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| Immaculate Conception - December 8, 1854 |
Mother Margaret believed that the Congregation at Stone owed all that it was able to acquire in the way of virtue and property to the Blessed Mother. She repaid Our Lady with constant devotion and celebrated all the feasts of Our Lady by giving her a present. “Sometimes it was a new vestment, or other church ornament, sometimes an orphan received gratis. In speaking of Our Lady, all the childlike simplicity of her nature came out without restraint. She would call her the most endearing names, and say how much she would like to dance before her.” Mother Margaret early on made a bargain with the Blessed Mother that she would work for her, and in exchange the Blessed Mother would take care of her soul; so she was able to go on and do what she had to do, and leave her soul to Our Lady. On the occasion of the definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, Margaret was overjoyed. She ordered that the great bell of the convent be rung for two hours in thanksgiving and arranged for the congregation to celebrate the pronouncement with a solemn Triduo. The quadrangle was illuminated for the occasion at considerable expense. These extravagant gestures were simply incomprehensible to non-Catholic minds. But, Margaret saw them as a way of expressing gratitude to the Blessed Virgin for all they had. Receiving a visit once from a Catholic of high rank, whose devotion to the Blessed Virgin was well known not to be of the warmest kind, this lady expressed her surprise at all that Mother Margaret had done, and, as was not uncommon in such cases, inquired whence she could obtain the means for accomplishing such undertakings. Mother Margaret replied emphatically, “Every stone you see here has been laid by the Blessed Virgin.”
Drane, Augusta Theodosia (Mother Francis 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, p. 324.
