Angela Merici
Introduction
We are coming to the end of our journey through the Middle Ages. It has been exciting to share a few of the hundreds of stories of faithful women who served in God’s kingdom during the approximate 1000-year span,roughly 500 to 1500 AD. We began with Genovefa (423 – 502) and moved through approximately ten centuries to Joan of Arc (1412-1431). We have discovered that there were many faithful women including queens, empresses, abbesses, nuns, Beguines, sisters in monasteries, writers, godly wives, mothers, social reformers, and many others. Thousands of women were called and gifted by God to serve Christ during this very interesting time in history.
This week we present the last of our stories of women in the Middle Ages with the story of Saint Angela Merici.
Angela Merici – (1474?-1540)
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. Angela Merici had peace in her heart that God had called her to a special work. She gave her life serving Christ by teaching poor girls who would not otherwise have received an education.
Angela was probably born between 1470 and 1475. Some biographers put the date at 1474, but no one knows for sure. Her father John Merici was a citizen of Brescia. He was possibly a farmer. Her mother came from Salo and belonged to the well-to-do Biancosi family who dwelt near Lake Garda. John Merici later moved to Desenzano where Angela was born. The exact spot where she was born is not known but that whole area of Italy is one of the most beautiful.
Angela’s parents were devout Christians. Her father read to the children from religious devotional material. By the time she was five, Angela had begun to live a spiritual and contemplative life. A few years later tragedy struck and Angela lost both of her parents and her sister. She went to live with her uncle at Salo. Like most girls at that time, Angela did not get to go to school. Life at her uncle’s was different from her former home. Her uncle was a member of the minor nobility. In his home Angela learned the “grace and poise which distinguished her in her later encounters with great folk as well as with insignificant persons; grace of manner was a marked characteristic of the future foundress.”[1] Later in life Angela learned to read, but to the end of her days she relied on the services of a secretary.
We don’t have much more information about her adolescent years, but it is plain from her later testimony that she was hardworking, thoughtful, faithful, prayerful, and completed devoted to following Christ for her whole life. Angela asked to become a Franciscan tertiary (Third Order) at age 15. The tertiaries were the lay helpers of the Franciscans. The Friars Minor were responsible for Angela’s spiritual formation that led to her desire for work among the poor.
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. God was probably taking care of her because as it happened, in 1527 Rome was sacked and burned by Charles V. The Emperor pillaged the palaces and churches and tortured citizens for money. Angela went to Cremona. During the next few years, she made pilgrimages to Varallo, the Holy Land, and Milan.
When she was in Brescia, Angela 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.
Why Saint Ursula? Perhaps one answer is that Angela lived opposite the Church of San Clemente at Brescia where this painting by Moretto (1530) was displayed.
In 1535, Angela put together The Company of St. Ursula in a small house near the Church of St. Afra, in Brescia. Angela envisioned her group as a charitable organization covering every part of the city. Her vision was to provide a place of protection and shelter for young girls. These girls would dedicate their lives to Christ. At the same time, she looked after poor children that were not called to be consecrated.
The young girls in Italy in the early sixteenth century generally had two choices – marry or enter a cloister. Angela gave them a third choice – they could live with their families and carry on their normal routines while living a dedicated life to Christ in the service of others. In other words, this new order was similar to the Franciscan tertiaries.
Today the Ursulines carry on Angela’s tradition of service in their communities. They are active in 36 countries. They confront the oppression of women and the poor. They are still dedicated to education as Angela was. They strive to “bring the Gospel of Jesus to all while acting as agents of peace through justice in all our relationships, towards all peoples and cultures, towards the earth and creation.”[2]
Angela led 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 eyes on Christ and her focus on helping others. She also had the courage to follow through, no matter what the temptations or obstacles. On 24th May 1807, Pope Pius VII in a Bull “Aeterni Patris Sapientia” proclaimed her to the world as Saint Angela.
[1] Teresa Ledochowska, OSU. Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula. (Milan: 1967) p. 14.
[2] From the Ursuline Academy of the Ursuline organization web page. https://www.ursuline.org/spirituality/st-angela-merici-and-the-ursuline-sisters/
One Response
Amen!!