Saint Angela Merici

Saint Angela Merici was an Italian Franciscan tertiary and the foundress of the Company of Saint Ursula, from which the congregations of Ursulines grew. She gathered women who gave their lives to God while remaining in their own homes, without a habit or enclosure. The Church commemorates her on January 27.

She was born at Desenzano on Lake Garda, in northern Italy. The year of her birth is not certain: tradition points to March 21, 1474, and the year 1470 is also given. Her father, Giovanni, used to read the lives of the saints to the household in the evenings. Within a short time Angela lost her parents and her sister and went to live with an uncle at Salò. There she became a Franciscan tertiary. After a few years she returned to Desenzano, to work in the house and in the fields.

According to tradition, while praying in a field near Desenzano she had a vision of a ladder joining heaven and earth, with young women and angels walking on it. She understood it as the announcement of a work for which God had destined her. In 1516 her Franciscan superiors sent her to Brescia to support Caterina Patengola, who had lost her husband and children. Angela stayed in that city for good. In time many people, lay and clergy, sought her counsel and her prayer.

She went on pilgrimages. In 1524 she sailed to the Holy Land. On the way she lost her sight and visited the holy places without seeing them. She recovered it on the journey back, while praying before a crucifix. In the jubilee year of 1525 she went on pilgrimage to Rome. Pope Clement VII proposed that she stay there, but she returned to Brescia.

On November 25, 1535, together with her first companions, she began the Company of Saint Ursula in Brescia. Its members consecrated themselves to God in virginity, yet they did not enter a convent: they lived with their families, supported themselves by their own work, and cared for the Christian upbringing of girls. At a time when a woman had before her only marriage or the cloister, this was a new path. Angela gave the Company a Rule, and to those who led it she left her Counsels and her Testament. In them she asked that the sisters entrusted to their care be guided gently and without coercion, for God has given everyone free will and forces no one.

She led the Company until the end of her life. She died in Brescia on January 27, 1540, and was buried in the church of Saint Afra, which today is her shrine. In 1544 the Company was approved by Pope Paul III. It grew, among other places, in Milan through Saint Charles Borromeo, and in the 17th century, especially in France, many communities became convents of Ursuline nuns.

Pope Clement XIII beatified her in 1768, and Pius VII canonized her on May 24, 1807, in the Vatican Basilica. Today both the secular institute that bears her name and many congregations of Ursuline sisters throughout the world look to Angela as their mother.