Margaret was an English princess. She and her mother sailed to Scotland to escape from the king who had conquered their land. King Malcolm of Scotland welcomed them and fell in love with the beautiful princess. Margaret and Malcolm were married before too long.From Catholic Online.
As Queen, Margaret changed her husband and the country for the better. Malcolm was good, but he and his court were very rough. When he saw how wise his beloved wife was, he listened to her good advice. She softened his temper and led him to practice great virtue. She made the court beautiful and civilized. Soon all the princes had better manners, and the ladies copied her purity and devotion. The king and queen gave wonderful example to everyone by the way they prayed together and fed crowds of poor people with their own hands. They seemed to have only one desire: to make everyone happy and good.
Margaret was a blessing for all the people of Scotland. Before she came, there was great ignorance and many bad habits among them. Margaret worked hard to obtain good teachers, to correct the evil practices, and to have new churches built. She loved to make these churches beautiful for God's glory, and she embroidered the priest's vestments herself.
God sent this holy Queen six sons and two daughters. She loved them dearly and raised them well. The youngest boy became St. David. But Margaret had sorrows, too. In her last illness, she learned that both her husband and her son, Edward, had been killed in battle. Yet she prayed: "I thank You, Almighty God, for sending me so great a sorrow to purify me from my sins."
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Happy Name Day to Me!
Today is the feast of my patroness, everybody's favorite Queen, St. Margaret of Scotland. We celebrated St. Gertrude at daily Mass (it's her day, too) but oh well!
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Interesting... Not a bad namesake, lol.
ReplyDelete(Better then being named after a river, anyways!)
Awww, but the River Shannon has its charms. It's right near Limerick, the best-named city ever. And there's a song about it, "Where the River Shannon Flows." There aren't really many songs about "Margaret" or "Maggie" that I know of, besides "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart, which has the memorable line, "Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face." Lovely ;) For the record, I don't really want to see Mr. Stewart's face all that much, either.
ReplyDeleteOn an historical note, the River Shannon is also the boundary Oliver Cromwell chose when he forced the Irish Catholics off their ancestral lands during his brutal campaign in the 17th century. The land east of the Shannon was entirely re-settled by those lice-bitten Puritan English usurpers, grrr ;) :::Traditional rivalry betwixt the Irish and the English, off button:::
On the negative side, the River Shannon has been referred to as "the killer river" in the literary record (N.B. Frank McCourt) because it supposedly carries consumption. I'm pretty sure you're not a TB-inflicting killer, though, Shannon. Right? ;)