2011 was a hard year for Marilyn Pinkerton of San Marino, Calif. The 57-year-old’s baby grandson, Nicholas, was diagnosed with nail-patella syndrome (NPS), a rare genetic disorder that adversely affects the nails and kneecaps and sometimes other parts of the body.
Prominent among Nicholas’ symptoms was that he had no kneecaps. Therefore, doctors wondered if he would ever be able to walk.
Near Pinkerton’s home was the Motherhouse of the Carmelite Sisters of Alhambra, a traditional community whose apostolates in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles include health care and retreats. The sisters suggested she pray for the boy’s healing to Blessed Margaret of Castello, an Italian virgin born in 1287 who herself suffered from severe disabilities.
Although she was not Catholic, Pinkerton followed the sisters’ suggestion. Every day she attended Mass with the sisters in their beautiful retreat chapel, pleading with God, the Blessed Mother and Blessed Margaret: "Please, help him to grow. Please help him."
Nicholas was undergoing constant therapy for other NPS-related symptoms (e.g., his arms were bent at the elbows so that his hands were flat against his shoulders). Marilyn was delighted to discover that, "while I kept praying and praying, he got better and better."
But the most impressive change occurred a year after Marilyn began her devotion to Blessed Margaret. Last March, the doctors were again examining Nicholas, and, for the first time, they discovered he had kneecaps. He is now able to walk and run like other typically developing children his age.
As Pinkerton said, "Nicholas is our miracle baby. He has defied the odds of everything they thought he’d be able to do."
Nicholas’ grandma is grateful not only to God, but to Blessed Margaret, and she continues her devotion to her: "She had so many handicaps, but through it all had great faith. I pray I can have that great faith, too."
At Easter 2012, Pinkerton, her husband and daughter (Nicholas’ mother) all entered the Catholic Church. The family has found great joy in their new faith. As the thankful grandmother said, "It’s given me so much strength."
Margaret’s Story
Blessed Margaret of Castello was born into a well-to-do family near Florence, Italy. To the great distress of her parents, upon her birth, they discovered that she suffered from a variety of severe physical ailments. She was a dwarf, had a curved spine that left her hunched over, was lame to the point that she could barely walk and blind.
Her family was embarrassed by her and kept her hidden away for many years. As young as age 6, she was walled up in a room beside a chapel. Fortunately, the family’s chaplain taught her about God.
Seeking a miracle, her parents took her to a Franciscan shrine. They didn’t receive one, so they abandoned her. Some in the community took pity on her and provided for her needs. Margaret became a member of the Dominican Third Order of Castello, developed a deep prayer life and devoted the remainder of her 33-year life to penance and acts of charity.
Many cures have since been attributed to her intercession. She was declared "Blessed" in 1609. Her incorrupt body lies under the main altar of St. Dominic Church in Castello. She has become a patron for people with handicaps and pro-life groups.
Margaret’s Shrine
In the United States, there is a Blessed Margaret Shrine at St. Patrick Church in Columbus, Ohio. The parish was originally established in the 19th century to serve Irish immigrants. The parish is operated by the Dominican Fathers, and, due to their influence, devotion to Blessed Margaret began there 80 years ago.
The shrine itself was established in the 1950s, and today it is a separate chapel attached to the main church. Its chief features include a statue of Blessed Margaret, which has a reliquary containing a quarter-size piece of her incorrupt heart. It’s not a well-known shrine, but it still draws a handful of visitors each week. On Wednesdays in the church, there are special devotions to Blessed Margaret.
Dominican Father Michael Dosch, pastor of St. Patrick’s, oversees the shrine. "Every week I get contacted by people who say they’ve experienced a miracle through her intercession." Those contacting him include Pinkerton, who shared with him the story of her grandson.
Blessed Margaret is on the road to canonization, but an approved miracle attributed to her intercession is needed before she can be declared a saint, Father Dosch said. He shared Pinkerton’s story with the Dominican father in Rome postulating Blessed Margaret’s cause, but since the Carmelite sisters were praying to their own founder for the boy as well, it might not be the miracle needed.
Father Dosch noted that many Columbus-area clergy are devoted to Blessed Margaret. These include Father Stash Dailey, a young priest serving at Immaculate Conception parish in Kenton, Ohio. Father Dailey grew up in St. Patrick Church and remembers attending Wednesday devotions to Blessed Margaret. Whenever he makes a visit to the Blessed Sacrament at St. Patrick’s, he stops by Blessed Margaret’s shrine to offer some prayers to her. He refers to her as "Little Margaret."
As he said, "Little Margaret was forgotten by everyone who should have kept her close to them. But with all her physical defects, her love for the Lord was paramount."
Father Dailey attributes his surviving an accident to Little Margaret and the Blessed Mother. Six years ago, he and a fellow seminarian were driving home to Columbus for the Thanksgiving holiday when their car became disabled. They had exited the vehicle and were standing beside it when a large truck struck them both. His friend died upon impact; he was severely injured and spent months in the hospital. The St. Patrick’s community prayed to Little Margaret for his recovery.
