MARGARET OF YPRES, Blessed. - Mystic, b. at Ypres (Flanders) in 1216 to a bourgeois family, d. there on 20 July 1237; she belongs to the Beguine movement of the 13th century. After her father's death, she received a careful education in a monastery. She obtained permission to receive Communion from the age of 5.

At 18 she embraced, in her father's house, the life of the "Sisters of Penance," under the direction of the Dominican preacher Siger of Lille. M. made a vow of chastity and led, in great recollection, a life of austerity and extreme poverty. Her prayer was uninterrupted. Filled with mystical graces, she rose to the heights of divine love. Her spirituality, like that of the Beguine movement, was entirely Christocentric and was nourished by a special devotion to the Passion and to the Eucharist. In M., however, one does not notice the element that foreshadows devotion to the Sacred Heart which appears in various other representatives of the mystical movement of the 13th century in the Low Countries.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: La Vita di M. fu scritta da Tommaso di Cantimpré, ed. H. Choquet, in Sancti Belgii O. P., Douai 1618, p. 144, ripubblicata su 3 manoscritti, senza le correzioni arbitrarie del Choquet, da G. Meersseman, in Archium Ord. Fr. Praed., 18 (1948), p. 106 sgg.; G. Meersseman, ibid., p. 69 sgg.

Leonizio Reypens

@incollection{ec8_margherita_d_ypres_beata, author = {Reypens, Leonzio}, title = {Margherita d'Ypres, beata}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {72--73}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/margherita-d-ypres-beata} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Margaret of Ypres, Blessed

About this entry