St. Margaret of Cortona

Margaret was born in Tuscany in 1247. When she was seven Margaret’s mother died. Her father married again two years later and Margaret did not get along with her step-mother. Margaret ran away from her home with a young cavalier when she was seventeen. She lived with him in his castle close to Montepulciano and bore him a son; although she wanted to marry her lover, he refused. Margaret lived for years torn between her lover and the life she knew was right. Even during these years she was compassionate to the poor. After nine years, Margaret’s lover was murdered while he was on a journey. When his favorite dog came back without him, Margaret followed the dog back to his body. Margaret blamed herself for her lover’s immoral life and repented deeply. She gave his family back the jewels he had given her and left his home. She took her son to her father’s house, but although he would have taken them in, her stepmother refused to do so. Desperate, Margaret was tempted to sell her body, but she prayed and was inspired to seek spiritual guidance from the Franciscan Friars at Cortona. Once in Cortona, two charitable women took her and her child into their home and later introduced her to some Franciscan Friars. Margaret could not give up the allurements of the world easily and struggled with fierce temptations for three years; she fought her temptations with prayer and rigorous fasting. After these years she was admitted as a Franciscan Tertiary. She lived on alms and served the sick poor. At her urging Cortona founded a hospital for the needy and she founded a group of Tertiary Sisters to nurse the patients. During this time, she was beginning to receive revelations from the Lord. Margaret rebuked a worldly bishop because he lived like a worldly prince and paid little attention to the souls in his care. Seeking more solitude for prayer, in her last years she moved from the hospital to a dwelling near St. Basel church, which was in ruins. Margaret had the church repaired. After her death on February 22, 1297 this church was redid in a more magnificent style and Margaret was buried there. Her body remained incorrupt. She was canonized in 1728. Most of what we know of her life comes from the autobiography she had dictated at her spiritual director’s request.