pilgrim's purse hanging from your shoulders." Surely we can see how this prophecy is now fulfilled; for men now come running from many different places, and multitudes of women come devoutly, all to visit Margaret's body and her tomb!"

CHAPTER II: HER PERFECT CONVERSION TO GOD

1a. No sooner had the Friars Minor clothed her in the habit of penitence than she appeared a new woman, by the infusion of the Holy Spirit. The fire of heavenly love had transformed her into itself, and she tried ever more to hide herself in solitude. She wanted to speak with no one about earthly things, and sought only to be joined inseparably, as a new Magdalene, to the king of the ages, in meditation, prayer, weeping, and fasting.

She burned with the fire of heavenly love, and started denying herself all the things that ordinarily please the mind and body. No one has ever wanted gold as much as Margaret wanted the destruction of her own flesh. Crucified to the world, she despised the world and proceeded to weaken herself by the frequent spilling of blood, never letting up on her fasting. She used the bare ground as a bed for her tired little body, and in order to pass her nights more easily without sleep, she rarely laid her head, weak from fasting and constant weeping, upon a rock or block of wood.

She spent the night in prayer, from the first watch of night to the ninth hour of the day, and wept. She remembered her sins, then called to mind her crucified Jesus, to whose cross her mind had been fixed, and in her bitter grief she heaved the most troubled sighs, so that she feared she might die. She often lost her senses and the use of her voice, and remained as though dead.

The lover of honesty chose a little cell for herself, removed from the noise of the crowds but near the hospice of the noble ladies, where she might live in better security and seclusion. Here she offered herself to God with flagellation, slaps and punches,--for love of him by whose pallor we are healed,--and her flesh, once naturally fair, now appeared thoroughly black and blue. She said that she delighted more in the destruction of her own flesh than if she had been raised to the imperial rank; and she not only asked this of the Lord, but actively pursued it in every way.

The newly-converted, however, must be encouraged with inspiring examples, for one climbs the virtues in steps. Therefore, lest the timid of this age be afraid to subdue their flesh to their spirit, let me describe the steps Margaret took in fasting. Once she had embarked on the way of salvation, the servant of Christ would cook her food with lard, but never ate meat, not even on free days (if I may call them this), and she never let up on her fasting. She had decided to support herself and her son with the labor of her own hands, and so began to attend the noble ladies of Cortona in the period of their confinement. She prepared delicious foods for them, things appropriate to their station, but herself continued on lenten fare, as though she lived all year in the season of Lent. While the other servants sang to lift the spirits of their weak mistress, Margaret, alone and apart, so melted in weeping that she moved the singers to stop their singing, and they started beating their breasts, grieving with her.

This is the Margaret who spoke so fervently about the mercy of God and the severity of his judgment, that no heart was ever so lost in the delights of this world that it could keep itself from weeping, for the heat of her words.

And that Margaret's humble discretion might shine upon us, know that she never burdened the servants of the ladies whom she served on account of her fasts, nor made them cook especially for her. She abstained from meat while they ate meat, and ate lightly of the other foods that were placed before her. She never abandoned her pregnant mistresses, yet with utmost diligence offered the Canonical Hours to our Lord, in their entirety, with other devout prayers that she added. As a lily among thorns, a light in the darkness, and gold in the dust, she fasted and wept, kept vigil and labored. She cast no judgment, however, on those who ate and drank, sang songs, and slept in idleness.

This is the one who prepared a bath for her ladies but washed herself only in the bath of her own tears. Each night she washed the bed of her conscience as she wept, ever grieving in her heart for the blood spilt by Jesus Christ, and thus did not cease to wash her soul. And a poor woman saw her praying in the air.

1b. Because of her duties, however, the servant of the Lord was unable to serve Christ, as she wanted, at Masses and sermons. She therefore left the service of ladies, and eager to receive her former consolations, she started asking the generous Lord, in prayer, to give her her desires more quickly. Where were these things done? In the house of Lady Diabella, where the Father of mercies and light enriched Margaret with such loving-kindness that she turned this house into a hospice of mercy. Margaret entirely gave herself and this house to the service of the poor, and kept nothing big or small from them. Grateful to the cultivators of her soul, moreover, she ordered that her house of mercy always supply the needs of the sick Friars Minor, in their infirmary at Cortona.

O truly merciful mother, so intent on the consolation of the poor that she permited nothing to be given her from the things of this house, no matter how great her need, even to her death! And in that house of mercy, the Father looked on her with such mercy that he who is everywhere favored her with his speech, gave her the solace of angels, and dwelling with her, overcame the ancient enemy in battle.

