Five years ago, I chanced upon an article from a medieval studies conference, “The Writings of St. Angela Merici in the Light of Bonaventuran Exemplarism: The Motherhood, Fatherhood, and Transcendence of God,” by Dorothy L. Latz. Surprised to find our Renaissance foundress in conversation with medievalists, I was even more taken aback by the professor’s opening reproach: “St. Angela Merici’s “Franciscan connections” often have been ignored, with the result that her spiritual writings- her Testament, Counsels and Primitive Rule – often have not been interpreted in context. This same ignoring of Franciscan influences has prevented a full understanding of her images and symbols…” Latz writes just as intense years of research culminate in the publication of Angela Merici: Contribution towards a Biography. One of the co-authors, Marie Seynaeve, OSU, then began a series of presentations on Merician spirituality, including a 2003 conference, “Francis and Angela,” which explores affinities between Angela and both St Francis and St Clare of Assisi. These studies, however, are not well-known.

Jubilee Year 2025 coincided with the 5^th Centenary of St Angela’s Holy Year Pilgrimage to Rome. Our pilgrimage “In the Footsteps of Angela,” included visits to several Franciscan sites, beginning with the Sacro Monte of Varallo. Salò marks the beginning of Angela’s life as a Franciscan tertiary. From there we set out across the Lake to the Isola del Garda, which was a Franciscan retreat and house of studies in Angela’s day. The visit to island where St Francis himself had made retreat immersed us in the contemplative aspect of her commitment and underlined the Franciscan heritage of the region.

Stopping in Assisi enroute to Rome, we made the ascent to the Carcela hermitage on Mt Subasio. Its solitude witnesses to the draw to prayer which has grounded and animated the movement from the time of Francis. We still hear its dynamic echo in the Merician charism. On the threshold of my own Ursuline commitment, I heard its call reverberating in the Andes in the voice of St Francis: The world is my cloister, my body is my hermitage and my soul is the hermit within.

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For a deeper appreciation of Franciscan influence in the life and spirituality of St Angela, we offer the following reflections. For additional articles, see the Angela-Franciscan Resource List. A 2026 overview of these studies is provided in  Franciscan Influences in Merician Spirituality: A Survey of Studies.

• Carolyn M. Brockland, OSU. “Elements of Franciscan Spirituality in the Life and Writings of Angela Merici.”
• Stefan Federbusch, OFM. “Drawing One Another to the Lord: The Pedagogy of Love in Angela Merici and Francis of Assisi.”
• Marie Seynaeve, OSU. “Francis & Angela.”
• Germaine Thorburn, OSU. “Angela Merici & Francis of Assisi: Comparative Spirituality,” ca. 1970s.
• M. Ignatius Stone, OSU. “Franciscans,” (Angela’s Alphabet entry). 2009.
• Teresa Ledochowska, OSU. “Angela’s connection with the Franciscans,” and “The Writings of Angela Merici: St Angela and St Francis of Assisi,”
• Luciana Mariani OSU, Elisa Tarolli & Marie Seynaeve OSU. “The Franciscan Tertiary.”

In 2022, in the midst of a global pandemic, American Ursulines gathered virtually for a six-week Convocation Pilgrimage of Challenge and Change. For the past three years the osuconvo.com website has housed the shared resources of that experience and has archived documents from past Inter-Ursuline gatherings. For 2024-2025, we launched Pilgrim 500 in commemoration of St Angela’s pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 1524 and to Rome for the the 1525 Holy Year. To deepen our reflection the website shared past reflections on the “decade of pilgrimages” in Angela’s life and its meaning for our own spiritual journeys. After three years, it is now time to close the last of the little “holy doors” of our osuconvo.com website piazza. Yet, as we close a door, we open a window!

The 2022 Pilgrim Guidebook (with 2025 link update) still links to the virtual convocation resources (the Convo Station Outline & Index offers a simple link update). The Inter-Ursuline Index of Documents from the website also has active links. The documents may be downloaded and will be housed on this Angela Merici Online Resources [AMOR] website, www.mericistudies.org.

