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Une vague de charité unique au monde
n°234

Lombardy (Italy)

1474 - 1540

Saint Angela Merici: Christ came to serve, not to be served

Angela Merici was born in Lombardy in 1474, in the Duchy of Milan, which was at the heart of the conflict between the King of France and other powers. War, famine and disease were rampant at the time. Angela drew her strength from God and constant prayer: she did not turn inward but tried to relieve some of the misery she witnessed. She encouraged, comforted, advised and assisted those who asked for her help, both materially and spiritually. The women who gathered around her were driven by the same desire to serve their neighbours, particularly through the education and instruction of young girls.

Shutterstock / encierro
Shutterstock / encierro

Reasons to believe:

  • We know the life of Saint Angela Merici from several sources. Her writings (the RuleCounsels, and Testament) constitute both a spiritual legacy and an account of her life and works. We also know about her life thanks to the Nazari trial (1568), which took place shortly after her death to gather all the information needed for a beatification process.
  • Merici received supernatural inspiration for her vocation. While praying, she had a vision of a ladder raised to heaven and of young girls going up in procession. It was revealed to her that she would found a new religious family, which she did on 25 November 1535, with the birth of the Company of Saint Ursula (Ursulines).
  • Merici's ideal of life was fruitful: "If it is God who has planted this Company, he will never abandon it" (Counsels, IV, 8). Today, 43 religious families throughout the world recognise Angela Merici as their foundress (including the monastic Order of St. Ursula, and the "Angelines"). There are nearly 115 convents of Ursulines in France. 

  • Many people sought Angela Merici's advice, including those belonging to the higher classes of society. The Duke of Milan, Francis II Sforza, asked her for spiritual advice, and Pope Clement VII asked her to stay in Rome.
  • Saint Angela Merici put divine charity into practice in many areas: teaching in schools, caring for the sick, helping the destitute, etc. So much work is clearly beyond human capacity: divine strength (grace) sustained Saint Angela in carrying out many undertakings inspired by the divine will.
  • All Merici's works were centered on God. The virtue of charity is called theological because it comes from God - it is the Love of God poured into our hearts - and it leads to God. This alone explains Merici's total gift of self for God and for others. 
  • Angela Merici died in Brescia on 27 January 1540 and her remains were deposited in the church of Saint Afra, in accordance with her wishes. Two events were noted as remarkable by contemporaries who flocked to pray to the saint: a star shone just above the church for three days. Then, after a month of being exposed in the church for public viewing, the body remained intact. As a result, the veneration of Saint Angela grew rapidly.
  • The beatification process began in the 18th century. It led to her beatification in 1768. Pope Pius VI confirmed the miracles obtained through her intercession in 1790, and the canonisation took place after the turmoil of the French Revolution, on 27 May 1807.

Summary:

According to family tradition, Angela Merici was born on 21 March 1474 in Desenzano del Garda, a town on the southern shore of Lake Garda near Brescia in Lombardy. The Duchy of Milan had been ruled by the Sforza family since 1450, but Louis XII (King of France from 1498 to 1515) and his successor Francis I (reigned from 1515 to 1547) wanted to assert their hereditary rights to the Duchy of Milan. Louis XII's grandmother was Valentine Visconti, a Milanese princess who had married Louis of Orléans, the brother of Charles VI. Louis XII led France into the Second Italian War (1499-1500) and became Duke of Milan (from 1499 to 1512) after the arrest of Ludovico Sforza, known as "the Moor", who remained imprisoned in France until his death. Julius II, elected Pope in 1503, was worried about French power in the Italian peninsula and wanted to drive the French out: thanks to the Holy League, which united Spain and Venice on his initiative, followed by England and the Swiss cantons, the French left Lombardy in 1512, and the Duchy of Milan fell to Maximilian Sforza, son of Ludovico Sforza. However, following the victory at Marignan, the French returned to Milan and Francis I remained Duke of Milan from 1515 to 1521. Charles V could not accept this French domination: the imperial army, with the help of Pope Leo X's papal army, forced the French to withdraw in 1521. Francis II Sforza, Maximilian's younger brother, took over the government of the duchy.

Milan was recaptured by the French in 1524, but the decisive French defeat at Pavia in 1525 left Charles V's imperial forces in control of the Italian peninsula. Francis I was taken prisoner. He was not released until the following year, in exchange for a promise to renounce all claims in the Italian peninsula. Francis II Sforza moved to Milan. This evocation of the political struggles was necessary to understand the extent to which Angela Merici's native country was ravaged by war and its trail of pillage, epidemics and famine, and the poverty in which her charitable works grew and developed as a result.

