Angela Merici

(1474–1540)

   Saint and Order Founder.

   Angela was born in Desenzano, Italy. In her youth she joined a Franciscan Tertiary Order and devoted herself to a life of nursing and education. During a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1524, she suddenly and temporarily went blind. On her return to Italy, she founded a new women’s religious order in Brescia. The order was named the Ursulines, after St ursula. Angela wrote the Rule and was appointed Superior in 1537. The order was intended as a society of unmarried women, living in their own homes and dedicated to teaching. Over the course of time, community life and even enclosure have been introduced. None the less the Ursulines remain one of the most important teaching orders in the Roman Catholic Church.

   P. Caraman, St Angela (1963);

   Sr Mary Monica, Angela Merici and her Teaching Idea (1927).