Who are we anyway?

Serving Christ in Helping Others

All are welcome at St. Margaret’s, where you are likely to meet someone like yourself. Our members include Uber drivers, school teachers, city council persons and immigrants from West Africa to West Seattle. We are single, married, old, young, gay, straight, black, white and brown. What we all have in common is a commitment to loving and serving each other as Christ would.

Education and Spiritual Growth

We are intentional about creating diverse opportunities for learning, asking questions, and growth. We seek to provide an environment that encourages people to use their spiritual gifts in claiming their ministry and fulfilling their vocation.

Liturgical Worship

The liturgy is not something that the clergy do and the congregation watches. Liturgy is a Greek word that comes from the root words for “people” and “work,” so the Liturgy is “the work of the people.” The liturgy is something that we all do together.

Our worship and sacramental life are centered around the Book of Common Prayer. The Catechism (beginning on pg. 845 in the Book of Common Prayer) expresses our basic beliefs. (Book of Common Prayer).

Our Patron Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093

Shakespeare made familiar the names of Macbeth, Macduff, Duncan and Malcolm; however, it is not always remembered that, in about 1070, Malcolm married an English princess, Margaret.

With considerable zeal, Margaret sought to change practices among the Scottish clergy which she considered to be old-fashioned and careless. She insisted that the observance of Lent, for example, was to begin on Ash Wednesday, rather than the following Monday, and that the Mass should be celebrated according to the accepted Roman rite of the Church, and not in barbarous form and language. The Lord’s Day was to be a day when, she said, “we apply ourselves only to prayers.” She argued vigorously, though not always with success, against the exaggerated sense of unworthiness that made many of the pious Scots unwilling to receive Communion regularly.

Margaret’s energies were not limited to reformation of formal Church practices. She encouraged the founding of schools, hospitals and orphanages, and used her influence with King Malcolm to help her improve the quality of life among the isolated Scottish clans. Together, Margaret and her husband rebuilt the monastery of Iona and founded Dunfermline Abbey, under the direction of Benedictine monks.

In addition to her zeal for Church and people, Margaret was a conscientious wife and mother of eight children. Malcolm, a strong-willed man, came to trust her judgment even in matters of State. She saw also to the spiritual welfare of her large household, providing servants with opportunity for regular worship and prayer.