THE VENERABLE MARGARET SINCLAIR
1900-1925
At the highest point on
Castle Rock overlooking the city of Edinburgh is the tiny chapel
where St Margaret, the 11th century Queen of Scotland, prayed; and
down below tucked out of sight were the blackened tenements of Middle
Arthur Place and Blackfriars Street, where Margaret Sinclair was
born and reared. Margaret was daughter of an Edinburgh dustman,
and she did her praying in the humble surrounds of' St Patrick's,
poorly dressed and with a baby sister in the crook of her arm.
Edinburgh
is a city of contrasts. It was the home of Knox and the Presbyterian
Kirk. Less than fifty years before Margaret was born a Presbyterian
minister, McLeod Campbell, was deposed by a general assembly of
the Church of Scotland there for preaching such outrageously Catholic
doctrines as "the universality of God's love for mankind and Christ's
atonement for sin." In 1900 when Margaret was born, religious tolerance
was not Edinburgh's most conspicuous feature.
Andrew
Sinclair, Margaret's father, was a convert to Catholicism. He had
taught himself to read and write for he had never been to school.
His wife Elizabeth was scarcely better off, yet between them they
provided a genuinely loving home in the three-roomed flat where
they brought up their six children. Margaret was particularly close
to her sister Bella, and they were rarely seen apart. In her brief
school career she showed intelligence and was good at games. She
stayed off school to nurse her mother in a protracted illness, and
had a spare time job scrubbing floors and running errands for a
tailoress.
1914
Like
the century, sucked into the horrors of the great war, Margaret
left school at fourteen. She was put as an apprentice to a French-polisher,
and her father and later her elder brother John were called up to
fight in the trenches. Her childhood, such as it was, had ended.
Margaret
and Bella struggled to support their mother with their minimal wages
and worked an allotment. It was a cruel struggle to pay the rent
and to feed themselves. Margaret, when her mother broke down and
wept, had one unvarying answer, "Dinna give in!" The lonely hours
of anxiety drove her to pray deeply, and to see prayer as an answer
to life's suffering. At the battle of' Loos, three Scottish divisions
were cut to pieces and the survival of loved ones seemed like a
miracle. The agony in the trenches was bringing a new world to birth
and its birth pangs were terrible.
It
was no easier on the factory floor where, though her typically Scottish
reticence prevented her from talking about the faith, her demeanour
made it obvious, and she was the target of sly jokes and unpleasantness.
Once again it was a case of "Dinna give in!" She joined the trade
union in which she was an active member, but her one disagreement
with the manager was quite wordless. Having found amongst the junk
of the cabinet works a discarded picture of Our Lady, she hung it
up over her workplace. The manager took it down - so each morning
she restored it to its place.
She
wrote for her mother, Elizabeth, to her father in France, where
one gloriously unpunctuated postcard must have caused much amusement.
It ran, "May God save you from your loving wife." When Andrew Sinclair
came home he waved it at her exclaiming, "Will ye read that, ma
damsel!"
The
war ended, and was followed by a massive economic slump. Scottish
economy had been heavily war-oriented: coal, steel and battleships
on the Clyde were no longer needed in the same way, and the capital
and skills involved were not easily transferred. The Depression
followed, and Margaret found herself among the unemployed. Eventually
she got a job at McVitie Biscuits.
A
holiday at Rosewall was for her and Bella their first encounter
with country life. They celebrated their freedom by going to Mass
and receiving communion daily. Bella had some misgivings as to whether
they were holy enough for this, but Margaret replied "We're not
going because we are good, but because we want to be good." It was
on another annual holiday, at Bo'ness, that she met Patrick Lynch.
