Saint Angela Merici

Angela was barely more than ten years old when she had the sorrow of losing her father, and, shortly after, her mother. Her young heart was at first as if broken by this cruel separation; but soon resigning herself to the will of God: "O my God," she cried out, "forgive the sorrow, forgive my age the wanderings of my spirit; no doubt these two righteous ones were ripe for heaven: perhaps, alas! I loved them too much, and you take them from me today only to teach me to attach myself to you alone." Providence watched over these two orphans: a rich and pious uncle, named Biancosi, took them into his house. A very harsh trial awaited our Saint there: her sister died suddenly without having received the Sacraments of the Church. Angela very much wanted to know the eternal fate of this soul so dear; this anxious desire occupied her thoughts night and day; she persuaded herself that by dint of prayers she would obtain from heaven some assurance regarding it. Fifteen days later, it came into Biancosi's mind to send his niece to the countryside, as much to dispel her melancholy as to watch over his harvesters. Angela left at once. On the way, she perceived a luminous and extraordinary cloud! She stopped to consider this phenomenon; what was her joy to perceive there her sister all radiant with glory, in the midst of a multitude of angels who accompanied the Queen of heaven; and a voice escaped from it which said: "Persevere as you have begun, and you will enjoy with us the same happiness."

At thirteen years of age, with a knowledge and virtues foreign to that age, she had not yet been able to obtain the happiness of uniting herself to the Spouse of her soul in holy communion. This reveals to us one of the greatest wounds of that unfortunate era, the lack of devotion toward the Holy Eucharist, even in regions spared by heresy. Angela finally obtained, through her persistence, the right to participate in the sacred banquet: as soon as she had tasted this bread of life, she resolved to nourish herself with it frequently, despite the prejudices of her century. To be more free to execute he r pious resolution, she enter Tiers Ordre de Saint-François Secular order joined by Jeanne before the foundation of the Visitation. ed the Third Order of Saint Francis: she was then able, with the approval of her director, to receive communion every day without appearing singular; she made herself worthy of it through a way of life that had not yet had an example in the Third Order. Wishing to possess nothing of her own, she lived on alms, despite the remonstrances of her uncle; one saw in her room no furniture, not even the most necessary; she had no other bed than a poor chair or a simple mat; a large stone served as her pillow; the only softening she allowed herself sometimes was to sleep on a pile of vine branches; a hairshirt macerated her delicate flesh; she never drank wine, except on the days of Easter or Christmas, or during her illnesses, and even then it was in very small quantity, by a spirit of religion and by an express order of the doctors. Her ordinary food was bread, water, and some vegetables; but in Lent, believing she could never do enough for her God, she ate only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and she limited herself even on those days to a little bread, with three walnuts or three chestnuts, or other fruits of that kind. Her life was therefore nothing but a continual fast; authors even assert that she spent entire weeks without taking any other nourishment than the Eucharistic manna.

