The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation

by Anonymous

Although in her humility and self-distrust she still shrank as much as ever from the responsibility of founding a religious Order, she could not conceal from herself that the time had come, when, for various reasons, decisive measures should no longer be deferred. Urged onwards by the counsels of her director, as well as by the voice of inspiration, she therefore determined at last to take the definite, though only preparatory step, of assembling a few companions whom she could gradually initiate in her views and form to the intended institute. Accordingly, about the end of the year 1533, she proposed to twelve pious ladies of the town to associate themselves with her in a life of prayer and good works, to which they readily agreed. She then explained to them the nature and object of the future foundation in which they would one day be expected to co-operate with her, at the same time suggesting the necessity of a certain course of preliminary training under her personal direction. With one accord they placed themselves wholly at the disposal of the saintly Mother, who devoted herself with all the ardour of her zeal to imbue them thoroughly with the true spirit of the holy state to which they aspired. She allowed them to reside with their families as before, but required that they should assemble every day in a common oratory for prayer and instruction, and employ their time in the particular works of charity appointed at the daily meetings. These were held at first in a room given to the saint by the Canons of the Church of St. Afra; it adjoined the church, which enabled her to spend a considerable portion of the night in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Being soon found too small for a general oratory, a more commodious one was substituted through the generosity of a pious widow.

For two years more, no farther progress was made. Angela was sixty-one, and the prophetic vision of full forty years before, was but a vision still. When would it become a reality? Soon now, for our Lord Himself was about to interpose, and by mingled reproach and reproof, to conquer the irresolution of His humble servant. Condescending to appear to her in person, He reprimanded her for her hesitation, thus at once overwhelming her with regret and confusion, and dispelling every lingering shadow of doubt as to His designs. A moment's hesitation after this would have seemed too long; she commenced her preparations at once, and on the feast of St. Catherine, November 25th, 1535, just one year after the establishment of the Society of Jesus, she inaugurated the infant institute at Brescia. On the same day, she was joined by fifteen additional members, making with the original twelve, the twenty-seven pillars on which the edifice was to rest, she being herself the foundation stone. Too humble to attach her own name to the Congregation, she decided on. giving it that of the Holy Virgin and Martyr St. Ursula, who had previously appeared to her in a celestial vision, and encouraged her to carry out her inspiration.

In the design of Saint Angela, the life of the Ursuline was to be a union of prayer and action. She was to employ nearly as much time in the functions of Mary as if belonging to the contemplative orders, and to devote herself besides to the instruction of the ignorant, and first, and before all, to the education of the young. With these, the duties forming her specific end, she was to combine the special practices now attached to the Sisters of Charity.

Considering the spiritual apathy then so generally prevalent, it was not to be expected that persons needing instruction would go far to seek it, therefore, to adapt her work to the exigencies of the ages Saint Angela decided that instead of retiring within convent walls, the members of the Society should continue to live in their own homes, whence they could more easily go in pursuit of the ignorant, and where too they would have wider opportunities of, doing good by the silent influence of example. "In these critical times," said the holy Foundress, "let us place models of virtue in the midst of the corrupt world itself, and oppose living barriers to the ravages of heresy and the inroads of vice." The Sisters were to continue to meet at their oratory for spiritual exercises, conferences, and necessary business arrangements; their dress was to be dark in colour and plain in texture, but no particular form was made obligatory. Foreseeing the social changes which time would effect, St. Angela with her characteristic prudence empowered the Sisters to modify the manner of life now adopted, as future circumstances might render it desirable. She arranged in detail the internal organization of the Society, and her regulations bore ample evidence to her wisdom, intelligence and heavenly enlightenment. The Rule drawn up by the holy Foundress, and accepted by the Sisters, received the unqualified approval of the Bishop of Brescia, and on the 18th of March, 1537, she was unanimously elected first Superior of the Society, notwithstanding her earnest petition to be allowed to labour until death in the lowest rank, which she said was the only one suited to her. It is a tradition among the Ursulines, that on the eve of the election, the glorious St. Ursula again appeared to her during one of her frequent ecstasies, and consoled her by the assurance that she had taken the institution under her special patronage, that it was agreeable to God, and that it would be perpetuated from age to age, even to the end of the world. In little more than a month after its foundation, the number of the members had increased from twenty-seven to seventy-two, all filled with the spirit of their holy Mother; all inflamed with liveliest zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of their neighbour. They were to be seen teaching the ignorant, relieving the poor, visiting the prisons and hospitals, and diffusing all around the good odour of Jesus Christ, and so great was the veneration which the Society inspired, that it was usually designated as the holy Company. Far from opposing, the authorities both civil and ecclesiastical favoured its progress, and the highest dignitaries of the city gladly assisted at the spiritual instructions given on certain days in the oratory of Saint Angela and her Sisters.