Time
changes all things
A
number of' photographs have survived of Margaret; amongst them some
taken with Bella and her parents, one posed by a painted gate in
a photographer's studio and one dressed in the borrowed finery of
a beaded bodice and a fur boa (this latter has sometimes suffered
from photo-editing when reproduced on prayer cards!) She was a beautiful
girl. She had that unique quality that made people look twice, and
the sort of smile that people remembered years afterwards. Despite
the hardships of her life she was vivacious, loved pretty clothes
and enjoyed dancing. That there was another side to her life, painted
in very different colours, only, those closest to her understood.
Pat
Lynch, like so many, had mislaid his faith in the trenches. Meeting
Margaret gave his life a purpose; because Margaret believed implicitly
in the love and mercy of' God, he too, found it easy to believe
- in her faith he found his own.
In
Pat's estrangement from the Church Margaret saw God's call to service.
She persuaded him back to the sacraments and he discovered a genuine
and growing love of God. As he said later, she made a new man of
him. But though touched and even flattered, Margaret was not in
love with him. What had been a sort of game became a certain agony.
He presented her with an engagement ring, and threatened suicide
when she tried to return it. Her parents liked Pat and were pleased
at the prospect of' a wedding, while Margaret struggled to see where
her duty actually lay. She told her Mother, "I thought it was the
will of God, and that I might grow to like him." Finally she took
her anguish to confession, and Father Agius SJ, knowing that her
heart lay elsewhere, relieved her of her burdens. She wrote to Pat:
"Time
changes all things on this earth, so if you pay attention to that
first line -you will not think so much of the following. I must
tell you that I am of the same opinion as on Sunday. I really wish
to break with it... I have done what God inspired me to do, to help
you the little I could, to regain the light. From that point God
and his Blessed Mother must have showered down blessings on you,
because you have remained steadfast, and I trust God that you will
continue doing so, because you know he is the only real happiness...."
He is the only real happiness. From now on this theme becomes
dominant in Margaret's life. Abraham thought God wanted his only
Son Isaac - and was willing to give him up. Margaret thought she
was required to sacrifice her vocation in order to help another.
Both were wrong; but it was the willingness of their obedience that
made them precious in God's eyes.
Bella
had already decided to become a Little Sister of the Poor, and when
Margaret told Father Agius that she felt drawn to the Poor Clares
he encouraged her. He had doubts about her physical endurance, and
so did she. So with touching naivety she practised early rising,
night prayer and other forms of self-discipline. She had yet to
learn that God gives his grace in the hour when it is needed.
Margaret’s first choice would, naturally,
have been to enter the Poor Clares at Edinburgh. The community there
was experiencing a time of great struggle and difficulty, and her
application was turned down. She understood the true meaning of
the words of the psalmist: forget your people and your father’s
house. She willingly sacrifced the nearness of family and her Scots
culture, and wrote to apply to the Poor Clares in Notting Hill,
London.
Margaret
did not apply to be an extern sister, she asked simply to become
a Poor Clare. The recommendation of her Parish Priest and Confessor
carried weight, but it was insufficient to gain her admission to
the enclosure. This did not constitute a personal judgement on Margaret,
for the community had not met her. They assessed her as a working
class girl with little secondary education and thought the singing
of the eight hours of the Divine office in Latin would be too much
for her. But Margaret was also something new; she was a modern woman
whose ability to work and pray had emancipated her from her background.
To women who had never had to earn their living, who came, some
of them, from very aristocratic and well-off families, she, and
those like her who were to follow her in religious life, were a
mystery.
The Garden of Clare
By the
time Margaret came to say good-bye to her family, Bella had already
entered the Little Sisters of the Poor. She travelled down to London
with her brother, Andrew, to another parting, for he was emigrating
to Canada.
She stood dressed in her best, a lonely figure on Tilbury Dock,
waving his ship good-bye. Then she caught the tram to Notting Hill.
It was the twenty-first of July I923. The extern sisters welcomed
her, and took her to the parlour where she met Mother Felix.
