A SAINT IN THE MAKING: Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews & Edinburgh has launched a fresh bid to have the Venerable Margaret Sinclair declared a saint. Among a range of initiatives, Archbishop Cushley is instituting a new regular Mass at the tomb of Venerable Margaret in St Patricks Church, Cowgate, on the first Tuesday of each month beginning 6 January at 7pm. He has also appointed Father Joseph McAuley, the parish priest of St Lucys Church in Cumbernauld, as his delegate to spearhead the new campaign that could see Margaret declared blessed and then saint. As my delegate Father McAuley will be working closely with me to promote Margarets cause and to spread the message of this fascinating young woman, said the Archbishop. Margaret led an exemplary life as a lay person, who was very much a modern woman, a woman of her times, and who was also an exemplary religious sister albeit briefly before she died at the age of 25. Margaret Sinclair was born in Edinburghs Cowgate in 1900. One of six children, whose father was a City Corporation dustman, she was brought up in poverty in a two-room tenement basement. She left school at 14 and worked as French polisher during which time she became an active member of her trade union, later finding work with McVities Biscuit factory. In 1923 Margaret entered the enclosed order of Poor Clares in Notting Hill, west London, taking the name Sister Mary Francis of the Five Wounds. She brought relief to the poor of that city for a short time before she died of tuberculosis in 1925. During a visit to Scotland in 1982, Pope John Paul II described her as one of Gods little ones, who through her very simplicity, was touched by God with the strength of real holiness of life, whether as a child, a young woman, an apprentice, a factory worker, a member of a trade union or a professed sister of religion. “Margaret was a person who prayed in an intimate personal way with Jesus,” said Father Joseph McAuley, “to this very practical Christianity also has to be added her deep humility and her heroic endurance of suffering.” Father McAuley says he was both delighted and surprised to be asked to take on the mission of promoting the cause of Venerable Margaret. “Within myself I wondered how the good bishop could have known I had a devotion to Venerable Margaret. I recall very many years ago being introduced to this devotion by my mother and recall praying in the family at one point for some intention”. “Thereafter whilst I would occasionally be reminded of her cause I did not pray to her. This had changed as the result of a visit to the parish of St. Benedict’s in Drumchapel, Glasgow, where the parish community prayed the novena prayers to her each day after morning Mass. As a result over the past 10 years or so I began praying to her each day”. In order for Margaret Sinclair to be declared “Blessed” a miracle now needs to be attributed to her Heavenly intercession. Both Archbishop Cushley and Father McAuley are keen to get people praying to Margaret for favours. This will involve a new information drive throughout schools and parishes. “Almost immediately after her death in 1925 a devotion to Margaret spread and spread rapidly and was very strong for many decades,” said Archbishop Cushley. “This is something that Father McAuley and I are hoping to build upon and strengthen to spread in the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh, throughout Scotland and, please God, beyond”.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 09:50:11 +0000
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