1c. Then Margaret, in all things devoted to Christ, made a feast each year for the poor, in honor of the Baptist, whom she had chosen as her advocate. She solicitously filled the poor with the food she had preapred with her own hands, while depriving herself and her son.

This is the Margaret who, with insistent prayers, asked the blessed Francis, her father, to obtain for her from Christ, by his merits, the complete indulgence of all her sins, as a singular pledge of love.

At the beginning of her conversion, no matter how sick or weak she was, she never ate cheese or eggs outside Lent, and during Lent she ate no fish. What is more, whenever food was sent to her, she quickly sent as much as she could to the poor, with tears, keeping nothing for herself.

O lamblike compassion of the loving mother, who so attracted the poor and the needy that they left the doors of the rich and gathered, in crowds, at the door of her little cell, where she kept nothing, indeed nothing. The neighboring ladies felt sorry for her and tried to expel the poor from her cell, that she might be able to keep something for herself, but Margaret loved the poor with all her heart, and this was much against her will. Not yet entirely secluded, however, she devoutly went each morning to the church of the Friars Minor, in her usual manner, and stayed there in prayer--until tierce, during seasons of non-fasting--then returned to her cell in silence, where she closed the door and gave some of her time to work, most of it to prayer.

The beginning of wisdom, the fear of Christ, so occupied her mind that she wanted to look on no one's face, to hear or say nothing about the deeds of secular people. In fact, whenever she said or heard things pertaining to this world, or spoke with any non-religious about such things, she would not presume to seek Christ's ususal sweetness that night, but wept with deep sadness and spent the night without sleep. Afflicted with grief, she beat her breast with her fists, and crying out as a woman in labor, she exposed her grief of heart in weeping, and so woke her neighbors. Bitterness, however, is not killed except in sweetness, nor is cold extinguished except in heat; in her grief, therefore, she meditated, with indescribable weeping, on the cross and the sufferings borne by the redeemer, and in the suffering of Christ all her bitterness of mind was turned to sweetness. In her meditation, dearest brothers, she saw the passion so terribly that she tore her tunic in two and lacerated her face, and hit and slapped her cheeks; and she worked her back with a knotted little cord, for love of him whose back sinners have scourged.

Weeping and sighing sorrowfully and bitterly--first for her sins, then for the passion of Jesus Christ--she knew that the surest sign of love is the practice of good deeds. To atone for her original way of life, therefore, and the vain secular honor she had enjoyed, she started going through the land for alms, but she would enter no one's house, nor look anyone in the eye.

This is the very same Margaret who would at first refuse a whole loaf of bread if a lady offered it, fearing it might be offered out of special reverence for her; but then, in her maternal loving-kindness towards the poor, she no longer refused whole loaves, for love of them. This is the Margaret who gave away her breadbox and distributed her utensils to the poor, and for love of poverty stored her own bread in a broken jar covered with a stone. This is the woman who perfectly fulfilled the words of the Gospel, when for love of Jesus, her dear spouse, she expelled her only son from her affections, and preferring the poor to him--pilgrims-now-friends, for Christ--she strictly deprived herself of all the things given her for her own use.

Seculars were scared to approach her; she rarely spoke in her cell, even with her son. Moreover, she so preferred eternal love to this son of her womb that she would cook nothing for him, lest she lose any time for prayer. "My son," she said, "when you return to this cell, eat your food uncooked, as you find it, and keep silent, for I will not give you the time that is better spent in praise of God." However, though she could act this way towards her own son, she prepared meat, fish, and other food for Christ's poor, in whose service, she said, she lost no time, since it was the Spirit, not the flesh, prompting her to do these things.

However, when Margaret had no food to give the poor, she gave them forks, knives, cords, little jugs, cups, wood from the hearth, tunics, baskets, and bed-coverings; and if she had nothing else to give, she unstitched the sleeves of her tunic or took the veil from her head. She gave away her Pater Noster chaplet and her cincture, and took down the beams of her roof. She even gave a little jug of blessed water, when she had given away everything else, and cared so little for her son that it was as though she had forgotten a mother's pity. We saw this for ourselves, when on the solemnities of the saints, she invited the poor to her feasts, and kept nothing for herself or her son.

