Author: Father Harrison Ayre

The two most significant Church councils of the last 500 years have been the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council.
But that is where the similarity ends.

After Trent, there was a tenacious insistence from Rome for reform on every level. High-living cardinals were expected to
live simple lives. Bishops who abandoned their dioceses to live somewhere they found more congenial were ordered back to their cathedrals. Clergy and religious who had flouted their vows and the discipline of their order were commanded to amend their lives
or ask to be dispensed from their vows.

Training in theology, liturgy and Sacred Scripture in the seminaries became much more intense. A new catechism was published for the laity, and parish priests were expected to teach from it. And a new missal was promulgated from which, Pope St. Pius V
declared, there must be no deviations.

The aftermath of Vatican II was, in so many places, another story. Dissent from Church doctrine and moral teaching was rampant. Liturgical abuses in the Mass became so commonplace that faithful Catholics often found themselves going “church shopping” to find some parish where Mass was not a liturgical free-for-all.

In 1566, Michele Ghislieri, a devout Dominican friar, was elected pope. He took the name Pius V. He was the son of Italian aristocrats who had fallen on hard times — so hard that as a boy Michele had worked as a shepherd. In so many places in the pre-Counter-Reformation era, the Catholic Church was experiencing hard times, but there were still holy men and women to be
found among the laity and the clergy.

Michele was fortunate enough to know a fervently religious Dominican friar who guided his spiritual life and became his inspiration for joining the Order of Preachers. Aft er his studies in theology and philosophy, and his ordination, Michele was sent to several Dominican houses where he served as master of novices or prior, and in each place he insisted upon a strict adherence to the rule set down by St. Dominic.

The troubles he oft en experienced in these houses, where too often the friars had been lax in their religious observance, prepared him for what he would experience as the pope entrusted with implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent.

As pope, Pius opened new seminaries and issued a new breviary, a new catechism and a new missal. This was different from the missals of the Middle Ages. It set out what prayers and rites must be said and performed at Mass, and it spelled out the rubrics
precisely.

Furthermore, Pius commanded that there was to be no variation, except in the case of rites, such as the Milanese and the Carthusian, which the Church had recognized and approved centuries earlier. The uniform liturgy, combined with the intensified training of the new seminaries, as well as the new, zealous spirit encouraged by such new religious orders as the Jesuits and the Oratorians, advanced the reform in Catholic religious life for which the fathers of the Council of Trent had prayed.

It took time, and there were many challenges, but ultimately, the Church around the world became stronger and holier. Not in every case, of course, human beings being as frail and fallen as we are; but still, it was an improvement over the situation that existed in too many places when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Th eses to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church.

Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had a great impact on the liturgical life of the Church. There is still work to be done, of course. Not every parish has embraced “the reform of the reform,” but it is spreading. Since the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass is the summit of Catholic spiritual life, it is essential that it be offered with all the reverence we can muster. St. Pius V understood this, and he is an excellent choice as patron saint of such an effort.

St. Pius V is the patron saint of Bosco Marengo, Italy, which is his birthplace. His feast day is April 30.

Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”

In his biography of St. Margaret, Francois Mauriac, the French author and Nobel laureate, tells us that as a child Margaret possessed a sweet, loving temperament — as long as she got her way. In her village Margaret’s good looks and quick wit attracted attention, especially the attention of older boys. Margaret, who would not let anyone tell her what to do, discovered that with a little skillful flirting she could get boys to do almost anything she wanted them to do. When she was about 14 years old she caught the eye of Arsenio, the 16-yearold son of the local baron; he invited Margaret to live at the castle as his mistress. Margaret accepted.

For Margaret her new life was idyllic. A rich young man said he loved her. She had escaped the harsh life of a peasant to live in ease and comfort in a castle where servants did everything for her. The only thing that marred Margaret’s happiness was Arsenio’s candid avowal that he would never marry her. A baron’s son might have a peasant as his mistress, but he could not marry her. Nonetheless, Margaret believed she could change his mind. When she gave birth to Arsenio’s son, she thought the baby would persuade him to marry her. It never happened.

Margaret had lived as Arsenio’s mistress for nine years when he left the castle for a few days to tend to some business at one of his family’s estates. He did not return on the day he was expected. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that. Then Arsenio’s dog showed up alone. The dog’s behavior made Margaret nervous. It cowered in corners and whined. Suddenly it took her skirt in its mouth and, backing up, pulled her toward the door. As Margaret followed the dog outside she felt a terrible sense of dread. The dog led her deep into the woods, then stopped at a pile of dead branches and dry brush where once again it began to whimper. Margaret’s hands trembled as she cleared away the dead wood. Beneath the pile, lying in a shallow pit, she found Arsenio, dead and decaying.

