Sister Thorn and Catholic Mysticism in Modern America

1. Now You Are My Thorn, but Soon You Shall Be My Lily of Delight: The Transformation of Margaret Reilly

25 {1} Now You Are My Thorn, but Soon You Shall Be My Lily of Delight The Transformation of Margaret Reilly A soul is of more value than a world. —Rose-Virginie Pelletier (Saint Euphrasia), founder of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Pain and grief, oh, do not spare me, Let my soul and body smart, Happy will I be to suffer To console Thy anguished Heart. —Stanza of “To the Lily of His Heart,” a poem written by Sister Mary Carmelita Quinn and sent to Sister Mary Crown of Thorns in January 1924 Margaret Reilly received a nudge toward sainthood on an ordinary day in 1917 whilecookingdinner.Althoughthekitchenseemsanunlikelyplaceforamystical encounter, Margaret, while stooping over the oven to prepare a fish supper with her mother, felt a sharp pain over her heart and saw a three-dimensional crucifixemerginginblood.Hermotherquicklyputhertobedandimmediately telephoned their pastor.¹ This event was not Margaret’s first divine communication . Four years earlier, in November 1913, a two-inch-long red cross had appeared on her breast. On that day, she recalled, “It pleased our dear Lord to sendmeaverysevereillnessforwhichHepreparedmeinamostextraordinary way. In my illness, I beheld our dear L. nailed to the Cross and covered with Wounds. . . . ‘Thorn,’ He called me; ‘upon thy breast I place a Cross.’ My eyes raised above. He smiled and spoke: ‘Take thou this Cross because ‘tis Thorn I love.’ Then a sharp pain . . . when suddenly my eyes closed to all around me. My very soul became entirely rapt and absorbed in the contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity.”² Margaret’s divine rapture soon inspired others to offer their own interpretations of the events of 1917. One asserted that the arrival of the crucifix Key sites in Margaret Reilly’s Manhattan. (Digital drawing, Alec Sarkas, University of Pittsburgh; property of author) The Transformation of Margaret Reilly 27 on Margaret’s skin was the Lord’s resolution of a dispute between Margaret and her confessor.³ Apparently, Margaret had taken up the penitential practice of wearing a hair shirt, usually on Friday afternoons from twelve until three o’clock. After about eight months, Jesus told her to advise her confessor that she should stop wearing the shirt. The priest thought that Margaret should continue the practice, but he also came to understand that God would send a sign to both of them in the form of a cross on her chest.4 Whatever its origin, the crucifix over Margaret Reilly’s heart in 1917 remained visible until December 8. In a friend’s recollection, the mark resembled a “raised, sunburned area,” pale pink, and not more than two inches long.5 The three-dimensional corpus even changed color. According to one chronicler, “Sometimes it was red, sometimes purple, sometimes livid. Jesus revealed to Little Thorn the meaning of the changing of colors; it meant sufferings of His Church in various ways.”6 Margaret’s crucifix reappeared in a different venue four years later while she was making a spiritual retreat at Mount St. Florence, the convent of the Good Shepherd sisters in Peekskill, New York. There, in October 1921, the image again appeared on Margaret’s chest and then transferred itself miraculously to the wall of her temporary residence. It was observed by Dr. Thomas McParlan, the physician who had accompanied Margaret to the convent, as well as by Mother Raymond Cahill, the convent superior, and several of the Good Shepherd sisters. Mother Cahill surrounded the transferred image with a picture frame, containing and protecting the vivid red stain on the stark white wall. This chapter describes the unusual mystical events of Margaret Reilly’s life and seeks to understand them in the context of Irish American history in New York and of American Catholicism of the early twentieth century. Most of the chapter is necessarily taken up with establishing a sequence of events and biographical details from archival sources. Later chapters will revisit significant episodes and continue through the end of her life. Using the accounts of Margaret’s experiences compiled by several contemporaries, this chapter sketches the events of her stigmatization, then returns to follow Margaret’s family life from childhood to young adulthood, her convent appearance in 1921, her experiences in the convent until she made her final vows in 1928, and her encounters with priests and sisters who interpreted her divine and diabolical experiences. When the crucifix returned to Margaret’s chest in 1921 after the preludes of 1913 and 1917...