As the priest recalled, "It’s a miracle that I survived and a miracle that I went on to holy orders. Some people recommended I not go on in seminary due to my injuries."
Today, although he sometimes experiences back pain, Father Dailey is able to walk and perform his duties as a priest. He regularly offers his thanks to Little Margaret for her assistance: "It’s a strange coincidence that she was so unwanted by her family yet is such a powerful intercessor."
Father Dailey recalled many other instances of miraculous cures. A baby boy in the community, for example, was born blind due to a birth defect. The parish prayed to Blessed Margaret, and "he was granted a miracle; he was able to see." Today, the boy is in high school and still sees normally.
Father Dailey also sees Blessed Margaret as an ideal role model for the pro-life movement: "Today, if a pregnant woman were to discover she was carrying a baby with Little Margaret’s disabilities, many doctors would recommend killing the child.
"Little Margaret was a woman despised and rejected by the popular society of her time. The irony is that she achieved sanctity and became a role model for us all. We who are devoted to her hope she will become better known and eagerly await the day she is canonized."
Jim Graves writes from
Newport Beach, California.
INFORMATION
http://home.catholicweb.com/MargaretofCastello/
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Blessed Margret of Castello receives the prayers of many Pro-Lifer’s. I am sure she intercedes for the unborn and those babies born with disabilities and/or difficult for some families to raise.
Thank you National Catholic Register for introducing others to our dear
Blessed Margret of Castello.
Thank you for posting articles like this.
This is a worthy article.
What a wonderful story! Blessed Margaret was my ‘saint buddy’ last year—via Jen Fulweiler’s Saint Generator. I didn’t know anything about Blessed Margaret. She lived from 1287 to 1320. Her parents were ashamed of her misshapened body, when she was six years old, they actually had her walled up in a chapel wall where she obviously was ‘in position’ to attend daily Mass and receive our Lord daily in Holy Communion. The community felt so sorry for the girl that they all took turns ‘taking care’ of her so she was never really alone and without cheerful company. Then when she was 20, her parents took her to a shrine for cure. When the cure didn’t happen, they abandoned her…perhaps they felt that God had abandoned them by not answering their prayers. She became a lay Dominican and devoted the rest of her life to prayer and teaching children while their parents were at work. The village people were so grateful to her kindnesses. They demanded that she be buried in a tomb inside the church (irony, right?). This was a great honor given to a select few. It is said that at her funeral, a crippled girl was cured, so the priest agreed to Margaret’s burial within the church. She was beatified on October 19, 1609 by Pope Paul V. Perhaps this will be the final ‘modern-day’ miracle which will bring Blessed Margaret into the canonized sainthood! Ad Majorem Dei Glorium!
I have prayed to Blessed Margaret many times.She is a great advocate of the disabled as well as an inspiration to all.I too have severe curvature of the spine but I find great comfort in the life of Little Margaret and the difficult life she lead.She is an example to all.Her intercession is powerful as during her lifetime she was even able to raise the dead.Also her being an outcast and unwanted makes her a great pro life patroness of the unborn.She has performed many miracles, not only during her lifetime but also now that she is with the Lord.Her feast day is April 13 and all would do well to seek her intercession and promote her cause for canonization.Blessed Margaret pray for us.
There are many unwanteds in America 2013 thanks to Catholic democrat voters. They voted for someone who thinks it is OK to kill girls and boys outside of their mom’s womb even after they survive the attempt to kill them in the womb. Talk about making a child feel unwanted. The Catholic democrats’ candidate is making Catholics and other Christians feel unwanted because he is trying to close our institutions under his “health care” policy. Those of us who believe what God does about marriage are made to feel unwanted because the Catholic democrats’ candidate calls marriage what God calls an abomination. Those of us who say God is right on this matter are called “phobes”. Those of us who want to work are feeling unwanted because the Catholic democrats’ candidate is suffocating the job-creation sources in our economy by his “compassionate, social justice” economic policy. Those of us who “bitterly cling to guns and religion”, as the divisive Catholic democrats’ candidate described us, are feeling unwanted. But we must be of good cheer. The Catholic democrats’ candidate may think he is having his way now. But God and His laws are from everlasting to everlasting.
Bl. Margaret I will pray for your canonization to move forward. Please pray for me.
With so many miracles which can be attributed to Blessed Margaret’s intercession, I’m wondering if anyone is working on her canonization.
PLEASE PRAY/CHANT MY PRAYER:
“ALL WE ARE ASKING IS…LET THE CHILD LIVE”
wave your hands over your had for rhythm !
Thank you, Jim Graves, for a wonderful story.
The cloistered Dominicans in Buffalo, NY have a beautiful carving of Blessed Margaret in their chapel.
I always sat close to her when I would go there for Adoration.