The first great aim of the new Superior was to train her fervent novices to perfection, inspiring them with thorough detachment from the world, an ardent desire of God's glory, and a tender charity for their neighbour. Her second object was to procure the solemn approbation of the Holy See for the Society; but this she did not live to receive, having survived the foundation only three years. In the spring of 1539 she gradually sank into a state of utter physical exhaustion, which she correctly interpreted as a certain, though not, perhaps, an immediate, forerunner of dissolution. She lingered until the commencement of the following year, when, increased debility warning her that the end could not be far distant, she summoned the leading members of the Society to receive her last counsels. Happily the golden words had been previously committed to writing, and thus the treasure has descended to her spiritual daughters of all generations. She concluded her impressive advice to the Directresses by making them the bearers of her final farewell to all the Sisters. "Tell them," she said, "that I shall ever be in the midst of them, and that I shall know them better, and help them more efficaciously, after my departure, than when on earth. Tell them not to grieve at our temporary separation, but to look forward to our meeting in heaven, where Jesus reigns. Let them raise their hearts and hopes to that blessed home, high above this passing world, seeking their Treasure and their Friend in Jesus alone, who sits at the right hand of the Father in the kingdom of eternal peace." Her "Last Testament," as it was called, was addressed to the Sisters in general, and reserved by her own direction to be read to them after her death. As a compendium of her lessons of holiness, and an effusion of her sweet spirit of charity, it may well be considered a legacy worthy of such a Mother. It concludes by the consoling declaration that "the Society is assuredly the work of the hand of the Most High, who will never abandon that work while time endures."

And now the earthly task of the dying saint was accomplished. After lingering yet a few days among her sorrowing children, she received the last rites of the Church in presence of the whole Ursuline family, numbering one hundred and fifty members, and, after the solemn ceremony, exhorted them to charity, obedience, humility, observance of rule and love of God. "O Jesus!" she said in conclusion, "bless this company of virgins irrevocably consecrated to Thy service. Grant that as they increase in numbers, they may also grow in grace, in fervour and in wisdom before Thee and before Thy servants." At her own desire she had been clothed in the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, and that she might die in the practice of her beloved poverty, she had herself removed, tradition says, from the poor bed she had occupied in her illness, to the rush mat on the ground which had formed her ordinary resting-place in health. Her dying words were fervent acts of the theological virtues, but she seemed to dwell, by preference, on the act of charity, returning to it continually. "Yes, my God, I love Thee!" she said. "Why cannot I love Thee infinitely? Holy Virgin! Blessed Spirits: lend me your hearts to love Jesus. How long shall I be banished from Thy presence, O Lord? Who will give me wings to fly to Thee, the only Object of my love? Break the chains of my captivity. Receive the soul which languishes for Thee; which can no longer live without Thee." Then, with Jesus on the cross, she exclaimed, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" They were her last words, no sooner spoken than she gave up her soul to God—"peacefully," says her historian, "as a child composing itself to sleep in its mother's arms." She died on the 27th of January, 1540, at half-past nine in the evening, aged sixty-six or sixty-seven.

Her precious remains repose in the Church of St. Afra, at Brescia, and are in a state of wonderful preservation. They are clothed in the brown habit of St. Francis, with its white cord. The apartment in which she breathed her last has been kept with religious veneration in exactly the same condition as when she occupied it during life, except for the introduction of a few engravings representing the principal events of her history. On the wall, opposite the window, is an inscription, in gilt letters, to the following effect:—"This poor room was the resort of the most learned theologians and the most gifted ecclesiastics, who departed from their conferences with St. Angela, amazed at the lights which she had communicated to them." Her portrait, preserved at Brescia, and said to be a true likeness, is of great beauty; it was taken after death. Her statue at St. Peter's occupies the first niche on the upper row at the left of the Confession of St. Peter. Although of colossal dimensions, its elevated position apparently reduces it to life-size. It is a common tribute of love and veneration from all her children throughout the world. The name of Angela was enrolled on the catalogue of the saints in 1807 by Pope Pius VII. In the foregoing outline of her history, no attempt has been made to portray the beauty of that inner life, which is to the saint what the perfume is to the rose. Many elaborate works have already done justice to the subject, which does not enter into a passing notice like the present, intended only to trace to its origin the Order illustrated by the virtues of the Mother of the Incarnation, as well as of its holy Foundress.

On the 9th of June, 1544, Pope Paul III. granted a Bull approving and confirming the Institution of St. Angela, but, as already noticed, she had then been called to her reward. After her death, the institute spread rapidly through many towns of Italy. Among the first to adopt it was Dezenzano, the scene of her early labours. In Milan, especially, it found an efficacious patron and protector in the great St. Charles Borromeo, to whose zeal it is immensely indebted. In 1568 he introduced it into his diocese, where it spread so wonderfully that, in the capital alone, it counted eighteen houses and six hundred sisters.

We have seen that the saintly Foundress gave an anticipated sanction, for such modifications of the primitive Rule as might be found necessary in the practical development of the great work which she had lived to establish, but not to perfect. The first modification was introduced by St. Charles. Anxious to consolidate a work whose utility to the Church he clearly foresaw, he procured from Pope Gregory XIII. a Bull renewing and ratifying the first approval of the Rule, authorizing Ursulines to make the three simple vows after a probation of one or two years, and permitting them to live in community. He also organized the schools, and introduced a mitigated form of cloister, the Sisters not being allowed to leave the house without a particular permission. This branch of the Society is known as the Congregation of Milan.

But although the Ursuline Order took its rise in Italy, its perfect development is to be sought in France, a country connected with the name of its glorious Patroness, St. Ursula, as Italy is identified with that of its blessed Foundress, St. Angela. It was to the French shores that the royal maiden was steering her course when she and her retinue fell into the hands of the savage Huns, and, in defending the crown of their virginity, won, in addition, the diadem of martyrs. Here, then, we naturally expect to find a numerous company rallying round the standard of St. Ursula and St. Angela; nor are we disappointed. Before the great Revolution, France numbered fully three hundred and sixty houses of the Order; many of those then suppressed, have not been restored, yet she still counts at least one hundred and thirty, and it is her especial boast that, while in other lands the Ursuline has lived and laboured for her Master's cause, here she has not only lived and laboured, but died a martyr's death for it.