Our Patron Saint

Photo courtesy of Rev. Robert H. Stewart, Pastor, St. Margaret of Scotland Church, 777 NE Blackwell Rd., Lee's Summit, Missouri USA

Who is this woman found worthy of being named a saint?

Saint Margaret was born in Hungary in about 1046. Margaret, the daughter of the  Anglo Saxon Prince Edward Atheling and Princess Agatha of Hungary, spent much of her youth at the court of her great-uncle King  Edward the Confessor of England. In 1066, after King Edward dies, they were forced to leave England and took refuge in Scotland at the court of Malcolm III. 

In 1070, Margaret married the Scottish King Malcolm III. He was a rough and uncultured soldier-king but his disposition was good and Margaret softened his temper, polished his manners and helped him to become one of the most virtuous kings ever to occupy the Scottish throne. What she did did for her husband, she also did in a great measure for her adopted country, promoting that arts of civilization and encouraging education and reiligion.

Saint Margaret raised their six sons and two daugthers with the utmost care, instructing them in the Christian faith and supervising their studies. 

Perhaps Saint Margaret's most outstanding virtue was her love of the poor. She often visited the sick and tended them. The king and queen would often minister to three hundred poor persons, serving them with dishes similar to those on their own table. She initiated a series of ecclesiastical reforms that transformed the religious and cultural life of Celtic Scotland. In her role as Queen, Margaret used her resources to care for the poor and destitute. It is recorded of her that every day, during Lent, she washed feet of six people, personally fed orphan children.

She died in Edinburgh on November 16, 1093, four days after King Malcolm was killed in the battle. 

The Feast Day of Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland, patroness of our parish is November 16th. 

Her biographer, Bishop Turgot, sums up her life saying, "Let us worthily hold her in awe, because, through her devotion to justice, piety, mercy and love, we contemplate in her, rather than miracles, the deeds of the ancient father."

May St. Margaret of Scotland help us to be people of justice and compassion in our world today.