Saint of the Day – 2 September – St Margaret of Louvain

Saint Margaret of Louvain, also known as known as Margaretula, Margaret la Fière, Margaret van Leuven, Margaret van Löwen, Margarita Lovania, Fiere Margriet.

She was a maid born in 1207 to a poor family at Louvain, Brabant, Belgium. When a teenager, Margaret worked as a maid at the Sint Joris, an inn in Louvain owned by her uncle Aubert. Aubert and his wife sold the inn, planning to each enter the religious life. Margaret herself wanted to become a Cistercian nun.

On their last night in the inn, thieves broke in and murdered the owners while Margaret was out. She came home as the killers were leaving, seeing what they had done. She ran and the thieves gave chase. They caught up with her along the banks of the Dyle River, where they murdered her by slitting her throat. They threw her corpse into the Dyle, but when a large fish pushed the body upstream and an angel hovered over the river, shining a light on the body, it was recovered and buried on the riverbank where she was killed. Miracles were reported at her gravesite, and her remains were then translated and reinterred in a chapel in the yard of Saint Peter’s Church in the centre of town, where many miracles occured.

In 1905, Pope Pius X confirmed her cultus. Her shrine was made of gilded copper and adorned with semi-precious stones and co-financed by gifts from parishioners and young maids who honor Marguerite la Fière as their patron saint.