Thinking the distractions of a pleasant city life would change her desires, she was sent to Macon, where her maternal uncle was royal notary. This uncle had a daughter who was about to enter the Ursuline convent of that city, and she made every effort to take her cousin with her. However, St.
Margaret said, “if I should enter your convent, it would be for love of you. I wish to go to a house where I shall have neither relatives nor acquaintances, that I may become a religious actuated by no other motive than the love of God.” She debated with her uncle and cousin on entering a Community pious and fervent, or into which she would have been so joyously welcomed.
At the same time, St. Margaret’s mother was at the point of death and was dying of grief. They took advantage of her indecisive state, to force upon St.
Margate the thought of the responsibility she would incur by persisting to pursue her vocation. “They made me understand that my mother could not live without me, and that I should have to answer to God for her death. This was told to me even by ecclesiastics.
It caused me cruel sufferings, for I tenderly loved my mother. The devil made use of this ruse to make me believe that my mother’s earth would be the cause of my eternal damnation”. Tortured in heart and conscience, St.
Margaret cast herself at the foot of her crucifix and watered it with her tears. There she found peace. The more she thought of the religious life, the more enraptured she became with it.
It was there, she thought, that she would learn to pray as she had never yet known how; that she would obey and do penance to the full extent of her desires. While things remained in this state, a religious of the Order of St. Francis, whose name was not told, arrived at Verosvres and heard St.
Margaret’s confession as she made it with abundance of tears. He went at once to find Chrysostom and roused in him great scruples for putting obstacles in the way of such a vocation. Chrysostom loved his sister tenderly, but feared more to offend God.
On the same day, he had a long conversation with St. Margaret to find out whether she was really persevering in her design. Having received her energetic reply, “yes, certainly, I would rather die than change my purpose”, he took immediate and necessary steps for her departure from home.
Shortly after, in 1671 when she was twenty-four, St. Margaret, accompanied by Chrysostom, set out for Paray-le-Monial, where there was a convent of the Visitation. Why the Visitation?
St. Margaret did not know. She had never put her foot into a convent of this Order.
She considered the Poor Clares of Charolles too near to Verosvres. Once before when her brother insisted on her entering with the Ursulines, she replied: “no, that will never be. I wish to go to the Holy Maries, to a distant convent in which I have no acquaintances.
I wish to leave the world entirely, to hide myself in some corner in which I can forget and be forever forgotten”. Several Visitation convents were proposed to her. As soon as she heard of Paray, her heart bounded with joy and she consented at once.
She heard the voice in her heart: “It is here that I want you”, and turned quickly toward her brother: “be assured I shall never leave this house”. St. Margaret returned once more to Verosvres to take a last farewell.
It was heart-rending. Her mother covered her with tears and caresses. Despite feeling so joyous and firm about her vocation in her heart, St.
Margaret said “it seemed to me that my soul was being torn from my body”. On her way to Paray, she tasted the agony of agonies.