Saint Angela Merici (1470-1540) | Feast Day January 27
By age 26, Angela had lost most of her wealthy Italian family to death. As a Franciscan tertiary, she performed good works and taught catechism to girls in her home in Desenzano del Garda. Two visions inspired her to found a congregation dedicated to the religious training of young women; she began this mission with a school in Brescia in northern Italy. Earlier she had endured an episode of blindness while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and had rejected a papal request to run all charities in Rome. In 1535, she founded the Ursulines and served as superior until her death. This mystic, a patron of catechists, reportedly was fascinated from childhood by the legend of St. Ursula, an early virgin martyr.
“In the Renaissance, Angela Merici presented a path of holiness also to those who were living in a secular environment.”
—Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, January 29, 2006
“St. Angela asked every Ursuline to be a ‘true and unsullied Virgin and Bride of the Son of God’ (Introductory Letter to the Rule of St Angela Merici): an ideal that requires a ceaseless quest of holiness. . . to be able to respond to these expectations, in the first place, you must strive for holiness with all your might, keeping in constant contact with Christ in prayer and contemplation.”
—St. John Paull II, Message, July 12, 2002
Copyright ©2017 Catholic News Service–United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved.
Quotes from Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, copyright © 2002, 2006, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City State. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Image: Pietro Calzavacca (1855-1890), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
