 |
| St. John's Hospital in Bruges, Belgium |
When the family that employed her moved to Belgium, Margaret went with them. Here she found a community of beguines dedicated to corporal works of mercy serving the sick poor in hospitals. When Bishop Ullathorne arrived to recruit young women to help rekindle the Catholic faith in England he found the whole city full of her fame. He said, “People of all classes, from the poor to the bankers, came to inquire after her. Her name introduced me to everyone. The clergy and superioresses of convents spoke of her with warm interest.” Margaret visited the sick in St. John's Hospital and prayed for hours kneeling in front of a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows in the Church of St James. The people remarked not only about how kind and compassionate she was but also that she had the gift “of giving freedom of heart to scrupulous persons.” Margaret and a small group of pious women nightly gathered in the Church of Saint James to sing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin for the conversation of England.
Drane, Augusta Theodosia (Mother Frances Raphael), Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan: Foundress of the English Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena of the Third Order of St. Dominic, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, New York, 1929, pp. 28-29.
