00:00Today, July 20, the popular church celebrates a legendary, powerful and mysterious saint,
00:11Saint Margaret of Antioch, also called Saint Marina in Eastern traditions.
00:18It is the 3rd century, in Antioch, Syria.
00:21Margaret is the daughter of a pagan priest, but she chooses the Christian faith,
00:26a dangerous choice in an empire still hostile to the gospel.
00:31Refusing to renounce her faith, she was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured.
00:37But she remains firm, and that's where legend takes over from history.
00:44During his imprisonment, the devil appeared to him, not in a subtle or seductive form,
00:50but in the form of a huge dragon, ready to devour her.
00:54Marguerite does not back down.
00:58She makes the sign of the cross.
00:59And, according to tradition, the dragon bursts or disappears immediately.
01:05By faith alone she overcomes evil.
01:08This image will mark the centuries.
01:10Marguerite becomes a symbol of spiritual victory, purity, inner strength.
01:16In the Middle Ages, she became one of the most popular saints in Europe.
01:21His cult spread throughout the West.
01:23She is included in the list of 14 holy helpers, those celestial figures who are invoked in the great trials of life.
01:31And in particular, Marguerite is prayed to by pregnant women.
01:35She is entrusted with the delivery.
01:36We ask him for a healthy child, a peaceful heart.
01:41His name becomes a hope, a refuge.
01:44And it's not over yet.
01:46In the 15th century, during the trial of Joan of Arc, she claimed to have heard three voices from heaven which guided her.
01:54Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret and Saint Michael.
01:59The Margaret she is talking about is Saint Margaret of Antioch, the young girl from Syria who resisted the dragons.
02:05Even today, its history fascinates.
02:10It speaks to all those who are fighting internally, to those who are facing their own dragons, fear, loneliness, rejection, suffering.
02:21Let us pray, Saint Margaret, Saint Margaret, you who overcame evil by faith, pray for all those who struggle today.
02:33Pray for mothers, for women, for weak or burdened hearts.
02:39Help us not to run away, but to believe, like you, that the cross is stronger than the dragon.
02:47Amen
02:51Saint Margaret
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