Feast Day of St. Margaret of Hungary
Today is the Feast of St. Margaret of Hungary, the Hungarian princess turned Dominican nun. Her father, King Bela IV of Hungary promised to give his daughter to the praise and worship of God in the Dominican monastery if God would protect the country from the Tartar invasions. God did indeed protect Hungary, and King Bela did place his little daughter in the monastery….before later trying to remove her for the purpose of marrying her off to secure peace. To avoid such a fate Margaret received the consecration of virgins; this is the only time ever mentioned in the annals of the Order that nuns received the consecration of virgins.
Our monastery has a great love for St. Margaret. Known for her ascetic abstinence from washing/hygiene, our soap department took St. Margaret as its patron. St. Margaret’s had a very interesting, although short, life, dying at the age of 28 from an 8 day illness. You can read more about her life in Margaret: Princess of Hungary, written by S.M.C. of the English Stone Dominicans and re-published by our publishing house, DNS Publications a few years ago.
Usually we listen to a recorded lecture/conference/etc. at our noon meal, while at our evening meal we listen as one of the sisters reads. In honor of St. Margaret’s feast day we did things a little differently today. Recently Sr. Mary Martin was able to obtain the Latin annals of Margaret’s process of canonization and has been working on translating them into English. At dinner, Sister read from her notebook part of her translation of the testimony of one of Margaret’s fellow nuns. It is very interesting, and we look forward to hearing/reading the rest!
