It takes a lot of courage to pass up fame and the approbation of someone as important as the Pope, but that is what Angela Merici did. Pope Clement VII had offered her a great honor and a wonderful opportunity to take charge of a religious order of nursing sisters. But Angela knew that God had not called her to nursing. God had called her to serve Him by helping the girls in her country who were denied an education because of their poverty. She wanted the nuns to teach these girls, but the Pope wouldn’t let them. They were not allowed to leave their cloisters. So, she decided to do something about it herself.
During the time of the Reformation only wealthy women and nuns were well educated. We have already told the story of another very well educated nun who lived during this period in history, Katherine von Bora Luther, who left the cloister to eventually marry a famous preacher and have a family. Angela Merici left the cloister also, but to give her life serving Christ by teaching poor girls who would not otherwise have received an education.
Angela was born in 1470. Her parents died when she was very young. She and her sister went to live with her uncle in a neighboring town. After her sister died she became a Franciscan tertiary at age 15. She lived a life of much devotion and prayer.
When she was twenty, her uncle died and she returned to Desenzano, her hometown. She was appalled at how many young, poor, untaught girls there were. She had a burning desire to give them an education. She wanted them to at least learn the basics of Christianity. Since there were no teaching orders of nuns in those days, she decided to try something new. She went out into the streets and along with friends and other Franciscan tertiaries, gathered up the girls they saw. These women had little money and no power, but they were bound together by their devotion to the girls and their love of Christ.
Angela converted her home into a school where she instructed the girls daily in the basic truths of Christianity. She and the other women who joined her met daily for prayer and soon the school was a great success. She started 
other schools as well in many other cities. Many people were impressed, including the Pope.
In 1524, she went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She became blind after an illness while on the island of Crete. She continued her pilgrimage anyway. On the way home, she recovered her sight. She believed that God was reminding her not to shut her eyes to the needs of the poor that she saw around her. She must also not shut her eyes to God’s call for her life. So when the Pope invited her to stay in Rome, she turned him down. She was not interested in fame or publicity.
She went to Brescia, where she laid a foundation for a new group, the Company of St. Ursula, later called the Ursulines. These women would carry on the work of teaching underprivileged girls. This group did not become a formal religious order in her lifetime. That would happen many years later. But it was the first group of religious women in service to work outside the home. Angela was considered a radical in her day. Today, we don’t think anything of women working outside of the home. Thanks to women like Angela, who wanted to help others no matter what the cost, unmarried women eventually were acceptable as teachers outside of the home.
In 1535, Angela put together The Company of St. Ursula in a small house near the Church of St. Afra, in Brescia. She would lead the fellowship until her death in 1540 at about seventy years old.
We remember her as a pioneer in leading women to serve Christ by serving others. She was successful because she kept her focus on helping others. She also had the courage to follow through, no matter what the temptations or obstacles.