Mother
Mary Felix Clare of the Blessed Sacrament, Julia Vaughan, was the
niece of Cardinal Vaughan and the grand-daughter of Eliza Vaughan
who had prayed that all her children would have vocations. Eliza's
prayer had been rewarded with six sons who became priests - among
them a Cardinal, an Archbishop and a Bishop - and with four daughters
who entered religion. From the remaining two sons arose second generation
vocations amongst whom were Mother Felix and and her cousin, Bishop
Francis Vaughan of Menevia.
All
the sisters of the community then came along to meet Margaret in
the parlour at the enclosure grille and she was invited to sing
a song. She sang a hymn to our Lady, in a pleasant, if, on this
occasion, a rather trembling alto. Then Sr Gerard, the presiding
extern sister, took her off to change into her long black postulant’s
dress, with its rather old fashioned white bonnet, and she joined
the extern sisters at recreation.
Sister
Gerard was a firm, motherly woman in her early forties, the equivalent
of' Novice-Mistress to Margaret and to her companion, Sr John, who
was a novice, a year or so older than Margaret. Sr John is described
as a 'tomboy' who was 'always up to tricks.' The two remaining externs,
Sr Aegidia and Sr Colette were considerably older. Mother Felix
made it her practice to spend Sunday afternoon in the parlour, having
recreation with the sisters outside. Her straightforwardness, gentleness
and humility made a great impression on Margaret, of' whom she was
genuinely fond. The extern Novitiate had in addition twice weekly
instruction from the Portress, Sr. Francis (Offord)), who acted
as liaison between the enclosure and the extern community.
Margaret
was not a ‘lay’ sister - all Poor Clares are ‘lay’ sisters, in all
senses of the word and they all work with their hands. The "sisters
who serve outside the monastery" as St Clare calls them in her rule,
did the needful shopping, listened to prayer requests, comforted
those in distress, dealt courteously with the community's visitors
and with beggars, tramps, and others in need at the door. They begged
at nearby Portobello market for food and vegetables and quested
four times a year in parts of London for alms to support the community.
Asked later how she thought she might have contracted her fatal
illness, she said that she felt it might have been during the quest,
while sharing a seat on a bus with a poor and obviously consumptive
woman who was coughing uncontrollably. It is typical of Margaret
that she was too sensitive of the woman's feelings to get up and
move.
The
sisters prayed the Divine Office at the same time as the community,
but instead of the Latin psalms, they repeated the Lord’s Prayer.
On big feasts, and sometimes on other occasions when they had not
been questing or doing other exhausting work, they rose at midnight
for Matins, bringing before God the needs and petitions of those
whom they had visited or who had called at the door. They rose extra
early in the morning in order to have an undisturbed time for personal
prayer before the days work began. It was strange and must
have been difficult to Margaret, yet her letters home radiate happiness
and joy. After four months the Community voted to receive her for
her clothing.
She
went into retreat in the quiet of her cell overlooking the garden
on the feast of the Presentation, and was clothed in the habit on
11th February 1924. The family scraped together the means to come
down for the day, and Margaret opened the door to them in the white
dress of a bride. As a special joy Bella, already a novice, had
been permitted to come. A generous benefactor of the community gave
Margaret's bride’s cake and the community provided her dress, which
would normally have been the gift of her family. Four little girls
of the Parish, who had recently made their first communion (and
thus possessed white dresses), were her bridesmaids. 'Her hair cut
off, and her secular dress laid aside', she came to the grille in
the Extern Chapel and received from Mother Felix her name: Sister
Mary Francis of the Five Wounds.
Other
companions
“The
first time I met Sr Mary Francis was the day I entered. She was
walking down the garden, and she seemed to me a very pleasant person.
Generally speaking in her attitude she was always bright and cheerful
and she managed to put up with difficult people very nicely...”
Lily James, who entered on the 10th August 1924, was possibly the
most difficult person with whom Sr Mary Francis had to “put up”!