Her family was pious: her father, Giovanni, narrated to his children every evening a significant episode in the lives of the saints. These examples had a profound influence on the young Angela's mind. But the death of her parents forced the young girl to leave the family farm. One of her uncles, Bianchoso de Bianchi, took her and one of her brothers into his home in Salò, a small town on the shores of Lake Garda. The town of Salò had a convent of reformed Franciscans, who worked toward spreading spiritual renewal. A movement to return to the primitive observance of religious rules was taking shape in religious orders at this time. Angela was nourished by this spirit.

When her uncle died, she returned to her father's land, where she learned about her vocation: she had a vision of a ladder raised to heaven, to be climbed or descended by young girls. At the age of eighteen, eager to consecrate herself to the Lord, Angela entered the Franciscan Third Order. She practiced fasting, which was expected at the time, and devoted herself to helping her neighbours. In this way, she combined an active life with contemplation, which is the ideal way of imitating Christ, born of the devotio moderna. Asceticism inspired by the love of Christ and the practice of Christian virtues were the concrete program. In 1516, her superiors sent Angela Merici to Brescia to live with a widow, Catarina Patengola, who had lost her husband and sons in the war. The young Tertiary assisted her for two years, helping her to overcome her ordeal. Then, staying in the charitable home of Antonio Romano, a bourgeois from the city, she consoled the afflicted, advised the hesitant, reconciled enemies and strengthened wavering spirits for fourteen years. Even theologians sought her advice.

In 1524, Angela made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The Crusades had made popular this journey in the footsteps of Christ: it was with great devotion that the places of the Saviour's passion and resurrection were discovered. Numerous representations of the entombment of Christ were sculpted in France and Italy at this time to preserve its memory. The most famous and oldest is the Sacred Mount of Varallo, in Piedmont, founded in 1491 by the Blessed Friar Bernardino Caimi, Franciscan of the Ancient Observance, former Guardian of the Sacred Places of the East, who wished to recreate the "New Jerusalem" to allow the faithful who could not go to Palestine to experience the spirituality of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, faithfully recreating its most symbolic places.

Angela went there twice, between 1529 and 1532. The passion and resurrection of Christ were at the heart of the spirituality that Saint Angela bequeathed to her daughters in religion. Angela did make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, however, she could barely contemplate the landscapes and towns of Palestine: an eye infection left her almost blind. It was only during the return journey to Crete that she recovered her sight.

The following year, Angela went to Rome. There she went to see a prelate she had met in the Holy Land, who suggested that she meet the Supreme Pontiff, Clement VII. The Pope questioned her and suggested that she stay in Rome. Angela humbly replied that God wanted her in Brescia.

Back in Brescia, she stayed with a local man, Agostino Gallo, who lent her a room. She then lived near the church of Saint Afra. The new Duke of Milan, Francis II Sforza, spoke to her, asking her for spiritual guidance. The memory of the vision she had received in her youth urged her on: she suggested that unmarried women, whose taste for prayer and works of charity she knew, should unite spiritually, without abandoning the place where they lived, in a company that would provide them with effective support by attending Mass together and helping each other both materially and spiritually. On 25 November 1535, twenty-eight young women attended Mass and went to an oratory, where they consecrated themselves to the Lord by simply writing their names in a register. The Company of Saint Ursula, named after a young girl who was martyred in Cologne around 385 and who was particularly popular at the time, was born. It was recognised by a bull of Pope Paul III in 1544.

The Council of Trent subjected consecrated girls to the rule of enclosure. The Ursulines were no exception: they began to live in secluded communities in Milan (1572) and Avignon (1596), but they did not cease to be apostles: they became educators and directed numerous women's schools.

Angela Merici died on 27 January 1540 and was canonised by Pope Pius VII on 27 May 1807.

Fr. Vincent-Marie Thomas, PhD in Philosophy


Beyond reasons to believe:

Angela Merici did not choose the name of the religious family she founded at random: like Saint Ursula, martyred in Cologne in the 4th century, she associated herself with companions attracted by her ideal of faith and virginity, and whom she led towards Christ. Saint Ursula had gone on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, so Saint Angela Merici did the same. Like her model, Angela went to meet the Pope in Rome. Like the courageous young virgin of Christian antiquity, Angela exhorted her daughters to remain united "all with one heart and one mind" (Saint Angela Merici, Rule).


Going further:

St. Angela Merici, and the Ursulines by Bernard O'Reilly, Creative Media Partners, LLC, 2022


More information:

  • The writings of Saint Angela Merici consist of three parts: Rule, Counsel, and Testament. The manuscript of the oldest version of the Rule of Saint Angela is in the Trivulziana Library in Milan.
  • The legacy of St. Angela Merici: Faith, Courage, and the Birth of the Ursulines by Rev. Dominic Whitaker, Independently published (December 10, 2024) 

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