St. Angela Merici

Virgin

Feast Day - June 1

Angela Merici was born of devout parents and from her earliest years gave evidence of great virtue, frequently using sackcloth and scourges, and praying unceasingly. She renounced her inheritance and embraced the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis. Uniting evangelical poverty with the glory of virginity, she withheld no service of kindness to her neighbor. She was frequently refreshed by the Holy Eucharist, and was carried up to God with such force of love as often to be rapt out of her senses.

At Brescia, she founded a new society of Virgins under a fixed discipline and a rule of life conducive to holiness, which she put under the patronage and name of St. Ursula. At last, when she was almost seventy years old, she went to Heaven, in the year of the Lord 1540, on January 27. Pope Clement XIII by a solemn decree ratified and confirmed the veneration which had already been offered her for a long time; and Pope Pius VII enrolled her in the list of holy Virgins.

Taken from The Hours of the Divine Office in English and Latin, Vol. II: Passion Sunday to August (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1963), pp. 1845-1846.

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