After her uncle died, Angela, who was then 22 years old, returned with some companions to Desenzano, to her father's house; she hoped to be more useful to her neighbor there. For a long time, she had been telling herself that the disorders of society came from those of families; that families depended above all on the mother, and that there were so few Christian mothers because the education of young girls was poorly done. She thus traced the course of the evil back to its source: it was there that she wanted to heal it; she often asked God to enlighten her on this pious design. One day, while she was in the fields with her companions, she withdrew a little to the side, as was her custom, to pray: suddenly she perceived in the celestial vault a brilliant ladder, similar to that of Jacob; an infinite number of Christian virgins were ascending it two by two, their heads adorned with the richest crowns; they appeared to be supported by as many angels dressed in white, and wearing on their foreheads a precious stone of ravishing beauty; at the same time, a voice said to her: "Angela, take courage: before you die, you will e Brescia City of origin of Blessed Sebastian Maggi. stablish in Brescia a company of virgins similar to those you have just seen." Angela shared this vision with her companions. Peaceful and resigned, she waited for twenty years for God to provide her with the means to accomplish this oracle; but she began, from the very next day, in Desenzano, to make a trial and, as it were, a novitiate of everything she was one day to execute in Brescia. She and her companions were seen gathering the little girls of the town and the neighborhood in their house, teaching them Christian doctrine, visiting the poor and the sick, distributing everywhere the greater part of the charities on which they themselves lived, familiarly instructing the adults who came in crowds to their conferences, and seeking out sinners even in their work. Angela converted many with these words alone: "God is here!..." The demon, irritated to see his prey snatched from him, struggled, but in vain, with all the powers of hell against his enemy: one day he imagined appearing to her in her cell, in the form of an angel of light, hoping, by this clever trap, to distract her in her prayers, or to inspire in her feelings of vainglory. The humble Angela soon penetrated this infernal design, and continuing to raise her hands to heaven: "Withdraw," she cried, "do not think you can impose yourself on me here; I know who you are and I also know only too well that I am before God. You are only a spirit of falsehood, you usurp here a glory that you have lost through your pride; it is you who, through your malice, make a cruel glory of tormenting and perverting Christians; as for me, I am only a miserable sinner, a vile instrument that the grace of Jesus Christ makes serve His glory, and I will never deserve to be visited by the celestial intelligences; once again, withdraw, monster that I abhor, and return to the abyss to announce your defeat and the triumph of my God." At these words, the phantom disappeared.

The rumor of Angela's holiness spread as far as the city of Brescia. God used it for His designs. A noble inhabitant of this city, Jerome Patengoli, possessed land in the vicinity of Desenzano where he came to spend the summer season: he obtained from Angela that she would come to visit him there once a week, for ten years: it was a treasure for the gentleman and his wife. In 1516, having lost one of their children, they wrote from Brescia to our Saint a letter bathed in their tears; they conjured her to come and console them. Charity therefore brought her where Providence awaited her. The virtues of Angela edified the whole city of Brescia.

The great as well as the small believed they saw in her an angel descended from heaven. Among the extraordinary favors that God granted her, one must count infused and supernatural knowledge. Without ever having studied or frequented men of letters, she spoke and understood the Latin language perfectly; she translated into the Italian language the hymns and prayers of the Church, explained the most difficult passages of the Bible, and even reasoned on scholastic and moral theology with admirable precision. The rumor of this wonder having spread, one saw famous preachers, profound theologians, and scholars of the first order flocking from all sides to the cell of the humble Angela. Thomas Gavardi, a noble from Brescia, came to consult her on the means of sanctifying himself in the great world: "Unworthy and ignorant as I am," she replied, "I have only two words to say to you, here they are: Do now and during your life everything that at the hour of death you would wish to have done." These words, pronounced in an energetic tone, struck the gentleman so much that he wrote them down, practiced them instantly, read them every morning, and became a great servant of God.

In the year 1522, she resolved to go to Mantua to visit the tomb of the Blessed Osanna, who had been dead for seventeen years. She made this pilgrimage in the company of several pious women, and under the guidance of a very virtuous merchant from Brescia named Antonio de Romanis, with whom she had formed a holy friendship and who had offered her lodging in his house. Returning from Mantua, she passed through Solferino, where Prince Louis of Gonzaga, uncle of the saint of that name, was staying, in order to ask him for mercy for one of her relatives who had been condemned to exile and the confiscation of all his property. The prince and his wife, who already knew of her eminent holiness by reputation, welcomed her with honor, and she obtained everything she desired.