The above words are taken from recollections recorded towards the
end of her life. Lily, who was to receive the habit and her religious
name, Sr Mary Pacifica of Jesus, at the same service in which Sr
Mary Francis would make her first vows, had been received into the
Church at the age of 17. She came from a poor London family, never
knew her own father and described the step-father who resented her
existence as ‘sulky’. Her family were opposed to her becoming a
Catholic and a nun but “they knew I never change my mind: they had
to accept what I wanted”. She was 19 when she entered. She found
Sr Mary Francis a challenge from the start.She was not the only
one "...old Sr. Aegidia used to needle her sometimes, and jibe at
her Scottish accent. But she (Sr Mary Francis) never answered back."
Despite
this, under the watchful eye of Sr Gerard, the three young sisters
managed to make a happy, sometimes noisy family. Sent to whitewash
an outhouse, they painted themselves liberally', and their shouts
of glee floated over the walls to Ladbroke Grove. Sr Pacifica hanging
onto the foot of the ladder, exclaimed to the energetic Scotswoman
sloshing the ceiling , ---Well, you'll never be a saint!" to which
Sr Mary Francis replied, "Dinna fash yeself!" (don't let that trouble
you.) And as a special treat, Sr Colette made them an afternoon
cup of tea.
The
sisters' midday meal, a share of' the community's dinner, came out
from the enclosure and included an extra portion for tramps. However,
if' the number of tramps exceeded the number of portions, the sisters
sometimes gave away their own dinners. Later, in hospital, one of
the nurses asked her if she had not sometimes been hungry? She answered
"Yes, but it was a real joy." Perhaps she should have said with
St Francis, a perfect joy!
The
sisters worked in the garden, they had their own small vegetable
plot, with a potato patch, a small flower garden where they grew
flowers for the extern altar and a few apple trees which, the following
spring, Sr Gerard taught her to prune. She was soon to know the
pruning of a greater gardener.
Under
the shadow of His wings
On
December 27th, after a happy Christmas with his family, her father,
Andrew Sinclair, was knocked down by, a tram. He never recovered
consciousness, and his death left his widow "quite unprovided for."
There was no question of Sr Mary Francis going up to Edinburgh for
his funeral, and there was no way she could support her mother,
or help provide materially for the younger children still at school.
She could only pray; real Franciscan poverty is to have nothing
left to give but yourself, your love.
Christmas
is a season of joy, and as Poor Clares we try to entertain the Christchild
who has come to earth out of his love for us. There were recreations
and happy community gatherings up to the octave of the Epiphany'.
The extern sisters put on a nativity, play, in the parlour for the
sisters inside, Margaret was the Angel of the Gloria. After the
play they all had collation together which the extern sisters had
begged and prepared.
Through
all this Sr Mary Francis never allowed her grief to burden others,
she was a true child of' Mother Seraphine, the Belgian foundress
of the Notting Hill community, who said, "Let me see your sufferings
by your smile”. She made her first profession on the I4th
February I925, and during the retreat beforehand she wrote:
"O God, help me always to take up
thy cross cheerfully and follow thee .... I desire to vow to
you my poverty, chastity, and obedience, and to observe the
same; to rejoice when I feel the pinch of poverty, and always
remain modest and prudent, thinking of this in our Blessed lady,
and how she would like it in her child."
Sr
Pacifica received the habit at the same ceremony. But for Sr Mary
Francis it was a day very different from her own clothing. She had
no personal guests, and it was impossible for any of her family
to attend. She could only offer herself, in those words of our Holy
Father Francis which St Colette quoted in her constitutions, "naked
to the Crucified." As she knelt at the grille and placed her hands
in those of Mother Felix while the celebrant, Fr. Hoare, bound them
together with his stole, the one really essential guest was manifestly
present - the crucified and risen Christ to whom she gave her life,
her very short fife.
On
March 7th she developed a sore throat and could not speak. Dr. McLeod,
when he called, sent her to bed. No one was anxious; it was thought
that she had a touch of laryngitis. But when after a week her condition
had not improved, Mother Felix felt sufficiently worried to go to
the extern quarters and see her.
