Scottish Catholic Observer

A priest suffering from cancer has credited Venerable Margaret Sinclair with saving his life as he gathered with Catholics across Scotland at a pilgrimage to pray for her sainthood cause.

Mgr Peter Smith was diagnosed with cancer in 2016 and given just 48 hours to live by his doctors, due to necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease that stemmed from his health problems.

However, the priest is still alive today, though his cancer remains, and he credits the Scottish nun for helping extend his life.

Praying for intercession

“Doctors gave me 24-48 hours to live, but people had been praying for Margaret Sinclair’s intercession and I got better from it. The specialist still has no explanation as to why I recovered from it—the doctors didn’t expect me to live.”

Asked if he believes Margaret Sinclair will be canonised in the next few decades, Mgr Smith said: “That’s the hope and prayer, but it’s in God’s hands, so if it is to happen it will happen on His time. We can only pray and ask and hope for it.”

He added: “The point of the pilgrimage is to promote the idea of keeping her in our thoughts and prayers.

“We’re trying to find another miracle towards her beatification.

“The pilgrimage has been going for a long time to try and encourage devotion to her and pray that God will allow her to become canonised.”

Making progress

Meanwhile, the sainthood cause of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair is ‘making progress’, the priest of her home parish has said as Catholics gathered for an annual pilgrimage in her honour.

Hundreds of Catholics from across Scotland gathered in St Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh’s Cowgate for the pilgrimage.

St Patrick’s parish priest Fr Philip Kerr said the pilgrimage has ‘taken place for many years to promote the cause of Margaret Sinclair,’ adding that Margaret’s journey to sainthood is something that can ‘only be judged by the eyes of God.’

“There are countless people who claim her favour—she has been declared venerable, so we are making progress, that’s the main thing,” he said.

Life and death

Margaret Sinclair was born in 1900 and joined the Little Sisters of the Poor, having felt God’s calling to a life of prayer. She died of tuberculosis in 1925, aged just 25.

In 1942, Pope Pius XII introduced the cause for her canonisation and St Pope Paul VI later declared her venerable in 1978.

On Saturday September 8, hundreds visited her shrine in the church where she is buried, to pray and promote her cause.

Celebrations

Bishop John Keenan of Paisley Diocese led the celebration of Mass alongside Margaret Sinclair’s vice-postulator Canon Joe McAuley.

During a visit to Scotland in 1982, St Pope John Paul II said: ‘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, a member of a trade union or a professed Sister of religion.’