A little Italian girl of northern Italy, she lost her parents and was completely orphaned at the age of ten. When she was thirteen, the priest, by a special favor in those days, used to give her Holy Communion several times during the week. When she was twenty-one years old, she was told in a vision to found a Religious Order for the instruction of young girls. She thought no group of young girls in all the history of the Church was more beautiful than Saint Ursula and her 11,010 companions, all martyred for their Faith and their virginity in Cologne, in Germany, in the year 383. And so Saint Angela Merici, with twelve girl companions, in 1535, founded the famous and beloved Order of nuns known as the Ursulines. They now have convent schools for girls all over the world. The last word Saint Angela Merici spoke was the Holy Name of Jesus, just before she died, at the age of sixty-six.
Saint Angela Merici, anonymous 17th Century painting, photo by Benoit Lhoest (source)