The graces she had brought back from her pilgrimage to Mantua inspired her with the thought of going to visit the Holy Places in Palestine; and as one of her cousins, Bartolomeo Biancosi, had long harbored the same desire, he one day expressed his thoughts on the subject to her. Angela, whom the difficulties of the journey had held back until then, was transported with joy at this suggestion and looked upon it as a favorable opportunity that heaven was offering her to support her desires. They therefore promised each other to go to Jerusalem together. But Bartolomeo was still young and little capable of directing such a perilous journey. God therefore provided them with a third companion, suitable for settling all things with the prudence and precautions required for such a difficult undertaking: this was Angela's own host, Antonio de Romanis, who had also long thought of making this journey. The three of them set out together and embarked at Venice after receiving Holy Communion. Arriving at Canea, the capital of the island of Candia, an unforeseen accident was on the point of breaking their plan. Angela suddenly lost her sight. Her two traveling companions advised her not to continue her journey: "Why are you worried?" she replied to her friends; "do you not see that this sudden blindness can only turn to the good of my soul? A similar accident was once a mystery in the holy man Tobias; I think it is one as well in relation to me... It is true that I will not have the consolation of seeing with the eyes of the body the sacred places that my Savior honored with His divine presence; but I will adore Him, I will see Him with the eyes of the spirit, and my infirmity itself will contribute to inspiring me with more recollection and devotion." No sooner was she on the sacred shore than she was seen to kneel and lovingly kiss the earth.

She followed with such devotion the traces that her Savior had left in Palestine that it was necessary, so to speak, to tear her away from these sanctuaries. On the mountain which was watered by the divine blood, blood so precious, so efficacious, and yet rendered so often useless by the malice of men: "Ah!" she cried, "if my eyes refuse me light at this moment, they will at least not be able to refuse me tears. Oh, that I might, O Jesus, melt here in tears, to wash a land today so horribly profaned, to erase crimes that all Your love has not yet been able to stop, to expiate the ingratitudes of which I myself am guilty toward the best of all masters!"

On the return, divine Providence permitted that they were obliged to stop, as the first time, at the port of Canea. Angela proposed to the pilgrims to visit a church where a miraculous image of Jesus crucified was particularly venerated. Scarcely was our Blessed one at the feet of the crucifix when, suddenly seized by the spirit of God, she asked Him for the first time for the healing of her infirmity, and obtained it. Her friends, struck by this miracle, gave thanks to God in concert with her; she was led back to the ship as if in triumph. They set sail again for Venice; near arriving at the mouth of the gulf, they were assailed by a violent storm: two ships that were accompanying that of the pilgrims were swallowed up. The latter was saved miraculously, thanks to the prayers of the Saint. The news of this wonder spread in Venice: the patriarch and the senators, desiring to keep such a great treasure in their city, by flattering her attraction, proposed to our Blessed one the direction of the hospitals: humble and gracious in her refusals, she thanked them, left secretly, and arrived in Brescia on November 23, 1524, a memorable day for the Order of Saint Ursula, which was instituted eleven years later on the same day.

The following year was the Holy Year: Angela made the pilgrimage to Rome for the great jubilee; she piously traveled through the churches designated by the bull; in one of these stations, she met a chamberlain of Pope Clement VII, who had made the journey to Jerusalem with her; it was Paul of Pu Clément VII Pope mentioned as having possessed a relic of the saint. glia: he recognized her and presented her to His Holiness. The Pope, informed of her miracles and virtues, gave her a most benevolent welcome; he granted her several audiences and even wanted to keep her in Rome to put her at the head of a house for hospital girls. Then she explained to him with such candor and humility the reasons that called her to Brescia that he finally allowed her to take her leave of him; but the honors she fled seemed to pursue her. Francesco Sforza, the last Duke of Milan, came to Brescia to visit this humble girl and begge d her to adopt François Sforza Last Duke of Milan, spiritual son of Angela. him as her spiritual son and to take his States under her protection. They needed it. Charles V was already covering them with his troops; the city of Brescia was being deserted; our Saint retired to Cremona. There, to bend heaven in favor of her homeland, she macerated her innocent body, she c arried Crémone City of monastic formation and first place of exile. abstinence to the point of contenting herself with a single meal from the feast of the Ascension until Pentecost; she contracted an illness there that the doctors judged mortal. While everyone was already deploring her death, she kept a tranquil face: "Why do you pity me?" she said. "Am I then better than Jesus Christ, our head, who endured the most cruel torments for us?... No, no, I do not fear to die!... One thing makes me tremble much more, it is the judgment that frightened the Jeromes, the Arseniuses, the Hilarians, and the angels themselves. But I hope that my Savior will be willing to have pity on my soul, on this soul that He created in His image, on this soul that He redeemed with His blood, on this soul, finally, that loves Him and will always love Him, even if He were to perpetuate my pains and my infirmity." However, the illness worsened; Angela seemed to have only a breath of life left, she fell into a stupor that was regarded as an agony; but, O wonder! at the end of a quarter of an hour she sat up and asked for her clothes: "I am healed," she said with tears, "alas, I have only seen from afar the heaven to which I aspired; God judged that I was not worthy of it!" Immediately she dressed, took her pilgrim's staff, and went to the holy sepulcher of Mount Varallo, in the Novara region, to thank God for her healing.

