Blessed Margaret of Castello

Since hearing about our story, a good friend from St. Michael helped bring a relic of a potential saint to visit in our house - a relic of Blessed Margaret of Castello.

For the benefit of those who aren't as familiar with saints, they are deceased people for whom the church has enough evidence to determine they are in heaven. Under the modern process, the normal path has four stages. After a potential saint dies, the local parish and diocese begin an investigation to confirm that the person was dedicated to doing God's will. If they decide to forward the cause, the person is declared a "Servant of God" and makes a recommendation to the Pope, who starts step two. If the Pope determines that the person lived a life of heroic virtue, then the person is declared "Venerable." While there's several different ways of completing the third stage, it's completed when Pope declares the person "Blessed" - it is worthy of belief that the person is in heaven. However, the final stage to be called a saint is confirmation of miracles occurring after their death which are attributable to the Blessed's intercession.

Blessed Margaret of Castello was born more than 700 years ago near Florence, Italy (incidentally, where we started our honeymoon). She was the first born of some wealthy nobles, who were disappointed in her gender, as well as her physical deformities (she was blind, hunchbacked, and her right leg was much shorter than her left). Her parents were so ashamed of her, they told people she had died at birth, and when she was almost discovered at the age of 6, they locked her in castle prisons for a decade. Around her 17th birthday, her parents took her to a shrine in Castello, and prayed she would be healed. However, her parents did not wait long, and instead abandoned her there. The townspeople helped her how they could - the homeless taught her to beg and find doorways/empty buildings to sleep in, and the poor gave her housing as they could. Regardless, she found time to pray, visit those in prison, help sick people, and comfort the suffering. When she died in her early 30s, the entire town attended the funeral and demanded she be given a grave inside the church - a place of highest honor. A crippled girl was miraculously healed at Margaret's funeral, and so the priest agreed.

The Dominican order was active in the town of Castello during Blessed Margaret's time, and have
kept her close to their hearts. Through the Dominicans at St. Patrick's church in Columbus, her memory has found her way to the Columbus area, and through some other priests, into our home. And wouldn't you know that she only needs one more confirmed miracle to be declared as an official saint in the Church!

We've added Blessed Margaret to the audience of our prayers. We know she doesn't grant miracles, but she has a special place and ability to ask God on our behalf. While we can (and do) pray to God directly, it doesn't hurt to ask someone else like a friend to also pray for us and she has certainly become a friend to us!

We know that with a diagnosis like this, God seems to need Caroline Mary in heaven shortly after her birth. However, where there is life, there is hope.  For us, we pray that God's will is to instead heal her and keep her on earth for years to come.  How amazing would it be if  Caroline could be one of the miracles on Blessed Margaret's to sainthood! But even if isn't we are sure she will kindly intercede for us from heaven in other ways.  Blessed Margaret of Castello- pray for us!