Saint of the Day Online - St. Margaret of Cortona

Saint of the day - 22, Feb 2017

St. Margaret of Cortona, penitent, was born in Loviana in Tuscany in 1247. Her father was a small farmer. Margaret's mother died when she was seven years old. Her stepmother had little care for her high-spirited daughter. Rejected at home, Margaret eloped with a youth from Montepulciano and bore him a son out of wedlock. After nine years, her lover was murdered without warning. Margaret left Montpulciano and returned as a penitent to her father's house. When her father refused to accept her and her son, she went to the Friars Minor at Cortona where she received asylum. Yet Maragaret had difficulty overcoming temptations of the flesh. One Sunday she returned to Loviana with a cord around her neck. At Mass, she asked pardon for her past scandal. She attempted to mutilate her face but was restrained by Friar Giunta. Margaret earned a living by nursing sick ladies. 

Margaret was born of farming parents, in Laviano, a little town in the diocese of Chiusi. At the age of seven, Margaret's mother died and her father remarried. Little love was shared between stepmother and stepdaughter. As she grew older, Margaret became more willful and reckless, and her reputation in the town was one not to be envied. At the age of 17, she met a young man, according to some accounts, the son of Gugliemo di Pecora, lord of Valiano, and she ran away with him. Soon Margaret found herself installed in the castle, not as her master's wife, for convention would never allow that, but as his mistress, which was more easily condoned. For ten years, she lived with him near Montepulciano and bore him a son. Some day, he had promised her, they would be married, but the day never came. She died on 22 February 1297