Angela Merici was an Italian religious educator and founder of the Ursulines whose deep prayer life and relationship with the Lord bore the fruit of mystical encounters with God. Her favorite saying was, “Disorder in society is the result of disorder in the family”.

She was born on March 21, 1474 in northern Italy. At just 10 years old, Angela and her older sister became orphans and went to live with their uncle in Salo where they led a quiet and devout Catholic life. She became concerned for her sister’s salvation since she hadn’t received her last Sacraments before her death. She dedicated herself to the Lord but still filled with grief, she prayed to know the condition of her sister. In a vision, she learned her sister was in Heaven with the company of Saints and became more devout and joined the Third Order of St. Francis where she pledged to be married to the Lord and His Church.

Her uncle died when she was 20 and found many young girls who had no education or hope that around her hometown which moved her and made her distressed. She opened her own home to them and began to teach them herself. Her charming nature and natural leadership qualities made this a successful endeavor and accepted an invitation from the neighboring town to establish a similar school there.

In 1574, she traveled to the Holy Land and was struck with blindness during the journey but it didn’t stop her even though her friends wanted to return home. She continued the pilgrimage and upon her return, her sight was restored as she prayed before a crucifix in the same location she became blind. The Lord had shown her to never shut her eyes to those she saw around her or to God’s call.

Pope Clement VII had heard of Angela, her great holiness and wonderful success as a religious teacher which gave her a push to make her little group more formal. Angela’s Company of Saint Ursula was the 1st group of women religious to work from home with no special habit and no formal vows and the 1st teaching order of women in the Catholic Church.

The community she founded was different than many of the religious orders of women which existed at her time. She believed it was important to teach the girls in their own homes and with their own families.

She died on January 27, 1570 and reassured her Sisters who were afraid to lose her in death: “I shall continue to be more alive than I was in this life, and I shall see you better and shall love more the good deeds which I shall see you doing continually, and I shall be able to help you more.”

She is the patron saint of the disabled, physically challenged, sick, and those grieving the loss of parents.

Her feast day is January 27.

For God’s Glory.