1d. The hand of the Lord then came upon her, and she was no longer content with her original abstinences; she therefore started eating her vegetables without lard or olive oil. A little later, she gave up all cooked food but bread, which she ate in tears, adding nothing except a few hazelnuts or almonds. And if you are thinking that her abstinence was severe for just a few days or months, she continued this way for many years. She spent her time in prayer, eating nothing before the ninth hour, or even vespers.

She wept so much over the sins of her neighbors and the passion of Christ, that her eyes often seemed to have been ripped from their sockets; and sometimes her tears were turned into blood. And when the people around her saw her so agitated, in her sweat and pallor, they thought her soul was about to leave her body.

But if we hope for the salvation of people who confess their sins, by the order of holy mother church, only once a year, or even only at death, how can anyone doubt Margaret's, who was never satisfied accusing herself of her own sins--or rather, of the virtues that she considered sins?

And that she might be fit for the heavenly kingdom, she ordered her son never to name in her presence any relative of his father's; for she had placed her heart in Christ, and was not able, or did not want, to be reminded of his family. Whenever she said anything--no matter how useful to her neighbor or pleasing to God--it did not seem useful to her, and so she suffered such fear that she lost her strength and bodily heat. She said that her jealous and eternal spouse so scrutinizes our souls that he may deem our actions--which we think virtuous--sinful; and so, while we expect a great reward for our deeds, he instead punishes us for eternity.

1e. This was the Margaret who was so intent on the holy Scripture, which enlightens and illumines the mind, that even on Sundays and feasts, when it was to be preached in the church of the brethren of her blessed father Francis, she would not break her fast, even if the sermon was not before nones. She preserved her mental power in hunger, and her soul more easily enjoyed her fervor.

If any of you would emulate the better charisms, know this: that the servant of Christ, Margaret, envied no one as much as the weak, the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the afflicted. She told her confessor: "If I could, I would gladly free them of their pain and clothe myself, alone, in their misfortunes."

Margaret was alone in her poor little cell one day, praying, sighing, fasting, and confessing. She cried out in tears that she was an exile and wondered at the patience of the Savior, who had borne her long and lovingly in her offenses. The day after the feast of Blessed Thomas the Apostle, therefore, as she prayed intently, she heard Christ speaking to her in her mind, saying: "Margaret, my little poor one, do not go any longer through Cortona for alms, but go straightway to the church of my elect, the Friars Minor. Hear their masses and listen to their sermons, for I have entrusted you to them, and to them especially I have entrusted the care of your salvation. Do not doubt the full remission of your sins, which you will obtain, for I have already made of you a marvellous light for those who sit in the shadow of vice. I have already made of you a heat to warm the cold, that they may love me and follow me with a fervent spirit. I have made of you an example for sinners, that they might see in you, most certainly, that if they only prepare themselves for grace, I am prepared to show them mercy, just as I have been merciful with you. Therefore, my little poor one, I entrust you as my treasure to the counsel and guardianship of my friars, and I order them always to protect and instruct you, for love of me, wherever you may stay. And in return for the care that the friars have for your salvation, their Order will be honored throughout the world."

Margaret was very happy to hear Christ say this of the holy Order, and as a daughter solicitous for her fathers, she commended them to God the Father. He received her prayer with paternal care, and answered: "I am with you in your desires, and the friars whom you have recommended to me, are the very elect whom I love with deepest charity."

1f. The servant of the Lord wanted to be joined inseparably to God the Father by a special sign of love, as his truly adopted child. She started asking him, therefore, ardently and with humble and tearful prayers, when he might cease calling her his little poor one, and start calling her his daughter. The lover of men, whose love is never extinguished, answered her at once, in the manner of a judge passing sentence or as a master correcting his pupil, and said: "You cannot yet be called my daughter, for you are still a daughter of sin. But once you have made a general confession, and been purged again of all your sins, I shall number you among my children."

This answer was very frightening. Soaked with tears, she beseeched the Lord: "Lord Jesus Christ, true light dispelling the darkness, you know all things and nothing is hidden from you. Show me all the vices that lie hidden in my heart, that I may be cleansed in a perfect confession, and by your mercy I may merit to be called your daughter, and truly be as much."

