Byline: Thomas Craughwell

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.

After 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.”

The sexual revolution of the 1960s dramatically altered the moral landscape of the Western world. But of course, sexual promiscuity was not invented in the 1960s; it has always been with us, although it may have been more rampant in some places and some periods of history than others.

St. Mary of Egypt was born into a family of Egyptian Christians. At age 12, she ran away from home and went to live in Alexandria, the most cosmopolitan, most sophisticated and in many ways one of the most corrupt cities in the Mediterranean world. She supported herself as a singer and dancer. At some point, we don’t know when, she lost her innocence.

Mary’s sexual appetite took over her personality. She cruised the streets of Alexandria, looking for partners. Her favorite diversion was to corrupt innocent young men. But many years later, as she told St. Zosimus — the monk who wrote down her autobiography — she never accepted money from the men she slept with, she never became a prostitute.

Once, while walking along the wharves at the harbor, she saw a group of men boarding a ship. She asked one of the sailors who the men were, and where were they going. He said they were all pilgrims, heading to Jerusalem to celebrate there the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. On impulse, Mary decided to go, too. By the time the ship reached the Holy Land, Mary had seduced every pilgrim and every member of the crew.

In Jerusalem she continued her usual routine of looking for new partners. On the holy day, a throng of pilgrims made their way through the narrow streets of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Mary, out of curiosity, joined them. But when she reached the threshold of the church, some invisible force held her back. She could not enter. All at once the wickedness of her life overwhelmed her, and she began to cry.

Near the door was a carving of the Blessed Virgin. Turning to the sacred image, Mary prayed for the first time in years, “Help me,” she begged Our Lady, “for I have no other help.” With that, the power that had kept her from entering the church withdrew and Mary went in. She found a priest and made a full confession.

After the Mass and veneration of the Holy Cross, Mary left Jerusalem, crossed the Jordan River and headed out into the desert. There she became a hermit, living a life of prayer and penance for nearly 50 years.

Toward the end of her life she encountered the monk Zosimus, to whom she told her story. Then she begged him to return to her on Holy Thursday with the Blessed Sacrament — it had been decades since she had been able to receive holy Communion. Zosimus returned, as he had promised, but he found that Mary had died. He buried her, then went back to his monastery and began to make known the story of Mary of Egypt.

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

During the Middle Ages, love matches between royalty were rare. Princes and princesses were expected to marry in order to establish a political alliance, or secure for their families more territory, or to bring in a substantial dowry. Whether the royals liked — let alone loved — each other did not enter into the equation. But Matilda (895-968) and her husband, Henry the Fowler, loved and respected each other.

Matilda had always been charitable, but as empress of Germany she could be more generous than ever before. Her favorite charities were churches, monasteries and convents, but she also gave abundantly to the poor. Matilda’s kindness even extended to criminals and prisoners from her husband’s wars. If she could not persuade Henry to release them, then she comforted them in the cells with food, light and warm clothes. Henry never tried to limit Matilda’s acts of charity; rather, he attributed his victories to his wife’s prayers and good works. Over time, the couple had five children.

St. Matilda’s troubles with her children began the day Henry died. By right, the crown would pass to their eldest son, Otto. But Otto’s younger brother, Henry, wanted to be emperor, and what he could not have by right, he tried to take by force. Young Henry raised an army against his brother, but Otto defeated the rebels easily, captured his little brother and was trying to decide what to do with him when Matilda intervened, begging for clemency. Otto gave up any plans he may have had to execute Henry, and Henry swore allegiance to Otto.

With peace restored in the family, Matilda did what she loved best: endowed convents and monasteries and built new ones. She spent so lavishly that Otto insisted she stop. Then Henry the troublemaker stepped in. For once not only did he agree with his brother, but he suggested more drastic action to prevent their mother from squandering any more money on monks and nuns: The family should take charge of their mother’s finances, including the property she had inherited from their father, the late emperor. As her sons dispossessed her, Matilda, to blunt the pain of being persecuted by her own children, indulged in a little irony, saying how good it was to see her boys working in harmony at last. Then she packed her bags and went to live at the Engern convent.

But worse was to come for Matilda. Henry made another attempt to seize the throne, this time recruiting a team of assassins that included one of Matilda’s grandsons and one of her sons-inlaw. Otto survived the plot unharmed, and once again treated Henry with forbearance. It was just as well; not long after his final conspiracy failed, Henry died. As for Matilda, she spent the final years of her life in a Benedictine convent. There, after she had given to the poor absolutely everything she still owned, including her burial shroud, she died peacefully.

She is also the patron saint of parents with large families. Her feast day is March 14.

Thomas Craughwell is the author of many books, including “Saints behaving Badly” and “This Saint will Change Your Life”.

