Loneliness, rejection, and what Pope Francis calls the “throwaway culture” are themes that are so urgent in a society that is always connected but no longer knows how to call its brothers and sisters by name and rarely makes the warmth of an embrace felt: we often live like islands desperately searching for meaning.
If you ever feel rejected, marginalized, isolated, and out of place, know that there is a saint who experienced all of this before you and was able to transform it into love and light: Saint Margaret of Metola, or of Città di Castello.
Let us discover her path to kindle hope in a world that often seems determined to extinguish it.
The harshness of rejection
The thirteenth century welcomed into its womb a small soul destined to know the shadow of rejection even before the light of the world. Margaret was born at the castle of Metola, between Umbria and the Marche, around 1287, but her arrival was met with dismay. Blind and deformed, Margaret immediately became an unbearable burden to her noble parents, Parisio and Emilia, a stain on their family pride. The decision was cold and final: to lock her in a dark cell adjoining the castle church, so that her existence would remain concealed, a shameful secret.
Imagine the loneliness of those early years, spent in a silence broken only by her prayers: a child deprived of parental affection, confined in darkness that was not only physical but emotional as well. Yet, rebellion did not take root in that child’s heart; instead, a profound communion with God took shape, and in him she found the peace and serenity denied to her by the outside world. This early intimacy with the divine was her first silent response to that terrible loneliness.
The hope of a miracle led the parents to Città di Castello, to the tomb of Giacomo, a Franciscan friar who had recently died and was already venerated. But the longed-for healing did not occur. And it was then, faced with the failure of their expectations, that Parisio and Emilia abandoned Margaret in Castello, “without pity, alone, without providing for her, deprived of all human assistance.”
Making solitude a gift
Cast into an unfamiliar world, blind and disabled, Margaret came to know the harsh reality of begging, an even more desolate solitude marked by indifference and insecurity. For a brief period, she found refuge in the small monastery of Saint Margaret, but once again she was rejected, driven out with insults and abuse, experiencing the bitter taste of betrayal and isolation.
But Providence, which never abandons its children, opened a new horizon of hope for Margaret: a devout married couple, Venturino and Grigia, welcomed her into their home. They offered her not only a roof over her head, but also a place where she could devote herself freely to prayer and contemplation. In that small room, Margaret rediscovered some of the inner peace she had been denied for so long. She expressed her gratitude by dedicating her exceptional gifts to serving her benefactors and their community. She taught their children the Christian faith, offered advice and comfort to those in need, protected her friends from danger, and cared for the city’s poor and suffering. Despite her blindness and illnesses, she became a beacon of charity for the least, transforming her solitude into an opportunity to give herself to others.
In Venturino and Grigia’s home, Margaret spent the rest of her short life, combining prayer and contemplation with active charity.
She was blind, but she lived in the light
The Bishop of Città di Castello, Monsignor Domenico Cancian, speaks of her this way: «Margaret, the saint next door, can teach us to transform evil into good, without giving in to sterile victimhood and pointless complaining, inviting us to an evangelical response that knows how to see that everything can work together for good.
Her spiritual journey can be summed up in a motto: she was blind but lived in the light. All this is a slap in the face to the culture of disposability that judges men and women solely by the measure of utilitarianism. Margaret is the cornerstone carved from the rejected stone: first by her family, who, rejecting her disabilities, had confined her to the house and then abandoned her in Città di Castello, and even by a religious community she had joined. Her life could have been marked by the resentment that I believe she must also have felt as a human being, but she overcame it through love. And so she became a woman who brought among the people the beauty of a life of prayer and self-giving to others through charity and closeness to the most marginalized».
Through her life of light and hope despite everything, Margaret teaches us never to give up in the face of suffering and loneliness. Her life is a powerful message of hope, reminding us that true greatness does not lie in the absence of difficulties, but in the ability never to give up, to transform loneliness into an opportunity to love more deeply, and to find in God the embrace that the world sometimes denies.
If you would like to learn more about Saint Margaret, we recommend: Margaret. The disabled saint. Mauro Papalini, in a book rich in precise historical references, presents Saint Margaret of Metola, or of Città di Castello, in all her beauty. In the second part of the book, the prayers open a direct dialogue with her to ask for her support and intercession. An audiobook version has been produced as part of the “Read for Me” initiatives, a joint project between the Municipality of Perugia and the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted of Perugia. The book is also available in eBook format.
