It may seem incomprehensible today that a person would undergo rigorous penances – including hair shirts – such as those practiced by Margaret. This will always be a difficult topic for modern minds to address; firstly, due to the distance in time and, secondly, due to the difficulty we have today in minimally tolerating what we do not like. However, with a little openness of spirit it is possible for us to understand what moved Margaret to love God with such intensity.
The saint had managed to perceive something that is almost always foreign to us: the seriousness of our faults and sins. She wanted, through physical pain, to accompany the Lord in his redemptive sacrifice, the cross, assumed for love of humanity: Christ is loved completely, even with the tree on his back.
Margaret sought peace for her country from her rightful place: helping to carry the weight of her countrymen’s sins with her own sacrifice.
That life of spiritual intensity was adorned with numerous stories of miracles and portentous events performed by the young nun. Most of them appear in the Medieval compilation of the miracles of Saint Margaret.