As we gather across centuries and across continents, insieme with Saint Angela, to celebrate her Feast on January 27^th, on behalf of the Madre, reach out and touch the hand of a companion on the journey….

ANDATE CON DIO !         Go with God!   

Angela Feast Day Liturgy Resources:

Ursuline Book of Prayer (condensed) & German Federation Proper for Eucharist & Hours (translated)

Still experiencing the challenge and change of our 6-week virtual Pilgrimage last fall during the 2022 Ursuline Convocation?  Perhaps you are hoping to revisit one of the Stations or tap into the contemplative quiet of one of the virtual retreats.  Rejoice! The osuconvo.com website is now an open piazza!  Yes, you can still navigate your way from Angela’s Italy to Mexico by clicking the upper “Pilgrimage 2022” tab, then clicking onto the Station you would like to visit. Yet, watch in the coming months for a streamlined Convocation website, complete with a Table of Contents to facilitate access to its rich resources!  So many resources!

The digital Pilgrim’s Guidebook to the 2022 Pilgrimage is designed to put those riches at your fingertips, whether online here or downloaded to your own desktop!  A convenient Table of Contents allows you to click to each station’s summary and outline, complete with live links not only to the full station recordings, but also to featured sections within each station.  Links to Tours and Piazza highlights are also provided, as well as transcripts and text translations as available.  An Index of Media categorized by subject allows you to draw media from different stations into conversation.  If you are intrigued by one of the stations, or perhaps a site we didn’t even visit on pilgrimage, the Ursuline Website Directory is a gateway to a host of new piazzas!

The OSU Convocation website will continue to provide Piazza space for our North American Ursuline Family and to extend a lively welcome to our Global family and friends.  Check out the Ursuline Education Network [UEN] website, as well, and explore the exciting ways it continues to unfold the 2022 Convocation’s curriculum potential over the next three years.  Meanwhile, Angela Merici Online Resources [AMOR] is already combing through documents from past Convocations and regional colloquiums to share their insights with new generations of Angela’s Family.  The Pilgrim’s Guidebook gives new impetus to our efforts to both expand the resources available through this mericistudies.org website and to make them more readily accessible, online or off.  AMOR is diffusive!

Our 2022 North American Ursuline Virtual Convocation was energetically international with participation extending into Central and South America!  Despite technical challenges with translation, we embraced English, French and Spanish (with honorable mention of Italian!).  Sustaining the momentum, the digital agenda of the AMOR engages translation to expand our resources, broaden our perspectives and deepen our bonds, crossing continents with as light a footprint as the Madre herself.

With the close of one Convocation, the next triennium is already on the horizon.  The Year of Grace 2025 will launch the Merician Decade leading us to the 5th Centenary of the Foundation of the Company of St Ursula!  May the Ursuline Half-Millenium benchmark find us gathered in spirit across a global piazza, creatively diverse and whole-heartedly insieme, with St Angela Merici ever in our midst!

Convocation is as much journey as gathering, and for Angela both are sacramental. The 2019 North American Ursuline Convocation was seminal for the Angela Merici Online Resources [AMOR] Project and mericistudies.org website.  As we shared our visions in table discussions and coffee conversations there in St. Louis, we began to look forward to the next convocation. At its close, beneath that buzz of last lobby exchanges, this new Ursuline Collaborative was nascent in the silent digital data download of pictures from the 2017 Angela Pilgrimage co-led by Sister Lisa Marie Belz, now featured in Gallo Tours!

Angela’s homeland was Ground-Zero for Covid-19 in Europe.  Yet, just as the chaos of Angela’s day gave creative rise to the Company, the pandemic has given impetus to the convergence of several virtual and online Ursuline initiatives.  The past three years have witnessed the development of virtual retreats, a virtual oratory, the AMOR online resource library and, now, our first virtual Convocation. Upon its conclusion, in conjunction with the Ursuline Education Network [UEN], videos from the Stations will be developed into a curriculum.  Beyond our time of virtual Pilgrimage, the Convocation website will house the 2022 Station recordings [and could even serve as an archival repository for those past convocation materials presently housed in a box of binders!].  This moment offers us an opportunity to expand our collaboration and to explore the resources we share.

