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CONCERNING
MARGARET SINCLAIR
From
Archbishop D. Mackintosh of
Glasgow,
Scotland.
In the year 1927
Margaret Anne Sinclair, who was born, grew
up and lived in circumstances practically identical with those in which
the vast majority of girls and boys are born, grow up and live today.
We are all familiar with those circumstances and surroundings, and whether
we look at them from within or from without, we are aware that in many
ways they are not such as human beings would choose, had they unrestricted
freedom in the matter.
Too often there is in our homes - when there is a home – the constant
uncertainty of even limited material provision for the present and the
future, an uncertainty branching off into countless crops of worries
and anxieties.
Too often, outside the home there is much that is coarsening, deadening
or worse, in full play on the unshielded avenues to the heart and soul
of plastic childhood and ardent youth.
Can boys and girls, can young men and women in such an environment keep
clear and bright the remembrance of their high destiny? Can they break
the iron tyranny of circumstances, weather in triumph their stormy buffetings
and shape their lives faithfully to God's plans?
Or must the beauty of
life, the perfection of virtue, become with each day that passes something
more and more remote, an intangible dream at best, an impossibility?
I find in the life of Margaret Sinclair a most decided answer to those
questions. The answer is, with God's help, beauty of life and perfection
of virtue are within the reach of all. Further, the life of Margaret
Sinclair is a proof that in the essential business of life and in the
matter of true happiness circumstances and surroundings are not the
decisive factor.
In her life there is forcibly brought out once more, and on the familiar
stage of present day Scotland, the truth that what really counts is
to face with simplicity the issues before one, whatever be one's condition,
to place one's joy in doing to the best of one's power the task each
day brings, to remember constantly that in the journey through life
we are in the keeping of wiser counsels than human intelligence can
devise.
I find a singular beauty in the life of Margaret Sinclair, this frail
modern Scottish girl, in all its settings. I notice that she was far
from being naturally dead to the ordinary attractions of life; that
she was sensitive and affectionate; liked nice things and felt being
often without them.
I also see with what winsomeness she set herself to rule herself, to
avoid impatience, sourness, gloom, to practise the real courtesies of
life in the thousand details of her daily routine.
Above all, I observe how she made Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament
the centre and the inspiration of her life.
What wonder, then, if she learnt from Him in most ample measure that
delicacy and refinement which gave fragrance to virtue, that thoughtfulness and
considerateness which she was perceived by all to possess?
What wonder if her life is singularly beautiful? For beauty, on every
plane, in all its embodiments, is God mirrored in His Creation.
May the example of her life be an inspiration to all, but especially
to the thousands of young men and women who, whatever be their position
in life, find themselves harassed, perplexed, unhappy.
Archbishop D. Mackintosh
Of Glasgow. Scotland 1927
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