Upon returning to Brescia after the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529, which ended the war, she was attending the holy sacrifice and, meditating on this great mystery of love, she was publicly caught up in ecstasy. Her body remained raised from the ground for a considerable time, and this miracle was witnessed by an infinite number of people. She often had similar raptures. God also made her holiness shine forth through gratuitous graces, such as the gift of prophecy. Doctor Tracagno, her nephew, came to see her; she had not the slightest notice of his arrival. However, he had barely reached the door when he heard her say to her companion: "Here is my nephew coming to see me." One day when Angelo, a canon of Brescia and her cousin, also visited her, she detailed the life he had led in his youth and revealed to him the present state of his soul.

As she was still irresolute about what she should found for the glory of God, she saw at night, during her prayer, a spirit with threatening looks, ready to strike her with a whip: and what was her surprise to recognize Jesus Christ himself in person, who made severe reproaches to her for her slowness in founding an Order that the good of his Church demanded. The Saint asked his pardon for her negligence and immediately set to work. Having drawn up the plan for her institute, she communicated it to the companions of her good works; all pledged to follow her rules. On November 25, 1535, the feast of Saint Catherine, this angelic troop was seen leaving its oratory in the morning, like the Apostles from the Cenacle, and driven by the same spirit. They traversed the prisons and hospitals, sought out and instructed the poor, generously broke their bread with them, and gathered, each in her own house, a crowd of young girls to instruct them more by example than by word. At first, it was only a simple association; Angela's companions were not required to leave the paternal roof: to raise the standard of virginity so cowardly abandoned and betrayed by Luther; to renounce all the advantages of the century in the very midst of the century; to abdicate one's will in this world where everyone follows their own; to bring light and purity back into families invaded by darkness and libertinism, such was the goal of Angela and her holy daughters. They penetrated with their ordinary clothes into houses that would have closed their doors, in those unhappy times, to the liveries worn in cloisters by the servants of Jesus Christ.

A day had been set to deliberate on the choice of a superior: Angela spent the previous night in prayer, and, in an ecstasy, Saint Ursula appeared to her in all the splendor of celestial glory. Our Saint, delighted by this favor, passed from joy to affliction when she saw the votes unite on a head she deemed unworthy. If she accepted the office of superior, she always refused the title of foundress. She gave her companions the name of Ursulines, and exhorted them to ascend to the throne of their patroness: "If we do not ha Ursulines Religious order for women founded by Angela Merici. ve, like Saint Ursula," she said, "the happiness of winning heaven by a glorious martyrdom that I have desired myself more than once, we will arrive there at least with her by the imitation of her virtues, by our virginal purity, by our attachment to the Catholic Church, by our fidelity to our commitments. Remember that you are bound to this by a special vow which, simple as it is, does not consecrate you any less to the Lord." These words were received by these holy daughters as if they had come from heaven. They did nothing without consulting their mother, and rendered an account to her of their slightest acts, opening themselves to her with the most naive confidence: our Saint was in their midst like a sun that enlightened them with its light, like a brazier of love that set them all on fire, like the throne through which God reigns over souls and from which he spreads his doctrine; one would have said that God had placed in the heart of his spouse the source of a new life that was to flow from there into others. But, like Moses, she saw only from afar the empire promised to her Order. At the beginning of January 1540, she fell ill and predicted her approaching death. This flower of charity cast, before leaning on the bosom of the Spouse, a final radiance, a final perfume that we must gather.