This website of Angela Merici Online Resources [AMOR] is primarily intended to facilitate research and access (especially through links) to media addressing Merician spirituality and the Ursuline charism. Bibliographic entries help identify resources and also indicate where access is available online. Although the primary focus is on English language materials, the collection continues to expand through translation. As a North American initiative, we anticipate that parallel collections will be developed in French and Spanish. Already we have had the joy of discovering troves of resources archived on the websites of the Centro Mericiano and of the Roman Union French Province and Generalate.

The AMOR Project, which sustains the mericistudies.org website, has the urgent purpose of identifying, curating and digitizing those past papers, conferences, musical compositions and artwork often not currently known or available beyond Ursuline congregations.  AMOR continues to seek out new and old resources, identify sources and solicit permissions, and digitize or link to existing online materials. Beginning in 2023, the website content will be expanded and the format further developed. It is a work which invites collaboration and contribution on many fronts.  To help us collect unpublished materials, we hope to identify contacts within each Ursuline congregation and province.

Collaborative from our inception, we are open to those interested in participating in the expanding vision of AMOR, for as Angela reminds us, that is the way love acts and works…

Buen Camino! Bon Chemin! Happy Trails!

Laudato si, mi Signor! Be praised, my Lord!  Saint Francis’ invitation to unite with all creatures resonates with our Ursuline motto: Be Glory to the Only God.  In the spirit of Saint Angela Merici, we seek to live in harmony with all creation, and so as Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, it is with great and eager hearts that we respond to the invitation of Pope Francis’ to embark on a 7-year pilgrimage towards integral ecology.

Our charism calls us to respect the diversity and dignity of God’s creation and open our hearts to the promptings of the Spirit. In so doing, we are becoming more aware of the Cry of Earth and the Cry of Humanity.  In our 2020 congregational Chapter, we resolved to engage in collaborative relationships to more effectively respond to the global crises and societal challenges which confront our world.

The encyclical Laudato Si emphasizes the interrelation of these issues from the perspective of integral ecology, as reflected in the United Nations sustainable development goals.  This integral perspective already informs much of what we do and how we do it, yet the urgency of the climate crisis, as indicated by most recent scientific data, and brought home by natural disasters, presses us to a renewed ecological examen and conversion.

Essential to our Gospel witness, we have attempted to model social and ecological responsibility in our institutions and through our mission.  Our ministries, especially in Appalachia and Peru, have helped us recognize the close interplay of environment and human well-being, as well as the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation and pollution on economically disadvantaged and marginalized communities.

As we continue to learn more about the causes, impact and intersection of environmental issues and global crises, the Laudato Si Action Platform offers us an opportunity to amplify our Chapter resolution through a public statement of solidarity with the oppressed and exploited in our global community, even Earth itself.

In developing our own Laudato Si Action Plan, we are encouraged to consider what it is ours to do, according to our charism, mission, and present reality. Saint Angela further reminds us to discern “if according to times and circumstances there is a need to do something differently…” Science and conscience both call for a concerted effort to change ensconced patterns of domination, exploitation, and exclusion. Yet, this transformation first requires metanoia – a change in mind and heart.

Saint Angela, following in the footsteps of Christ while on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, experienced a mysterious blindness which opened the eyes of her soul. As we look upon the Spirit-filled world with the eyes of our heart, we discover the sacramentality of all creation, and reverence it as the graced channel and sign of God’s love and life.

As we foster sensitivity to God’s continuing revelation and goodness through creation, daily life becomes a constant encounter with God. Taught by Jesus Christ, we learn to live in this world with simplicity, freedom and moderation.

