EBNER, MARGARETH, besta. - Dominican, b. around 1291 at Donauwörth (Swabia), d. June 20, 1351 at Medingen. A descendant of an illustrious family of Verda, endowed with many qualities of soul, the frail M. entered at fifteen the flourishing monastery of Medingen, which through her merit became one of the centers of Dominican spirituality. From 1311 intimately abandoned to God, from 1312 to 1313 she was gravely ill, from 1314 to 1332 confined to bed half the time but consoled by God. In 1332 the secular priest Henry of Nördlingen gave her her mystical direction. Incapable of severe exterior penances, M. mortified herself in food, in bearing, in sleep, giving herself to a life of prayer and oration inspired by the liturgical cycle and characterized by the meditation of the mysteries of the Lord's life with additions of the Pater and the Ave, a method called the Pater Noster.
Most devoted to the Eucharist, to the name and the Heart of Jesus, she cherished the Anima Christi sanctifica me etc. She dedicated herself particularly to suffraging for the dead. In 1344 a statue of the Infant Jesus was given to her from Vienna. At Nördlingen's wish, from Dec. 1344 M. compiled or dictated in the Revelations many notes on her spiritual life from 1312 to 1348. Even from afar (Avignon, Constance, Basel, Strasbourg, Cologne) Nördlingen remembered M., making his acquaintances friends of M. and keeping up an epistolary commerce with her. Having become a central figure among the "Friends of God," Tauler himself commended himself to M.'s prayers. This correspondence, the Revelations and the Pater Noster "are an indispensable document for the knowledge of the religious life of the era" (G. Gabetti). M.'s life and spirituality were always marked by and of serviceable joyousness. During her life, tried by sufferings and infirmities, accepted with unaltered Christian fortitude, rich in supernatural charisms, M. still had a living reputation for holiness. For the cult, on which the process begun in 1686 before the diocesan tribunal of Augsburg gave an affirmative sentence on Nov. 4, 1910, the confirmation of the Holy See is awaited.