Saint Who?
Saints Who Established Schools
Saint Angela Merici
Religious († 1540)Feast: January 27
Angela Merici came from a family of Italian famers. Her childhood was happy and devout, marked by family prayer and church festivals. Her father read the saints’ lives aloud in the evenings by the fire. But Angela’s parents died when she was ten, and she had to move in with relatives. Though loving, the new home was more worldly and a challenge to the young girl, who yearned to dedicated her life entirely to God.
When she grew up, Angela became a Third-Order Franciscan. She had cared for her younger sister for years, and remained specially concerned with teaching young girls. She began the Company of Saint Ursula, providing structure and formation to women who wanted to live in the world but not of it. “Disorder in society is the result of disorder in the family,” she often said. Accordingly, the members of the company were to live at home and be a leaven of holiness there. They provided instruction to the young girls who would in turn shape future families.
The community grew rapidly, and Angela wrote a book of counsels to guide its future. She died in 1540, and six years later the community received papal approval. She is considered the founder of both the Ursulines and the secular institute the Angelines.
Heavenly Father, through the intercession of
Saint Angela Merici, grant that our homes
may be schools of holiness.
