The Imperfect Pancake: Or Hey! Your Baby Has Problems? Just Throw Her Out and Try Again

Not good enough -- Throw 'em out and try again.

Another Charlie Gard? Is This Little Girl Another Imperfect Pancake?

You know when I make pancakes sometimes I put one on the pan before it's hot enough or, on the other hand, the pan is too hot. The pancake comes out very anemic-looking or burnt to a crisp. Sometimes I just set it aside as not quite good enough to serve guests. 

Is that what our children are now? Imperfect pancakes? The ones set aside for the dog or the trash? Just try again for the perfect pancake?

This reminded me of a friend years ago. She went to the hospital emergency room for what turned out to be type 2 diabetes. She thought she was pregnant at the time and, like many doctors today, the attending physician asked her if she wanted the pregnancy.

Blessed Margaret of Castello, Pray for Us!

Blessed Margaret of Castello is a patron for our day and age. Born as the child of nobility, she was a hunchbacked dwarf, blind from birth. Her parents were ashamed of her and kept her hidden. Once they heard about a shrine in a town a day's journey away. Hoping for a miracle they took her there. When no miracle occurred, they left her in the church, abandoned, and went home. She was nineteen, I think. When the priest closed the church for the night, Margaret had no place to go. She spent the night on the church steps and it was only the kindness of the town beggars that kept her from starving to death and dying of exposure in the weeks and months ahead. Because of her goodness she became beloved by the townspeople. Amazingly, she never blamed or spoke unkindly of her parents. She is the perfect patroness for the abandoned and unwanted and for those with serious physical deformities. Please pray to Blessed Margaret for a special intention in my family. I would particularly appreciate you praying the Prayer for Canonization and include that special intention as the requested favor. May God bless all of you who join me in this prayer.

NOVENA PRAYER

O God, by whose will the blessed

virgin Margaret was blind from birth,

that the eyes of her mind being

inwardly enlightened she might think

without ceasing on You alone, be

the light of our eyes, that we may

be able to flee the shadows of this

world, and reach the home of never-

ending light. We ask this through

Christ, our Lord.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to

the Father.

Prayer for Canonization

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, glorify your

servant blessed Margaret, by granting

the favor we so ardently desire.

This we ask in humble submission 

 to God's Will, for His honor and

 glory and the salvation of souls.

Happy All Saints Day

I love this feast day. Many of the children in our parish arrive for morning Mass dressed as little saints. This morning I saw St. George (last year St. George came with a dinosaur masquerading as a dragon), St. Bernadette, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila (I think) and a number of others.

One of my favorite saints has yet to be canonized. Blessed Margaret of Castello, who lived during the middle ages, led a sad life if you evaluate it from the world's standards. She was born blind and a hunchbacked dwarf. Despised by her wealthy parents for her ugliness, she was kept hidden in the castle lest anyone know of her existence. Her parents later imprisoned her in a little room next to a remote chapel in the woods where none of their well-born friends would ever see her or learn of her existence. Later, in hopes of a healing they took her on a pilgrimage to a town a day's journey from their home. When the young woman wasn't healed they abandoned her and left for home.

Imagine being blind and alone in a strange city far from home - with no friends, not even an acquaintance. When she was put out of the church at closing she waited there on the steps hoping her parents would return. They never did. Instead, the beggars took her in and shared what little they had as well as how and where to beg. As the townspeople recognized her holiness, many humble families took her in. Everywhere she stayed, changes occurred as her gentle prayerfulness and humble example invited imitation.

When a noble woman of the town learned she was going blind she begged Margaret to pray for a cure. The little saint tried to get her to conform her will to God's and recognize that the sacrifice of her sight could be a great blessing. But when the woman wept and begged Margaret again, the little saint complied and her friend was cured. Margaret became a third order lay Dominican with a special regard for the poor, the sick, the dying, and prisoners. No wonder! She herself had experienced all these states.

Margaret of Costello is the perfect patron for those despised by the world: the poor, the deformed, the unwanted elderly, the little handicapped babies in the womb who so often are murdered for their imperfection. All can turn to the diminutive little hunchback and trust in her intercession. Her incorrupt body lies under the altar at the Church of St. Domenico in Costello, Italy. Author Joan Carroll Cruz included Margaret in her book, The Incorruptibles.

St. Margaret, pray for our poor deformed world, that we might turn away from sin and back to the will of God.

And You Think You Have Troubles: Ask Blessed Margaret for Help

I just finished reading Blessed Margaret of Costello by Fr. William Bonniwell, O.P. (for the second time). What a story. Born in 1287 in the papal state of Massa Trabaria in Italy to rich parents of the nobility (I can't call them nobel). Margaret was grossly deformed with one leg shorter than the other, a hunched back, ugly, and blind. Her parents, embarrassed by their daughter, hid her in the castle whenever guests arrived. Although the garrison of soldiers loved the bright little girl with the sunny disposition, she was unloved and unwanted by her parents. (Sound familiar?)

Fortunately, the priest of the castle recognized her great intelligence and began to form her in the faith from an early age. Despite the fact that she knew of her deformities, her parents often told her how ugly she was, Margaret did not grow bitter or angry. Already she reflected a saintly spirit of acceptance.

 

When Margaret was six her parents had a little cell built next to a church in the woods away from the castle.  Only the neighboring serfs and country folk worshiped there, none of their noble friends. They locked her into this tiny prison where she lived until she was 14. War broke out among rival states making it necessary for the women of the castle to move into their town home for security. There Margaret was again locked in, hidden in the cellar where she was instructed never to call out or make her presence known. She was fourteen. The cruelty of her parents would be unthinkable if we didn't live in an abusive culture ourselves.

Six years later when Margaret was 20, her parents heard of miracles occurring in the city of Costello over the mountains. They took their daughter there hoping for a cure. When she remained ugly and deformed they abandoned her. Imgaine, blind and deformed, in a strange town where you knew no one. Margaret was adopted by the outcasts and taught how to beg. And yet she never criticized her parents always defending them.

Margaret's story continues. Her sufferings didn't end with abandonment, but she had become such a holy little victim soul that she cheerfully accepted all and united them to those of Christ. Reading her story stirs the soul to humility. Most of us who grumble and complain about our troubles will never bear even a tenth of what this little unwanted woman endured. She teaches the way of suffering.

The book is available from Tan Books and well worth reading over and over. There's a novena to Blessed Margaret in the back.