Infused with the Beatitudes, we manifest the spirit of poverty by sharing with those in need, and working for justice, freedom from oppression and equitable access to the world’s goods. Our conscientious care of the environment and earth’s resources honors the gift of our Common Home.

Saint Angela’s spiritual vision is born out of the experience of darkness:  Saint Oscar Romero noted, “Some things can only be seen through eyes which have wept…” Like us, Saint Angela witnessed a world on fire – Brescia was burned and bloody, sacked again and again. With Christ, she looked upon the devastation with compassion as with and to others she reached out in mercy.

To its turmoil and corruption, she spoke Truth and Reconciliation –restoring relationships.  So also, by our life in a community of Christian love we are to witness a way of love and peace for gathering up all creation into God’s plan.  Siate piacevole… We are to be a peace-willed presence wherever we find ourselves…wherever we find our neighbor.

Saint Angela herself guides our commitment. Grounded in the Gospel, Jesus Christ is her only Treasure, hidden in the field which is the world – this world in which he lived 33 years for love of us. In the very earthiness of each individual creature, she sees with the eyes of her soul the inscape of its own unique God-given dignity, beauty and purpose.

She is obedient – listening and hearing – every creature out of reverence for Christ and consonant with her own integrity. Thus, created and sustained in Trinitarian love, she exhorts us to strive to form community – living in harmony with one another, with all creation, and with the Lover of us all.

As Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, we express our charism as: “A contemplative love of God and a resulting openness and eagerness to serve the needs of others.  This prayerful grounding in God’s love reveals our interrelation with all creation (apart from “use-value”) and inspires our service: for, as Sharon Bidwell says, We care for what we love….

Seen through the prism of Laudato Si, the place of others in our charism is illuminated: the light of Truth refracts into bright colors; the spectrum is broadened, inclusive and diverse.  Others embraces all of creation…

Yet, we honor the distinctiveness of each one… individually… as an icon inscribed on the heart: for as Saint Angela says: this is the way true love acts and works… Our Ursuline charism invites us to live integrally this ecology of the heart.

May the Lover of us all enlighten us, the Holy Spirit inspire us, and Jesus Christ teach us to build community and live together in harmony in this world God so loves. Soli Deo Gloria.

Dans le cadre de la neuvaine de Notre Dame du Saint Cordon, le samedi 18 septembre 2021 à 19h, les Ursulines de Saint-Saulve offrent à la paroisse Saint Géry de Valenciennes le reliquaire de leurs sœurs martyres.  Que les Bienheureuses Ursulines martyres de Valenciennes intercèdent pour nous et nous soutiennent de leur prière sur notre route quotidienne ! Vous pourrez suivre cette célébration à l’adresse qui sera indiquée sur le site de notre Province: https://ursulines.union.romaine.catholique.fr/Reliquaire

French Province Gallery

Centro Mericiano Art Catalogues

German Federation Media Angela songs

Denise Pyles, author/composer, vocalist,  Angela Songs, sung with Mary Claire Van Orsdal, accompaniment & vocal, Louisville, KY, 1989.  New recording 2022.  Lyrics

Angela’s Prayer  harmonization sung by St. Ursula Academy Concert Choir of Toledo

Angela’s Story

Charism Chant

Like a Piazza [Siate Piacevolezza]

Live in Harmony

Pilgrim Women

Soli Deo Gloria

Walking in Your Footsteps [Litany]

Donna Frey, OSU (Toledo), author/composer [descant, Michael Bogdan], Live in Harmony

Julia Vigue, author/composer, Insieme   Instrumental   Sheet Music   Global video

St. Angela ‘founded the Company of St. Ursula, endowing it with its own Rule’ and highlighting the ‘profound evangelical spirit and intense spiritual life’ Testament and in the Counsels.

She thanks Bishop Adriano Tessarollo, Ecclesiastical Assistant to the Council of the Federation of the Companies of St Angela and Ursula, for correcting the record so that future preaching has a more accurate basis in Angela’s life and spirituality.