St. Macrina was the grandmother of St. Basil the Great, his brothers St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste, and their sister, St. Macrina the Younger. Macrina raised all of her grandchildren (she had 10), and she took special care to give them a sound religious education. Her care paid off: Basil became a monk and wrote a monastic rule that is still followed by monks in the East. Gregory became bishop of Nyssa and then archbishop of Sebaste. Peter preceded his brother as archbishop of Sebaste. All three brothers were champions of the Catholic faith against Arianism, a heresy that was raging across the Christian world at the time. And Macrina the Younger became abbess of a small community of nuns near the Black Sea.

St. Macrina had been converted by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the name means “wonder-worker”), a renowned preacher. It was said that when he was made bishop of Caesarea, there were only 17 Christians in his diocese, but when he died there were only 17 pagans in his diocese he had not managed to convert.

In 303, Emperor Diocletian began his empire-wide persecution of Christians. It would be the last Roman persecution of the Church, and it would prove to be the most ferocious. Thousands of Christians were killed, among them some of the most revered martyrs of the early Church, including St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and St. Januarius, known to Italians as San Gennaro. As was true of so many Christians, Macrina and her husband went into hiding. They fled to a remote spot in a vast forest along the shores of the Black Sea, where they remained for seven years. It was a terrible time for the couple. In addition to the constant fear that they would be discovered and dragged off to a horrible death, they often had difficulty foraging for food. Several times Macrina and her husband nearly starved to death.

Only in 311 did they feel safe enough to leave their refuge and return to civilization. Soon thereafter, Macrina’s husband died, and she filled her days raising and educating her grandchildren.

Her feast day is January 14.

St. Macrina the Elder is the matriarch of one of the Church’s most blessed families. Along with her son, St. Basil the Elder, and her daughter-in-law, St. Emmelia, four of her 10 grandchildren have been canonized as saints, including:

St. Basil the Great: Bishop of Caesarea and Doctor of the Church, St. Basil is known as a great defender of Christianity against Arianism. He was revered for his spiritual achievements and his many contributions to Christian culture in the fourth century. His feast day is Jan. 2.

The Crosiers

St. Gregory of Nyssa: Bishop of Sebaste and a prolific writer, St. Gregory is credited with being one of the most ardent orthodox leaders of his time due to his outspokenness against Arianism. His feast is March 9

Associating a saint with a particular cause is usually the work of the people in the pews. They hear the story of a saint and see something in his or her life that applies to their own life or situation. It’s usually very straightforward: Sts. Cosmas and Damian were doctors, so they are the patron of doctors; during her martyrdom, all of St. Apollonia’s teeth were knocked out, so she is invoked against toothache; St. Joseph labored as a carpenter, so he is the patron of all workers. But once in a great while the pope steps forward and formally declares a particular saint to be patron of a particular cause. That is what happened in 1979, when Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed St. Francis of Assisi the patron saint of the environment.

It’s not unusual to find statues of St. Francis standing amid a flowerbed or perched on the edge of a birdbath. Some of them are handsome works of art, and some are fairly sentimental, with cute bunnies and fawns at Francis’ feet and birds sitting in the palm of his hand.

Sentimental yard art can be a little hard to take, but there are worse things that have happened to poor St. Francis. Francis — one of the most popular saints among Catholics and non-Catholics — has sometimes been recast as a sun-and-moon worshipping pantheist. This characterization of St. Francis is deeply flawed. The man was profoundly, unshakably committed to the Catholic faith. When he contemplated the natural world he did not see a collection of “spirits,” but a gloriously complex, interrelated system that reflected the splendor, the goodness and the generosity of God. His famous “Canticle of the Sun” is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Creator for the all the wonders of creation. It is because St. Francis loved and cherished the universe God made and all the creatures in it that Blessed John Paul named the patron of the environmental movement.

Francis began composing the “Canticle of the Sun” in 1225. He wrote in the style of the troubadours, the romantic poets he had tried to imitate when he was a teenager running the streets of Assisi. In order for his hymn to reach the widest possible audience, he wrote it in Italian rather than Latin. From time to time he added new verses. It’s likely that some of these were lost because Francis appears to have added verses spontaneously to fit a particular moment.

He composed some lines on the virtue of forgiveness (this verse has come down to us) after he had arbitrated a dispute between the bishop of Assisi and the governor of the town. He made his final addition to the “Canticle” as he lay on his deathbed. “Praised be my Lord for our Sister mortal death, from whom no man alive will escape,” Francis sang.

St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and animal welfare societies. He is also one of the patron saints of Italy, and of the Archdioceses of Denver, San Francisco and Santa Fe, N.M.  His feast day is Oct. 4

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