Born in Desenzano, Italy, she was orphaned in her teens. As a young woman, with her heart centered on Christ, Angela joined the Third Order of St. Francis and embraced austerity. In a visionary experience, she felt called to found a “company” of women.
Angela was invited to become a live-in companion for a widow in the nearby town of Brescia. There she became the spiritual advisor of a group of men and women with ideals of spiritual renewal and service to those in need. While on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1524, Angela was struck with blindness. She proceeded to visit the sacred shrines, seeing them with her spirit. On the way back while praying before a crucifix, Angela’s sight was restored.
At age 60, Angela and 12 other women began the Company of St. Ursula, named for a patroness of medieval universities and venerated as a leader of women. This constituted a new way of life: single women consecrated to Christ and living in the world rather than in a monastery. With Angela as their “mother and mistress,” Company members did not live in community, wore no special clothing, and made no formal vows.
Angela Merici died in Brescia, Italy, in 1540. Clothed in the habit of a Franciscan tertiary, her body was interred in Brescia’s Church of Saint’ Afra. Four years later the Company’s Rule that Angela had composed, prescribing the practices of chastity, poverty and obedience, was approved by the pope.
In the early 1600s, Companies that had expanded into France were re-organized into the religious Order of St. Ursula, to teach girls. Angela’s words continue to inspire the Ursuline nuns’ mission of education, a mission that spread worldwide. The Company of St. Ursula also continued to exist and is federated worldwide today with members in 30 countries. Angela Merici was canonized by Pope Pius VII in 1807.
St. Angela Merici is the patron saint of all who are ill
St. Angela was devoted to caring for the sick and would rise from what she was doing to attend to those in need.
Among the many saints invoked in times of sickness, St. Angela Merici remains one of the most powerful intercessors. Many call upon her in their time of need and ask for her help in their illness.
While St. Angela is most widely known as the founder of the teaching order known as the Ursulines, she was also devoted to the sick in her lifetime.
A 19th-century biography by Bernard O’Reilly highlights this side of her life.
[Angela] gave herself up to the numerous works of charity which awaited her on every side. When not in the hospitals or visiting the sick, poor, or preparing for death some poor needy soul, she was sure to be found before some favorite shrine or altar in the Cathedral or St. Afra, rapt in prayer and lost to all sense of what was passing around her. It sufficed, however, to say one word to her about some urgent errand of mercy or neighborly kindness to see her rise from her knees and set out with face all aglow, with the divine fire within to perform what was asked of her.
Furthermore, she also experienced poor health and was even blind before being fully cured by God, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
In 1524, while making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, she became suddenly blind when she was on the island of Crete, but continued her journey to the Holy Places and was cured on her return while praying before a crucifix at the same place where she was struck with blindness a few weeks before.
After her death, St. Angela became a favored intercessor of many sick people and eventually gained the reputation of being the “patron saint of the sick.”
