Saint Angela of Foligno

Widow (1249-1309)

Feast – January 4

4th Duke of Gandía, Francisco in 1539 convoyed the corpse of the beautiful Isabella, Empress of the Carnation of Portugal, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to her burial place in Granada. On arrival Francisco opened the casket for final examination before burial. When he saw the decaying body, he was shaken so deeply that after his wife Eleanor died in 1546 and making adequate provisions for his children, he renounced his titles and enter the newly formed Society of Jesus. Today he is venerated as Saint Francis Borgia.

The Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, struck fear into many in the past, and the hope granted by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ motivated them to radically change their ways. Death and the life thereafter became their priority and many of them gained reverence for the Catholic Church.

St. Angela of Foligno the “great medieval mystic,” known as “Mistress of Theologians” was one whose fear of damnation led her to the confessional.

Born in 1249 in the small Umbrian town of Foligno, Italy, where she lived most of her life. There was nothing remarkable about her early years. Like the most youths born into a wealthy family she reveled in luxury and sensuality. Married perhaps at an early age to a rich man of Foligno she ruled a large household of children and servants. There was nothing scandalous about her life, but she loved the world and its pleasures. She used her husband’s wealth to indulge herself in possessions, proud and lacking in patience she lived, according to her own admission, for over thirty years a mortally sinful life.

Around 1285, she had a vision of St. Francis of Assisi and recognized the emptiness of her life. Moved by the vision she confessed to a friar, but afraid to tell her most serious sins she made a bad confession and then a sacrilegious Communion. Only greater remorse followed. Tormented in soul, she prayed to Saint Francis for help. The next day she made a complete and sincere confession. From that time, St. Angela began to lead a life devoted to higher perfection. Three years later her mother, husband, and sons died of a plague. From this point on, her life completely changed. As a widow, she was free to concentrate on her pursuit of holiness. With one serving woman, Masazuola, as her companion, she began to divest herself of her possessions. The thought of her sins gave her a desire for penance, suffering, and reparation. She modeled herself on St. Francis of Assisi and joined the Franciscan Third Order in 1291. St. Angela expected to meet Christ in the poor and lived like St. Francis, as a mendicant, a poor beggar, completely dependent upon the charity of others. She placed herself under the direction of a Franciscan friar named Arnoldo (Arnold), who would serve as her confessor. God chose her to fulfill the role of a mystic. At the drop of a hat, she could fall into a trance. Her confessor recorded from her own lips the visions and ecstasies that were granted to her with startling frequency. He recorded 30 steps of her tortured spiritual journey, which always seemed to blend awareness and absence of God, certitude and doubt, joy and agony.

For St. Angela the whole world was filled with God, and she was in almost constant communion with Him. She herself tells us that at times she was overcome with grief because she could see nothing but the extraordinary goodness of God, and in contrast, the vanity of earthly things and the ingratitude of creatures. The sight of a crucifix produced in her torrents of tears. At one period of her life the intimacy she enjoyed with God was entirely withheld from her.

The fame of St. Angela’s sanctity gathered around her a small band of disciples who strove under her direction to advance in holiness.

She instructed her followers: “No one can be saved without divine light. Divine light causes us to begin and to make progress, and it leads us to the summit of perfection. Therefore if you want to begin and to receive this divine light, pray. If you have begun to make progress, pray. And if you have reached the summit of perfection and want to be super-illumined so as to remain in that state, pray. If you want faith, pray. If you want hope, pray. If you want charity, pray. If you want poverty, pray. If you want obedience, pray. If you want chastity, pray. If you want humility, pray. If you want meekness, pray. If you want fortitude, pray. If you want any virtue, pray.”

“And pray in this fashion: always reading the Book of Life, that is, the life of the God-man, Jesus Christ, whose life consisted of poverty, pain, contempt and true obedience.”

For St. Angela prayer was followed by action, that why she established at Foligno a religious community of women which refused to become an enclosed religious order so that it might continue her vision of caring for those in need. “I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works” (James 2:18)

St. Angela and her community were caring for lepers at the hospital in Foligno. On Holy Thursday, 1292 after they had washed a man who was badly decomposed, they drank some of the bathwater. The experience so moved Angela that she says all the way home she felt “as if we had received Holy Communion.”

At Christmas 1308, ST. Angela told her companions she would die shortly. A few days later, she had a vision of Christ appearing to her and promising to come personally to take her to heaven. She died surrounded by her community of disciples on 3 January 1309.

Her remains repose in the Church of St. Francis at Foligno. Many people attributed miracles to her, which were accomplished at her tomb.

References and Excerpts:

[1]          “Saint Angela of Foligno, Widow.” https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_angela_of_foligno.html (accessed Dec. 31, 2021).

[2]          “Saint Angela of Foligno,” Loyola Press. https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/saints/saints-stories-for-all-ages/saint-angela-of-foligno/ (accessed Dec. 31, 2021).

[3]          “Angela of Foligno,” Wikipedia. Oct. 26, 2021. Accessed: Dec. 31, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angela_of_Foligno&oldid=1052012582