After
tests on March I8th, Dr. McLeod diagnosed tuberculosis. He was greatly,
surprised, for he had examined both her and Sr Pacifica, as was
customary before her profession, and thought her as "strong as a
horse.” Fresh air and better food seemed to be the first step towards
recovery. She was nursed by Sr Colette. On the 26th the doctor came
again, and Mother Felix went out to be with her during the examination.
She had looked "better," having the deceptively, bright eyes and
complexion of many TB victims in the early' stages and the sisters
had clung to the hope that there might have been a mistake - but
there was no mistake.
Mother
Felix began searching for a nursing home, and the Sisters of Charity
at Marillac House in Warley were recommended to her. On April 9th
accompanied by Sr Gerard and Sr Colette she made her last journey.
The
Way of the Cross
The
Sisters of Charity warmed to this easily pleased patient, who always
smiled, often laughed and never complained. She wrote to Mother
Felix a few days after her arrival, a letter full of childlike gratitude
and lonely heartache; her one desire was to come home to Notting
Hill.
Sister
Mary Francis stayed for nine months at Marillac House and became
in her humble way the heart of' the place. It was to her bedside
that visitors were brought first. They, left her cheered and often
strangely touched. "She suffered," wrote the superior of' Marillac
House, "from prostrating weakness, from constant breathlessness
and choking in the throat ... She suffered also from loneliness,
from being outside her convent and away from her Mother Abbess."
She could not retain food, and one of her nurses wrote "she was
told that she must do so, and she was so obedient, in even the smallest
things, that she would do her utmost .... but she never made any
show of holiness; indeed it was her great reserve that impressed
me most." Though she was reticent about speaking of God, the life
of the Spirit blazed in her more transparently as her physical life
burnt out in pain. She had one ever growing desire, as she said
to her old confessor visiting her: "I want to see Him."
Her
family came to see her in April and again in October. In May, death
seemingly imminent, she asked for the Sacrament of Anointing which
she received on the twenty-fifth. This was the day of Mother Felix’s
Silver Jubilee of religious profession and the knowledge that they
were both renewing their vows must have been a joy to them both.
Two days later Mother Felix sent Sr Gerard and Sr Pacifica to see
her, the later, by her own testimony, giving a very wide berth to
the contagiously ill. They found Sr Mary Francis much better. The
had brought with them an apple from the tree that she had pruned
- like a symbol of Paradise soon to be regained. She rallied, but
in November death closed in.
As
she grew weaker each breath became an agony, however, she asked
that she might be permitted to die in her habit, and when the end
came this was granted her. She said, "If I can gain one soul for
Jesus it will be worth it all." She clasped her crucifix and a copy
of her vows and those by her side heard her pray many times the
Holy, name, "Jesus", and the prayers, "Jesus, forgive me my sins"
and "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul." Sister
Death came for her at about 3:30 on the morning of the 24th November.
She was still smiling.
Laurels
At
Notting Hill the sisters waited with lighted candles to escort her
body to the chapel. They noted the radiant serenity of her face
in death. When her body was brought to the grille some among those
present noticed the fragrance of violets, though no flowers had
yet arrived
Mother Felix had written to break the
news to Elizabeth Sinclair:
"Our dear little child has gone
at last to her reward, and how happy she must be after her life
of love and union with her Beloved. One cannot think of her
anywhere but in heaven...."
Her family were unable come down for
her funeral, and there were only a few people present when, just
before the Requiem, her coffin was opened and the traditional wreath
of evergreen laurels was placed on her brow. It was snowing as Sr
Gerard and the extern sisters stood with a few friends of the community
and a few casual passers-by, for the final prayers by the graveside
at Kensal Green. At home the community was making the way of the
cross. Sr Gerard placed the wreath of flowers, bought with a hard
earned pound note sent by Elizabeth on the coffin as it was lowered
into the grave.