No sooner had the blessed Margaret completed these words than the eternal virtue, which was teaching her inwardly, brought before her mind all the past offenses she had not yet confessed, and so she knew all her sins, even the slightest thought. Indeed, the loving Father now shows the soul its shame, lest he be compelled--as the just judge, on the last day--to show all the peoples and kingdoms its ignominy. She continued this general confession, in my hands, for eight days; and tearfully recited all her sins, in order, according to the course of her early life, that she might become a vessel pure in sanctification and honor At last she devoutly approached, without a veil and with a cord around her neck, the sacrament of the Lord's body; and when she had taken the life-giving bread that gives life to the world, she heard Jesus Christ sweetly calling her his daughter. His voice was so sweet that Margaret fainted and thought she would die for the breadth of joy. But in this sweetness, which is not given to those who admit anything else, she was often lifted that day into ecstasy, and lost her senses and motion. Friar Ranaldo, the Custos, saw this, and so did Friar Ubaldo, the Guardian. Marzio and Lady Gilia were also witnesses, and so was I, her confessor.

When she came back to her senses, however, she tried to say (as much as she was able to speak, for she was still absorbed in God and scarcely able to express herself)--she said, for admiration: "O infinite, highest sweetness of God! O day that you promised me, Christ! O word full of all sweetness: you have called me daughter!" And saying this, she was again rapt in God, before all,--not by fraud, as certain jealous people said, [but truly,] as the friars themselves learned, when the ladies standing round shook her body and pulled her hair, [trying to bring her to.] And when she recovered the use of her senses, she wondered and asked her soul how it had managed not to leave her body when Christ the king spoke that word. Then turning inward once again, with a redundance of tears that flowed sweetly, she said: "O word long desired and asked with fervent mind, word so secure and happy to remember! My God said, 'My daughter!' My Christ said, 'My daughter!'"

Margaret's guardian angel then came to her and said many good words, relating many promises and inviting her to the love of the creator and governor of all things, saying: "I am not your Lord, but I am the messenger of the most high king." And because her joy seemed half-full in the angel's speech--compared to the joy she had previously felt--she said to him: "It is not strange, then, that your presence has not intoxicated me with joy, as Christ, the Father of all, whom alone my soul desires, did, when he said to me: 'Daughter!' But speak any way, angel; solicitous administrator of salvation, speak!" And the angel said: "I am the messenger of your creator, and I come to prepare in your mind a dwelling-place for the eternal Lord." Beginning at the foundation of humility, therefore, he expelled all defects from her soul, and expounding on the virtues (already in her) in order, he imperceptibly adorned her with virtue.

1g. She kept all the mysteries of our salvation in memory: in a special way, the marvellous commerce God deigned to make with us when he took our human nature. She considered his infinite majesty, and the dignity of the mother of our Lord, who by her purity and humility brought him down from heaven. Out of devotion for her, Margaret wanted and hoped to receive the bread of life on the day of his birth, but for reverence she would not dare approach [the altar,] unless the shepherd of all should first invite her. So great a sacrament is not to be taken without worthy disposition and devout preparation, and so,--that she might more humbly receive her lofty king, and that she might more eagerly taste the food of heavenly spirits,--Christ said to her: "The joy that you ask of me, I reserve for the feast of John, my beloved evangelist: for you will then taste at the altar of the church of your father, a sweetness you have never known before. I do not want you to take communion on the day of my birth, however, because I want you to join me in tears: for while the armies of angels in heaven rejoiced in me, I cried among the animals, in a manger. And to prepare you more devoutly--to prepare the hospice of your mind for me, your eternal creator --I, the king of all, order you: on the day of my protomartyr Stephen, do not speak with seculars. And on the day you receive me in your soul, follow this same order; and so I, whom you seek with such flaming desire, will be united with you by a special grace."

Scarcely had he ordered this, as Margaret prayed in the oratory of the Friars Minor, than her son's master entered the oratory, related news about her son, and asked the price of his labor. Hear what follows. Margaret, the servant of Christ, was so removed from the cares of the world, which present impediments to the mind,--so stripped of maternal affection,--that it was as though she had never been part of this world she now dreaded, as though she had never born a son. As evidence of this: an enemy who plotted against her, told her, in public, that her son, whom she had deprived of a mother's caresses and left in extreme poverty, had drowned himself, for excessive sadness, in a well at Arezzo. This seemed likely, as no one could find him in his school at Arezzo, and he had not returned to Cortona to eat with his mother. Meanwhile, the master, with an indignant face, complained to the friars about Margaret's supposed arrogance and ingratitude, for she had not answered him. But Margaret, the beloved of God, having been converted to her beloved God and obedient to Christ alone, would answer not a word--not even when our own brethren questioned her insistently.