Blessed Margaret of Costello, you are the most humble and loving of saints. When someone criticized your father and mother for leaving you on the doorstep of the Church because you were not healed and they didn’t want to take you home with them, you said, Oh no, they loved me very much but just couldn’t take care of me anymore. They are good parents and I love them. The story of your life on EWTN was my favorite movie. I fell in love with you. You were so gentle, kind and loving. You talked to Jesus, kneeling before the Crucifix, living in the basement cell of the castle, simply asking him for other’s needs and an end to the war. Your compassion for others who were suffering was remarkable. Blessed Margaret of Costello, pray for us that we may love and trust Jesus as you did in your sufferings that He made sweet, and to love our neighbor for His sake. Please intercede for all the sick and suffering, unwanted, unloved and those who have drifted away from Jesus. Thank you
wow, i didn’t know that. i think it is, especially now, should be of revelance in to today’s world. we truly live in a disposable society.
I am the mother of a ten year old girl with Down syndrome and Blessed Margaret’s story resonates with me as well. So many of our lovely children are aborted because they are felt to be a burden, yet most parents who give them life find out they are “ladders to heaven”.
It’s very ironic to me that Margaret is still a Blessed after all these years and it STILL a canonized after being dead for so long. I myself have a prayer card novena to her from the Archdiocese of Covington KY. I say it is all about a couple of things anymore. Is there a personality cult or politics involved with the person or a sense of Favoritism? I say they should either change the process back to way it was before the Devil’s Advocate was abolished by the last Pope. If he were to be canonized before Blessed Margaret of Castello, it would cause a big uproar.Stop making the Causes of Saints look irrelevant and lopsided by promoting certain causes and ignoring other older (and maybe more worthy causes) Just a thought.
There is a beautiful 24-hour Perpetual Adoration Chapel in Shinnston, WV (the only one in the state) that is under the patronage of Blessed Margaret of Castello…many believe that miracles have occurred here. It contains a beautiful life-sized statue of Bl. Margaret, as well as a relic.
What a great way to share the story of Bl Margaret! Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. I never heard of Blessed Margaret.
I am the Liturgical Decor Director at St. Brigids Church in Hanford, Cal. where I design and hand make all the banners and flags and my project for the last year has been the saints, such as St. Bakhita [whom I dearly love] and then there was this story that I read a couple years ago about this crippled young girl when I read it the tears flowed. I am right at this moment been working on her banner [Bl. Margaret] which is 15 feet long for the back wall of the church, she is a very special lady and soon to be a saint I hope. I am so happy to hear that there is so much devotion to her. I pray that the world will soon know her story. God Bless.
My heart is swept touched I shall tell others of this beautiful girl thank you
I AGREE WITH THESE LOVEING COMMENTS POSTED ABOUT BLESSED MARGARET OF CASTELLO.I HAVE BEEN PRAYING THAT SHE WILL BE CALLED A SAINT FOR OVER 30 YEARS.IT WOULD BE A GREAT PROLIFE STATEMENT WHICH IRELAND NEEDS AT THIS TIME.MAY YOUR SACRED HEART LORD JESUS BE PRAISED,GLORIFIED AND HONOURED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE WORLD NOW AND FOREVER MORE.
Blessed Margaret,
I promise to pray for your canonization and to make your story better known. I beg you to help me and my family with our troubles and health problems. For this I pray. Amen.
Blessed Margaret: I am also an unwanted. Please pray for me.
Bl. Margaret is my favourite person in history. Thank you for this lovely article. She is the patron saint for the unwanted, abortion and the disabled. Such an important and still relatively undiscovered saint.
Thank for this article. Very uplifting and bringing a lesser known holy woman to our attention. I know remember reading in a book about saints for illness and disability. http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Lean-Companions-Disability-ebook/dp/B005PQ518K/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359447463&sr=1-9&keywords=companions I am not sure if it would be violating the privacy of the young boy, but I would have loved to have had a picture of him. I teach in our parish religious education program and when I was able to share the picture (video) of the young boy who was miraculously cured through the intervention of Saint Kateri it really caught the attention of the children—to see that a child just like them had received the miracle.
Barbara,
I will pray for you. I’m want to assure you that you are loved by God and I hope to meet you in Heaven someday.
Barbara,
I am also praying for you. Asking for Bl. Margaret’s intercession that you may come to know God’s love and know that you are never unwanted. May the Lord bring you the peace and joy you deserve.
Amen.
I fell in love with Bl. Margaret while reading a short book about her life. I find it challenging to convey the beauty of her life to others in a short description. Fortunately, the book gives us a “witness” as to how she lived. The authors write beautifully and sensitively, and it felt like a mini-catachesis in how to live the faith. Even the simple illustrations touched my heart. (It also includes beautiful prayers of a novena for her intercession.) Little Margaret, your life exuded love, faith, grace, mercy, and sacrifice. Pray for me that I may also grow into these virtues. BOOK: The Life of Blessed Margaret of Castello, 1287-1320, by Father William Bonniwell and Patrick Marrin (May 1, 2009)
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