Saint Margaret the Virgin

Saint Margaret the Virgin

292–307 · Early Church

Feast day: July 20

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Biography

Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr (Ancient Greek: Ἁγία Μαρίνα) in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in Western Christianity, on 30th of July (Julian calendar) by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on Epip 23 and Hathor 23 in the Coptic Orthodox Church. The teenage Margaret is said to have been tortured and beheaded when she refused to renounce Christianity and give her virginity to a Roman official in the 4th century. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life or invoked her intercessions; these no doubt helped the spread of her following. Margaret is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Roman Catholic tradition. According to a 9th-century martyrology of Rabanus Maurus, Margaret suffered at Antioch in Pisidia (in what is now Turkey) in c. 304, during the Diocletianic Persecution. She was the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a Christian woman five or six leagues (15 to 18 miles (24 to 29 km)) from Antioch. Having embraced Christianity and consecrated her virginity to God, Margaret was disowned by her father, adopted by her nurse, and lived in the country keeping sheep with her foster mother. Olybrius, Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East, asked to marry her, with the demand that she renounce Christianity. Upon her refusal she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents are reported to have 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. Eventually, she was decapitated. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Margaret's story is "generally regarded to be fictitious". The Catholic Encyclopedia states "even the century to which she belonged is uncertain".

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Prayers

  • Novena in Honor of Saint Margaret

    novena

    Preparatory Prayer. Almighty and eternal God! With lively faith and reverently worshiping Thy divine Majesty, I prostrate myself before Thee and invoke with filial trust Thy supreme bounty and mercy. Illumine the darkness of my intellect with a ray of Thy heavenly light and inflame my heart with the fire of Thy divine love, that I may contemplate the great virtues and merits of the saint in whose honor I make this novena, and following his example imitate, like him, the life of Thy divine Son. Moreover, I beseech Thee to grant graciously, through the merits and intercession of this powerful Helper, the petition which through him I humbly place before Thee, devoutly saying, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Vouchsafe graciously to hear it, if it redounds to Thy greater glory and to the salvation of my soul. Amen. Prayer in Honor of St. Margaret. O God, grant us through the intercession of Thy holy virgin and martyr Margaret, undauntedly to confess the Faith, carefully to observe the chastity of our state of life, and to overcome the temptations of the world, the devil, and the flesh, and thereby escape the punishments of eternal damnation. Amen. Invocation of St. Margaret. St. Margaret, holy virgin and martyr, thou didst faithfully preserve the robe of holy innocence and purity, valiantly resisting all the blandishments and allurements of the world for the love of thy divine Spouse, Jesus Christ; help me to overcome all temptations against the choicest of all virtues, holy purity, and to remain steadfast in the love of Christ, in order to preserve this great gift of God. Implore for me the grace of perseverance in prayer, distrust of myself, and flight from the occasions of sin, and finally the grace of a good death, so that in heaven I may "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." Amen. Concluding Prayer. My Lord and my God! I offer up to Thee my petition in union with the bitter passion and death of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, together with the merits of His immaculate and blessed Mother, Mary ever virgin, and of all the saints, particularly with those of the holy Helper in whose honor I make this novena. Look down upon me, merciful Lord! Grant me Thy grace and Thy love, and graciously hear my prayer. Amen.

    — Mary, Help of Christians, and the Fourteen Saints Invoked as Holy Helpers (Bonaventure Hammer), 1909 edition, p. 233 (Novena in Honor of St. Margaret)

Patronages

Sources: Wikipedia (11). Wikipedia content used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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