Apostleship of Prayer - SaintsJanuary 27 - Angela Merici
On 25th November 1535, a small group of twenty-eight women and girls gathered in the oratory of a private home in the northern Italian city of Brescia. Led by Angela Merici, well known throughout the city for her charity and her exemplary life as a Franciscan tertiary, they attended Mass and then signed their names in the Book of the Company of St. Ursula." By this they signified their willingness to commit themselves to God, living according to the rule drawn up for then by Angela. This simple ceremony, which probably caused no more than a tiny ripple on the surface of the strong current of life in Brescia, was the beginning of the Ursuline Order, which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, became one of the largest and best known religious groups in the Roman Catholic Church. The small event was also a part of the Counter-Reformation, although Angela certainly did not see it as such. For her it was simply a response to the crying needs of her time, and they were many.Angela Merici's life was shaped by the Italian renaissance, and she lived through one of the great turning points in western civilization. The end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries was the high point of the "new learning" when princely patrons encouraged the development of all branches of art and culture. Angela's contemporaries included Michelangelo, Raphael, Copernicus, Erasmus, Thomas More, Luther, Ignatius of Loyola, Columbus, Savonarola and henry VIII of England. But all these luminaries flourished against a background of war and immorality of all kinds. Bitter struggles for power resulted in wars, devastation and disease, with their attendant social miseries. There were impoverished families, abandoned women, fatherless children and the scourge of venereal disease in many parts of Italy. Religious confusion and upheaval was also rife: migrant preachers came in their hundreds from Germany and other European countries, preaching the new religious doctrines and urging rejection of the old. Outburst of popular piety and pious fraternities flourished in the midst of religious indifference and the ignorance of many of the clergy, who were guilty of pastoral neglect and the accumulation of benefices. Conclaves for the election of popes had become auctions, offering the position to the highest bidders, and when Angela was twenty years old, Rodrigo Borgia accepted the papal tiara under the name of Alexander VI.
The city of Brescia, Angela's home for many years exemplified the problems of the era. It had once been a flourishing city, but by 1516 it was scarred by the ravages of war and intellectual decay. The occupying French army murdered, pillage and raped without restraint. In 1512 when the residents rose against the occupiers they were brutally defeated. Ten thousand people were killed, churches and public buildings were plundered and the city was in financial ruin. The formation of the Company of St. Ursula was Angela Merici's response to the many social problems of Brescia, and she encouraged her followers to meet concrete need in their environment, in whatever ways seemed appropriate. This small event in 1535 was the genesis of the Ursuline Order, which by the nineteenth century had spread all over the world, even to Australia.
There is little reliable information on the early years of Angela's life. She was born between 1470 and 1475, the daughter of Giovanni Merici, a landholder of Desenzano and his wife who came from the well-to-do Biancosi family. Angela apparently spent her time around Lake Garda. including Brescia, Salo and her birthplace, Desenzano. She won a reputation as a peacemaker, and spent much of her time consoling and aiding those whose lives were disrupted by the tragedies of war. She went with several of her friends to Cremona, probably about 1512, to escape the invading armies under Charles V, but returned to Brescia in 1512 and remained there until her death in 1540. Angela soon merged into the life of the city, a woman of calm thought and quiet purpose. She had a pleasant outgoing personality and a secure sense of personal worth which enabled her to mingle freely with Brescian society, relating simply and naturally with members of all classes. But she was not idle and was soon involved in many forms of charity, especially in the city's hospitals, of which there several, and among the poor. In particular, she became associated with a reform movement called the Company of Divine Love, which was a network of small and fervent communities of lay people and clergy in many Italian cities. the movement cared for orphans and the sick, especially the incurables, this being the name given to those who suffered from venereal disease. As well, the members met together to pray and share their ideas on renewing the Church. Angela was aware of various attempts to renew the Church from within as a response to the reformation, and she favoured this positive and pragmatic approach to reform.
As time went on she increased her reputation as a prudent, wise and holy woman. Angela's piety was remarkably unobstrusive in comparison with some of the more public and spectacular manifestations of faith which flourished during her lifetime, and this moderation drew many people, both lay and ecclesiastic, to seek guidance from her and to follow her example. It was natural that she should finally emerge as the recognized leader of a number of Brescian women who wished to unite into a group to support one another in their commitment to God and to strengthen the charitable works in which they were engaged. So on that November day in 1535, she gave them a simple rule to live by and the name of the Company of St. Ursula. The members of the Company were to remain in their family homes, dress simply, live devout lives and from their homes exercise an active apostate by giving religious and secular instruction to the girls and women of Brescia and by other charitable works. the choice of Ursula, a quasi mythical saint of the fourth century, as patroness of the Company probably was due largely to her popularity throughout the Middle Ages and after as the patroness of youth and learning, notable as patroness of the Sorbonne in Paris. The legend of Ursula and her maiden companions was very widespread in Angela's time. Churches, chapels, stories and paintings all bore witness to the popularity of the saint. It would never have occurred to her to give the company her own name, and the legend of Ursula and her companions probably most aptly characterized Angela's view of the lives and works of those who would join together under the "banner of St. Ursula".
Angela created a community of women which was fundamentally different from other Orders existing then, such as the Benedictines and the Poor Clares. Her rule combined open-mindedness and religious commitment in a way which had not been possible for women until that time. Angela knew from experience that women could give themselves to service within the larger community without the protection of the habit or the cloister, living celibate lives in a society in which many factors militated strongly against such a choice. Angela's spirituality was based on her deep personal relationship with God and in her belief in the worth and specialness of each person. Mutual love and respect, moderation in all things and a willingness to change when circumstances demanded it are the guiding principles of her writings. The Rule of the Company, her Counsels and Legacies were all written in the five years between the founding of the Company in 1535 and her death in 1540. Angela Merici's feast day is celebrated on 27 January, the anniversary of her death.
References:
Follow the Spirit: Angela Merici and the Ursulines, Italy, 1998
Kneipp, P., This Land of Promise: The Ursuline Order in Australia 1882 - 1982, University of New England, 1982.
Ledochowska, T., Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula, 2 vols., Ancora, Roma, 1968.Mary Kneipp, OSU
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