The Santa Margarita program is a holistic therapy program designed to give hope and dignity to disabled children and their families. Our patients include all ages from children to the elderly with a range of physical and sometimes learning disabilities. Without access to basic health care, our patients have needlessly suffered from often easily preventable health issues.
Santa Margarita offers patients hope by providing not only physical therapy treatments, but seeking to meet mental and spiritual needs of patients and their families as well. The program provides education and training, spiritual mentorship, and fellowship and friendship for patients. Among the poor, these children and their families are often hidden away and forgotten by society. Santa Margarita provides an avenue for our patients to reach their fullest potential so they can be everything that God intended them to be.
Santa Margarita offers patients hope by providing not only physical therapy treatments, but seeking to meet mental and spiritual needs of patients and their families as well. The program provides education and training, spiritual mentorship, and fellowship and friendship for patients. Among the poor, these children and their families are often hidden away and forgotten by society. Santa Margarita provides an avenue for our patients to reach their fullest potential so they can be everything that God intended them to be.
our PHYSICAL THERAPY BUILDING |
Hear our patients' stories |
|
We opened our therapy program’s stand alone building. There is so much potential and growth still to be had and we couldn’t be in anymore awe of God’s grace on this program. We have so many more people to reach!
|
The staff at Santa Margarita are witnesses to miracles, and we'd love for you to meet the people we serve. Learn more about our stories at our blog.
|
Inauguration of the PHYSICAL Therapy building
Physical, Speech, and Occupational Therapists
|
Are you a physical, speech, or occupational therapist interested in serving with us? We are always in need of therapists volunteers to work with our patients in Honduras. If you are qualified to work with disabled patients as a therapist, we would love to tell you more about how to work with our program. For more information, email [email protected]. |
About Blessed Margaret of Castello
The patroness of our ministry is Saint Margaret of Castello, who was born to noble parents in Metola, Italy in the fourteenth century. Saint Margaret was born a blind, hunchbacked dwarf, and her parents were horrified and hid the baby away. When she was six, they walled her up into a room with no door next to the parish church, passing her food through a hole in the wall.
Margaret lived in the walled room in secret for years, with her only comfort being the friendship of the parish priest and the ability to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. When she was sixteen, her parents heard of a shrine in Citta di Castello, Italy, where many sick people were cured, and they brought Margaret out to the shrine to pray for a miracle. When she was not cured, they abandoned her in the streets of the town and never saw her again.
At the mercy of the passersby, Margaret had to beg her food and eventually sought shelter with some Dominican nuns. W. R. Bonniwell writes, “Her cheerfulness, based on her trust in God’s love and goodness, was extraordinary. She became a Dominican tertiary and devoted herself to tending the sick and the dying” as well as prisoners in the city jail.
Deprived of all human companionship, Margaret learned to embrace her Lord in solitude. Instead of becoming bitter, she forgave her parents for their ill treatment of her and treated others as well as she could. Her cheerfulness stemmed from her conviction that God loves each person infinitely, for He has made each person in His own image and likeness. This same cheerfulness won the hearts of the poor of Castello, and they took her into their homes for as long as their purses could afford. She passed from house to house in this way, “a homeless beggar being practically adopted by the poor of a city” (Bonniwell, 1955).
Saint Margaret died on April 13, 1320 at the age of 33. More than 200 miracles have been credited to her intercession since her death. She was beatified in 1609 and canonized in 2021. Thus, the daughter that nobody wanted is now one of the glories of the Church.
Margaret lived in the walled room in secret for years, with her only comfort being the friendship of the parish priest and the ability to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. When she was sixteen, her parents heard of a shrine in Citta di Castello, Italy, where many sick people were cured, and they brought Margaret out to the shrine to pray for a miracle. When she was not cured, they abandoned her in the streets of the town and never saw her again.
At the mercy of the passersby, Margaret had to beg her food and eventually sought shelter with some Dominican nuns. W. R. Bonniwell writes, “Her cheerfulness, based on her trust in God’s love and goodness, was extraordinary. She became a Dominican tertiary and devoted herself to tending the sick and the dying” as well as prisoners in the city jail.
Deprived of all human companionship, Margaret learned to embrace her Lord in solitude. Instead of becoming bitter, she forgave her parents for their ill treatment of her and treated others as well as she could. Her cheerfulness stemmed from her conviction that God loves each person infinitely, for He has made each person in His own image and likeness. This same cheerfulness won the hearts of the poor of Castello, and they took her into their homes for as long as their purses could afford. She passed from house to house in this way, “a homeless beggar being practically adopted by the poor of a city” (Bonniwell, 1955).
Saint Margaret died on April 13, 1320 at the age of 33. More than 200 miracles have been credited to her intercession since her death. She was beatified in 1609 and canonized in 2021. Thus, the daughter that nobody wanted is now one of the glories of the Church.