I, her unworthy confessor, asked her about this, and so did Friar Benigno, of happy memory. Margaret, however, was now so united to God, in her cell, that she would not obey us on earth. Christ said to her, in her soul: "Now I shall see how you regard your son's master, if you respond to him or place any creature before me"; and she said that she would not act against his command. She therefore obeyed neither the master, who shouted, reproached, and reviled, nor the friars, who asked her to speak. She said to the Lord: "I shall not speak to him, my Lord," and the master left, perturbed. But Jesus, from whom every grace and virtue come, was pleased, and said to her: "See, Margaret my daughter, with what strength I have clothed you, and what constancy I have given you, for you found it sweet to be silent to those who burdened you and to make no answer to those who questioned."

2. One night in the octave of epiphany, as she prayed alone in her cell and considered that solitude was necessary for those who would give their time to prayer, she asked the Lord to let her leave her cell no more, because devout ladies gathered around her in the oratory of her blessed father Francis, and they often disturbed her prayers with chatter. Her cell, moreover, was far from the noise of secular people, and her body was too weak, on account of her severe penances, to run about; and she did not want to receive divine consolations in public. Eternal providence, however, which orders all things at the right time and yields not to the soul's wishes but to its profit, answered Margaret in this way: "Why, Margaret, do you ask to taste my sweetness without interruption, when you are not willing to taste first the bitterness that will dispose you to this sweetness? Why do you ask me to hide you in your cell? Go, go to the church of the Friars Minor, and stay there as you have always done. Go to the church of your blessed father Francis, and there hear the masses and adore me reverently and see me in the hands of my priests. Go, and do not hide yourself until I want to hide you."

The next morning she was scarcely able, for weakness, to go to the church of the friars, but once she was there, she experienced such sweetness that she enjoyed the peace until sunset; and so she prayed all day, then returned to her cell that evening. In the friars' oratory, her inner master had given her this norm of life: "I do not want you, daughter, to speak any more with the secular people of this age. But if, on account of your infirmities, you need the help of others, accept it with silence, and reveal your needs to the woman who attends you, briefly, with as few words as possible. If you devoutly observe this rule, I shall reveal very great and useful things to you, not only for you, but also for my faithful. Be sure, however, never to fear any creature more than me, and do not direct or fix your gaze on the people who speak to you: for the more you separate yourself from their speech, the closer I shall be to you; and I shall be as domestic and tame to your mind, as I shall find you wild and uncultivated to the world. Do not think, however, that this order includes the Friars Minor who will be sent to you, for they are the occasion of your salvation. Remember how often the familiar speech of seculars was damning, how much you suffered because of this; and think how much you will suffer still, if you do not correct yourself more than you have done. Therefore, however rarely you speak with them, that often shall I speak with you; and I shall give you very great gifts." Of course, she did not want to tell me about these gifts; they exceeded her imagination, and when she considered her own vileness, she found it hard to believe these promises.

The ancient enemy, however, is always eager to deceive souls, and when he saw that Margaret was more adorned with virtues than she had ever been before, he started entering her cell very often. He transfigured himself into various things, and presented himself to her now in the likeness of a woman, now a man, now serpents, now four-legged animals. But he was not content to show himself deformed and horrible, and so he uttered menacing threats. He said that she was deceived, and said that he would violently drag her from her cell. He promised eternal torments and reminded her of her early life. He said that she would not persevere in Christ or virtue to the end. And he urged her to take more delicate foods, under the mantle discretion.

But he whose eyes are always on the just and whose ears are always open to their prayers, came to Margaret as she trembled and prayed: "Do not fear, Margaret, my daughter," he said. "Do not doubt that I shall always be with you, in your tribulations and temptations. Though everything has lost flavor for you, since you have tasted the spirit, I shall first tell you about the things that I shall give you, before I give them. If you really seek my consolation with all your heart, remove your speech from everyone but the Friars Minor. For they adorn you with the variegated loveliness of virtues; they tell you to adhere to me, your spouse, inseparably, and propose saving and lofty teachings about me, the most high and eternal God. And just as I, the creator of all, brought all things into being and preserve them once they have been brought forth, so I order you, for love of me, to love all creatures with reverence, judging or despising none in your heart, and never again entertain any disgust or displeasure against anyone."

Not unmindful of the eternal king's command, she grew in the love of God; and as she did so, she compassioned the afflicted ever more, and rejoiced in the good fortune of others. This is clear in the way she denied herself and gave the poor the things that had been given her for her own needs.