MARGARET OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, VIRGIN - 26 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 26th of May

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

VENERABLE MARGARET OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, VIRGIN 

Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament was a devout Carmelite nun at Beaume, who died May 26, 1648, in the odour of sanctity. From childhood onwards she was extraordinarily favoured with heavenly graces. She is usually depicted with the baby Jesus in her hands or kneeling in front of him. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)

***

She was a Carmelite nun, born in Paris, March 6, 1590; she died there May 24, 1660. She was the second daughter of the celebrated Madame Acarie, otherwise known as Blessed Marie de l'Incarnation, who introduced the Reformed Carmelites into France.

Carefully reared by her mother and directed by M. de Bérulle, she took the religious habit at the first Carmelite convent, Rue St Jacques, Paris, September 15, 1605. On November 21, 1606, she made her vows privately, and on March 18, 1607, she made them solemnly, under the care of Mother Anne de Saint-Barthélemi. 

In 1615 she was made sub-prioress, and in 1618, prioress of the convent of Tours. In these offices she showed such ability that she was sent in 1620 to restore harmony in the convent at Bordeaux. Shortly after this she was ordered to the convent of Saintes, where she remained eighteen months, and in 1624 was recalled to Paris, to replace as prioress Mother Madeleine de Saint-Joseph in the convent situated in the Rue Chapon. 

After having been several times prioress of the convent of the Rue Chapon, where she edified the community by a zeal for bodily mortification that her superiors had sometimes to moderate, she was attacked by dropsy, to which she succumbed. Her heart was taken to the monastery of Pontoise, where her saintly mother had been buried, and her body remained in the convent of the Rue Chapon, where it was kept until 1792.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)