The first canonised saint was the thief who looked from his cross
on a God who was "despised and rejected by men." The thief was pinned
out in his own agony. There was no good deed he could do to testify,
to his faith in Christ: he could only say, "Jesus remember me when
you come into your kingdom." Like the good thief, Sister Mary Francis'
life was built on faith. She was not visited by God with visions,
she had no deep theological insights into scripture, she did no
ostentatious heroics and performed no immediately visible miracles;
(though she made up for it after her death! !) She was like a million
other ordinary people in all but one respect - obedient love. The
one thing necessary. Very few of us, when it comes to it, reach
God by visions and heroics. That is why Sr Mary Francis is a sign
for our times and a saint for the future, for her life has shown
us what really matters.
Sunshine
after hard frost
In
her letter to Elizabeth Sinclair describing the funeral Mother Felix
wrote:
"I am sure Sr Mary Francis will
do much for us from heaven. One cannot but feel very happy about
her - and I am sure - you do .... The sun is shining as I write,
after hard frost, and I think of what must be the brightness
of God, which has shone on that pure soul, fresh from the consecration
of her vows to Him... "
However,
in Mother Felix’s mind there was a gap between feeling confidant
that Sr Mary Francis was a saint with the Lord in heaven and wanting
to see her raised to the altars. Mother Felix had great respect
for saints who saw God and spoke with him face to face, women like
St Gertrude and St Mechthilde were what she called “real saints”
But St Therese of Lisieux, for example, was a mystery to her; she
was at a loss as to why the Church wanted to canonise her, asking,
“but what did she do?” Like Sr Mary Francis, St Therese 'did' next
to nothing. It was what they were that showed the face of Christ
to their time.
Sr
Gerard, who best knew Sr Mary Francis in her life as a Poor Clare,
died also of TB two years after her. Sr John died before her 30th
birthday of cancer. By the time the diocesan process was opened
Sr Pacifica, who by this time was an extern sister in Hawarden,
was the only survivor. All her life she struggled with her resentment.
“Why”, she once asked a sister who was nursing her, “does she get
all the attention? Why is she supposed to be a saint and not me?”
The sister answered gently “You too can be a saint you know...”
The
Lord took Sr Mary Francis at the age of 25. Sr Pacifica struggled
with her failings for the best part of 90 years, the last 8 of which
were bedridden. She was terribly afraid of death. Much earlier,
we had recorded her memories of Sr Mary Francis, on which some of
the foregoing is based.
To
a Sister, called to the infirmary to help lift her, Sister Pacifica
said, “I am praying to Sr Mary Francis to help me have a happy death!”
We were really amazed - and we knew that the end must be near.
Sr Pacifica died on the 12th December 1995, surrounded by the sisters
who had nursed her with so much love. Her last prayer was, ”Jesus
teach me to love you.” We were very sure Sr Mary Francis had prayed
for her!
On
6th February I978, Sr Mary Francis was declared Venerable by Pope
Paul IV.
Pope John Paul II, during his visit to Britain in I982 visited St
Joseph's Hospice in Rosewall, he ended by saying:
“Margaret could well be described
as one of God's 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, member of a trade union, or a professed sister in religion...
I fully appreciate the aspirations of the Catholics of Scotland,
and elsewhere, for that singular event to be realised, and I
know you are praying that it may come about. With this recollection
of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair, I leave you with her inspiration!"
Prayer
to the Venerable Sister Mary
Francis of the Five Wounds
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Heavenly Father,
the Venerable Margaret was one of the poor in spirit,
a dustman's daughter born in a backstreet.
She gave up her fiancée to follow you as a Poor Clare,
and she died in obscurity with great suffering.
Teach us to give ourselves completely to you, Lord,
and through the intercession of your handmaid,
the Venerable Margaret,
grant us that grace for which we now ask you
....
Through our Lord Jesus Christ
your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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Visit the Margaret Sinclair Shrine
in her old Parish of St Patricks, Edinburgh
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