It was then the custom in the Church to wash the bodies of Christians before burial. This ceremony, entirely religious, was repugnant to Angela's modesty: she conceived the idea of performing this office herself to spare her virginal body the indignity of being uncovered, even when it would no longer be the tabernacle of her holy soul; after having received the last Sacraments and given touching instructions to her desolate daughters, she began to pronounce, with her eyes and spirit turned toward heaven, acts of faith, hope, and charity: "Yes, my God, I love you," she said with her heart even more than with her lips; "ah! how I would like to love you even more! Blessed spirits, and you, holy Virgin, Mother of pure Love, lend me your hearts: inspire me with your sentiments to love Jesus according to his delights... How long, Lord, shall I remain here separated from your amiable person, who will give me wings to fly toward the Beloved of my soul? O divine Savior! finally break the prison of this earthly body, receive into your hands this soul that languishes without you and that can no longer live outside of you." Her daughters were brought back in to recite, near her bed, the prayers for the dying; heaven wished to console them: they suddenly perceived a ray of glory, with which the face of the Blessed one shone. Angela opened her mouth only one more time, and it was to pronounce lovingly the name of her Jesus; then the angels carried away her soul. It was the night of January 27 to 28, 1540.

Angela had lived sixty-five or sixty-six years. She was small in stature, thin, with a white complexion, a laughing but modest gaze, and a pleasant but always measured conversation; so that she was pleasing even in advanced age, and she inspired both respect and devotion equally.

Her portrait was taken by two famous painters of Brescia, Moretto, a student of Raphael, and Romanini. — The Blessed one is represented receiving the visit of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Saint Ursula; perceiving the mysterious ladder by which her spiritual daughters ascend to heaven two by two. The foundation of the Ursulines is sometimes recalled in allegory, by placing a large number of her nuns under the mantle of Saint Ursula, that great educator of virgins.

In Brescia, she lived successively near Saint Barnabas, near the church of Saint Afra, and las Brescia City of origin of Blessed Sebastian Maggi. tly on the Cathedral square. The small dwelling sanctified by the last years of her life, and by her blessed death, is still preserved in great veneration; and every year her feast is celebrated there with a great concourse of people.

The canons of the cathedral and those of Saint John Lateran, who served the church of Saint Afra, disputing over her holy remains like an old treasure, they had to be left exposed in the underground church of Saint Afra, and it was a permission of God, who wanted to manifest the glory of his servant; it shone forth above all through two prodigies. No sign of corruption was perceived in the body of the Saint, after thirty days of exposure; all her limbs were supple and flexible; her face kept its natural features and still shone with the same candor, the same serenity. The other miracle made no less of an impression: for three nights, toward the middle region of the air, an extraordinary light was seen by the whole city, above the chapel where the body of the Saint rested. This glorious body was buried in this same church of Saint Afra: pious inscriptions were engraved on a black marble table, interpreters of public veneration. A young foreigner, reading these praises, took it upon himself to say in a low voice to the ecclesiastic who was accompanying him: "These are pompous praises; do you believe that all this is true?" Scarcely had he let these imprudent words escape, when a frightful noise came from the tomb: this young man received, it is said, two very noticeable blows; a religious who was reciting the office in the upper church; and tense; he went down and asked the cause of this commotion: "Alas! it is I," the young man answered him, "it is my incredulity." And, melting into tears, he prostrated himself before the holy relics and gave glory to God for having been punished and enlightened in his doubts.

The city of Desenzano, her homeland, rendered her the first honors, by choosing her as its advocate and protectress, and by placing her painting next to that of the other patron saints in the main church.

On June 4, 1514, Pope Paul III confirmed the new institute under the title of Company of Saint Ursula. Saint Angela was beatified by Pius VI and canonized by Pius V II in 18 Paul III Pope who approved the Somascan Order in 1540. 07.

Her Life was published in 1804 in Montpellier.