St. Angela Merici (January 27th)

Of the Saints and Feast Days commemorated this week:

January 26th - Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops

January 27th - Saint Angela Merici, Virgin

January 28th - Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church

January 31st - Saint John Bosco, Priest

February 2nd - THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD


I’ve decided to write about Saint Angela Merici.


The future Saint Angela Merici was born on March 21, 1474 on a farm outside of a small town named Desezano del Garda on Lake Garda not altogether far from the city of Brescia in Lombardy, Italy.   


She experienced many tragedies early in life.  When she was 10 years old, she and her older sister were left orphaned after their parents died.  Soon afterward, her older sister died as well, and the future St. Angela Merici was left to be raised by her uncle who lived in a neighboring town, also on Lake Garda, named Salò.


Tragedy however has a way of focusing one’s life on “matters that endure.”  Even as a teenager, she became a Franciscan Tertiary and soon afterward decided that she would not marry.


Instead her concern came to be for other young women, that they be formed well in the faith at a time when life’s troubles and difficulties were often quite near.  Together with a number of other young girls, she founded an Association of St. Ursula, dedicated to the education of young women.  


At the time, education in the region was limited, especially for young women.  So the Ursuline sisters would visit the homes of the young women and conduct their instruction in the young women’s homes in the presence of their parents.   As such any concerns about what they’d be teaching the young girls melted away and a result was a region of well-formed young women who would either marry or go into religious life.


At a time when religious formation was not particularly good, and various paleo-protestant movements had been making inroads, the services offered by the Ursuline sisters founded by the future St. Angela Merici and her companions came to be credited for keeping the whole of Lombardy largely Catholic – if the women know how to pray and come to know right from wrong, then the whole family comes to know how to pray and know right from wrong as well.


As we look to evangelize in our time as well, it is useful to remember the efforts of the past, not to necessarily to replicate them in form but use them as inspiration to creatively respond to our times as well.


St. Angela Merici, and companions, pray for us!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

St. Dominic (August 8th)

Image
 This week is another fairly busy one in terms of special feast days or commemorations. On August 5 th , we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major , one of the four major basilicas of Rome, the others being St. Peter’s , St. Paul’s Outside the Walls , and St. John Lateran , all associated with Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome . On August 6 th , we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord .  This is a feast which along with the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (celebrated on Oct 7 th ) entered into the Liturgical Calendar somewhat oddly in commemoration of a couple of (at the time) significant Christian military victories against the (Muslim) Turks in the 15 th -16 th centuries – the Hungarian lifting of the Turkish Siege of Belgrade (1456) in the first case and victory in the Naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) a century later in the second.   Over the course of the centuries, memory of the martial origins of the...
Read more

St. Alfonsus Liguori (Aug 1st)

Image
This week has been a busy one with regards to the Saints. On July 29, we remembered St. Martha , to whom in recent years, the Church also added her sister Mary and brother Lazarus.  Poor "busy bee" St. Martha, she's never gotten the respect that she really deserves ;-).  On July 30th, we remembered St. Peter Chrysologus , a Church father who lived in the 5th Century, a time of a good deal of confusion with the first and then repeated sacking of Rome.  He functioned as the Bishop of Ravenna which became the capital of the region for a time. On July 31st, we remembered St. Ignatius of Loyola , a favorite saint of mine, the founder of the Jesuits, a religious congregation that became famous for its learning, missionary work and spiritual direction all finding root in a man, the future St. Ignatius, who began life hoping to find "glory on the battlefield" as a soldier.  An excellent recent movie about him was Ignatio de Loyola (produced in English by the Jesuits of...
Read more

All Saints (Nov. 1st) and All Souls (Nov. 2nd) Days

Image
After a good number weeks of a large number of saints and/or topics to chose  to write about, this week, this week, the selection is smaller: Oct. 28th, Sts. Simon and Jude , Apostles Nov. 1st, All Saints Nov. 2nd, All Souls Of these, I’m choosing to write about the celebrations of All Saints (Nov 1st) and All Souls (Nov 2nd) . What makes a Saint ?   In the Christian sense, a Saint is a member of the Church, hence baptized and in good standing before both God and the Christian Community (the Church). To non-Catholics this definition would naturally seem rather “parrochial” – What about Gandhi ?  What about Martin Luther King, Jr ?  What about Elie Weisal ?  What about the nice Muslim grandma on our block who, ever dressed in her hijab, would always bring us a lovely plate of baklavas at the end of her family’s celebration of Ramadan? Pretty much every religious tradition faces similar issues.  As we learn to try to live together – and between nuclear...
Read more