Blessed Margaret of Castello

Blessed Margaret (1287-1320) was born a hunchback, a midget, blind, lame, and unattractive according to the world. When she was six years of age, her proud, noble parents walled her up in a room beside a chapel. She could not escape, but could attend daily Mass and receive the sacraments.

After fourteen years of imprisonment, she was taken to a shrine by her parents who were hoping for Margaret’s cure.  But when no cure was forthcoming, they abandoned her. Margaret then became a lay Dominican and spent the rest of her life in prayer and works of mercy. When she died at age thirty-three, the townspeople thronged to her funeral and demanded that “the saint” be buried in a tomb inside the church. The priest protested; but when a crippled girl was miraculously cured at the funeral, the people’s demand was granted. Blessed Margaret’s body is still incorrupt and lies under the main altar in the Church of St. Domenico at Citta-di-Castello, Italy.