Holiday: January 27
* 21 March 1474 (?) Desenzano del Garda, Brescia, Italy
† 27 January 1540 Brescia, Italy
Meaning of the name Angela: messenger, courier (from Greek)
Emblem: lily
Moretto da Brescia: Angela after her death, in 1540, painted in Desenzano
Angela Merici was born about 1474 in Desenzano del Garda (Brescia region), Italy. Her father Giovanni came from Brescia, and her mother Caterina was the sister of the respected Mr. Biancoso de Bianchi di Salo. Angela spent her childhood, adolescence, and partly also her youth in the wild nature of the countryside, in constant daily work around the farm in the farmyard. They had five children, three boys and two girls. Angela was second to last. Angela’s father could read and often read biographies of saints to the family. The memories of these readings remained very vivid in Angela, and it was they that moved her to decide to lead a sober, spiritual life even then. When she was 10 years old, her parents died. She then went to her uncle. She was very upset when her sister died shortly after, but without receiving the sacraments. However, she had a revelation that her sister was in God’s care and this strengthened her to devote her life to God. She becomes a Franciscan Tertiary and returns to Desenzano. In 1516, her Franciscan superiors invited her to the city of Brescia to a respected lady named Caterina Patengola, who had lost her husband and children. This is where she begins her mission as a comforter and counselor. This mission gradually extends to all those who turn to her with a request for prayer, or as a mediator and propitiator. In Brescia, she later settles in a house belonging to a young merchant who considers her to be his spiritual mother. Then she moved to an apartment near the church of St. Africa. During her stay in Brescia, she visited several pilgrimage sites. Pilgrimages were a popular form of penance at that time. In 1524, she traveled to the Holy Land. For six months, she was thus exposed to all possible threats and dangers, such as pirates, bandits, sea storms, and deviation from the sea route. On this journey, she fell ill and became blind. She insisted on continuing her pilgrimage to the holy places, using her heart instead of her eyes. On her return, her sight returned. This became a reminder to her not to close her eyes to the needs she saw around her, not to close her heart to God’s call. Around her, she saw poor girls without education and hope. In the 15th and 16th centuries, when Angela lived, education for women was only available to the wealthy or nuns. Even Angela only knew what she had learned herself. Women were not allowed to teach and unmarried women were not allowed to go out alone. The nuns were the most educated women, but they could not leave the monastery. Angela gathered together a group of single women and friends of the Franciscans, and together they went out into the streets to collect girls whom they then taught. These women had no money and no power, but they were united by their loyalty to Christ. They lived in their families and met for prayer and teaching. Angela reminded them that the world around them badly needed their service. They were so successful in their service that even in other cities they asked to introduce their innovative approach to education. They influenced many people, even the Pope.
In the jubilee year 1525, Angela traveled to Rome. Pope Clement VII offered her to take charge of a council of nurses in Rome. However, Angela refused his offer because she felt that this was not the path to which God had called her. The Pope’s request inspired her to formalize her group. In 1529, before the threat of military raids, together with the family of Agostino Galla and other residents, he took refuge in Cremona. Here he established contacts with the court of Francesca II. After returning to Brescia, she devoted herself to the work that God had assigned her, founding the “Society of Saint Ursula” (November 25, 1535). She had a vision in which she confirmed that God had chosen her to found a new society in the Church. For a woman at that time, only two paths were possible: marriage or a monastery with a cloister. At that time, the woman’s fate was decided by her own family. From now on, Angela allows women another state of life, which will later become canonical: it is a voluntary consecration to God with the life of “brides of the Son of God” while remaining in the world, in the family, or a certain work environment. They are not bound to joint activity, but they are not isolated either, because they are members of a certain spiritual family. To this “family,” Angela gives her own Rule, Advice, and Testament of deep ascetic and spiritual value, but also full of pedagogical foresight. Society of St. Ursuly was the first group of women who were dedicated to the education of women and who worked outside the monastery. It took many years before her radical ideas of education were accepted.
Angela died at the age of seventy on January 27, 1540, in Brescia, where she was also buried in the church of St. Afra. It is now a shrine dedicated to Angela. The Church declared her a saint on May 24, 1807. When the sisters were afraid of losing her when she died, she assured them: “I will continue more alive than in this life, I will see you better, love you more in the deeds you do, and I will help you more.” Angela Merici’s ideas and principles spread very quickly throughout Italy and the world. In Italy, they founded the Society of St. Ursula various bishops, in France these were transformed into religious communities in the 17th century under the influence of the Jesuits. They were engaged in the education of girls and spread to all parts of the world. In the following centuries, many other congregations were founded according to the Ursuline Rule, all of them considering Angela as their Mother. Thanks to the fact that the Society of St. Ursula has expanded in its secular form and the form of various institutes of the Ursuline Sisters, today Angela Merici is recognized and revered all over the world.
The spirituality of Angela Merici and her daughters is still current. Its innovation is in the idea and implementation of consecrated life in the world, in pedagogical principles that foreshadow the ideas of St.Francis of Sales and St.Don Bosco. Angela also reminds us: “Beware of forcing someone, because God has given each person free will and a desire not to be forced into anything; God only shows the way, invites them, and advises them.”