Who killed Arsenio? No one knows. But Margaret’s mind was not on the culprits: for the first time in a long time she was thinking about the state of her soul. She and Arsenio had lived in sin together for nine years and had never been sorry about what they were doing. Now she wondered if at the last moment Arsenio had had time to repent. And she wondered, if death took her suddenly, would she have the sense to beg God for His mercy and forgiveness?

Determined to make a fresh start, Margaret took her little boy and left Arsenio’s castle. She headed for the hilltop town of Cortona where, she had heard, the Franciscan fathers helped repentant sinners. The Franciscans of Cortona were kinder than Margaret imagined. They found a home for her and her son. They assigned two Franciscan priests to be her spiritual directors. When Margaret’s son was old enough, the Franciscans arranged for him to go to school.

The priests suggested that Margaret devote herself to good works, so she served as nurse to the poor in Cortona. She became such
a skilled midwife that the women in labor insisted that no one but Margaret care for them.

Aft er Arsenio’s sudden death, Margaret became especially devoted to the poor souls in purgatory. For the rest of her life she prayed earnestly for the dead. When Margaret herself was dying, she had a vision of a vast company of souls streaming out of heaven: They were the souls she had ransomed from purgatory with her prayers.

As a young woman, Margaret had made a bad decision, but she turned her life around, found a stable home for her child, found a career for herself, and found spiritual and emotional comfort from the Franciscans of Cortona. For these reasons, she is a good role model for single mothers.

St. Margaret of Cortona is the patron saint for women raising children alone, and invoked against sexual temptation. Her feast day is February 22.

Thomas Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”

Blessed Margaret’s life is one of the most heart-wrenching stories in the calendar of the saints. She was born blind, with severe curvature of the spine; her right leg was an inch and a half shorter than her left, and her left arm was malformed. She never grew beyond 4 feet tall.

Her parents kept little Margaret hidden away in their house in Metola in the Italian province of Umbria. She was 6 years old when the family traveled to a shrine at Castello, hoping for a miracle. When no miracle took place, Margaret’s mother and father abandoned her.

Some women of Castello found the terrified child and took care of her until they could arrange for her to be adopted. A husband and wife, Venfarino and Grigia, invited Margaret to live with them; they treated her like their own daughter, with love and kindness. She appears to have spent the rest of her life with her adoptive parents.

There was a convent near Margaret’s home, and the nuns became fond of her. When she was about 13 years old, Margaret asked to be admitted as a postulant. Given her years of friendship with the sisters, Margaret expected that she would be happy in their convent. She was in for a disappointment. The nuns were lax in keeping the rule of their order and even in keeping the routine of daily prayer and meditation. Margaret, on the other hand, was intensely devout.

The lack of fervor in her sisters surprised and confused her, while Margaret’s zeal made the nuns self-conscious, angry and resentful. Ultimately, the superior of the convent asked Margaret to leave. She returned to her adoptive parents and at age 15 joined the Third Order of St. Dominic, which permitted her to wear the habit and take the vows of a nun but still live at home where she felt loved and secure.

Margaret’s disabilities did not make her bitter; rather, she became one of the most generous, sympathetic people in Castello. She nursed the sick, consoled the dying and visited prisoners. Margaret said that in the sufferings of her neighbors she saw the image of the suffering Christ. As for her own disabilities, she regarded them as a means to unite her pain with the pain Christ endured on the cross. Her courage, her patience and her deep religious devotion won her the affection of everyone in Castello.

Margaret died when she was 33 years old. At her Requiem Mass the crowd was so great it seemed that the entire town and all the peasants from the countryside had come to the funeral. Th e parish priest planned to bury Margaret in the churchyard, but after the Mass was over the mourners insisted that she must have a tomb inside the church, with all the other distinguished dead of the parish.

The priest and the congregation were still arguing the point when a girl whose legs were crippled dragged herself to Margaret’s coffin. She touched the casket, then stood up and began to walk. Th e miracle convinced the priest to give Margaret a tomb inside the church. Today her remains lie beneath the high altar of Castello’s Church of St. Dominic.

Blessed Margaret (1287-1320) is the patron saint of the poor and anyone dealing with a disability or physical challenge. She also is venerated as one of the patron saints of the pro-life movement. Her feast day is April 13.

Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”