"Which will love him more?"
Meditation: Luke 7:36-50

What fuels the love that surpasses all other loves? Unbounding
gratitude for sure! No one who met Jesus could do so with
indifference. They were either attracted to him or repelled by him.
Why did a rabbi invite Jesus to a nice dinner and then treat him
discourteously by neglecting to give him the customary signs of
respect and honor? Simon was very likely a collector of celebrities.
He patronized Jesus because of his popularity with the crowds. Why did
he criticize Jesus' compassionate treatment of a woman of ill repute -
most likely a prostitute? The Pharisees shunned the company of public
sinners and in so doing they neglected to give them the help they
needed to find healing and wholeness.

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21 July – Blessed Angelina of Marsciano TOR
Also known as
Angelina of Montegiove
Angelina of Corbara
Angelina of Foligno

Memorials
14 July
15 July on some calendars
21 July on some calendars

Foundress and Abbess, childless, Widow, Apostle of the poor, sick and
children – also known as Angelina of Montegiove or of Corbara. Born in
1357 in Montegiove, Umbria, Italy and died on 14 July 1435 in Foligno,
Umbria. Patronage – the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angelina.

She founded a Congregation of Religious Sisters of the Franciscan
Third Order Regular, known today as the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed
Angelina. She is generally credited with the founding of the Third
Order Regular for women, as her religious Congregation marked the
establishment of the first Franciscan community of women living under
the Rule of the Third Order Regular authorised by Pope Nicholas V.
Unlike the Second Order of the Franciscan movement, the Poor Clare
nuns, they were not an enclosed religious order but have been active
in serving the poor around them, for much of their history. She is commemorated by the Franciscans on 4 June. Her liturgical feast is
today though post 1969 the date was moved to 13 June.
In 1357, Angelina was born in her ancestral Castle of Montegiove, some
40 kilometers from Orvieto, in Umbria, then part of the Papal States.
She was the daughter of Jacopo Angioballi, the Count of Marsciano and
of Anna, the daughter of the Count of Corbara, which is why sometimes
she is also referred to as Angelina of Corbara.

Left orphaned and alone, except for one sister, by the age of six, she
was raised by her grandparents. Angelina was married at age 15 to
Giovanni da Terni, the Count of Civitella del Tronto, in the Abruzzo
region, within the Kingdom of Naples but he died only two years later,
leaving her a childless widow. His death left Angelina in charge of
his castle and estate.

It was then that Angelina made the decision to dedicate her life to
God (it would appear that she had considered being a nun before she
was married). She was clothed as a Franciscan tertiary and, with
several companions, began an apostolic mission around the countryside
of the kingdom, preaching the values of repentance and virginity, as
well as service to those in need.

Angelina’s progress was arrested by the disturbance she caused in the communities, where she called for young women to adopt religious life.
She was doubly charged with sorcery, the imagined origin of her sway
over women and of heresy, because of her allegedly Manichean
opposition to marriage. Angelina defended herself before Ladislas, the
King of Naples, who dismissed the charges but expelled her and her
companions from the kingdom, in order to avoid further complaints.

Angelina then went to Assisi, where she stopped to rest and to pray at
the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the cradle of the Franciscan
Order. There, she experienced a vision, wherein God instructed her to
found a cloistered Monastery under the Rule of the Third Order of
Saint Francis in Foligno. The local Bishop approved the plans with
little hesitation, as they meant an end to her troublesome active
ministry. She settled in Foligno about 1394. She soon joined the
Monastery of St Anna, a small community of women Franciscan
tertiaries, which had been founded in 1388 by the Blessed Paoluccio
Trinci (died 1390), a Franciscan friar who had been related to her
sister through marriage. Known as the “Monastery of the
Countesses”—due to the social standing of most of its members, he had established it out of his vision of having these noble women of the
city serve as an evangelising force in their society. The women lived
ascetic lives in the Monastery and, not being nuns, followed a very
informal structure, free to come and go as they wished, that they
might be able to serve the poor and sick of the region.

Angelina took a leadership role in the small group and began to
organise their lives into a more regular form. By 1397 she was
considered the leader of the twelve founding members. In 1403 she was
able to obtain a Papal Bull from Pope Boniface IX which formally
recognised the status of the house as a Monastery. The reputation of
the community in Foligno was so successful, that quickly communities
of Franciscan tertiary women throughout the region sought to affiliate
with them. Communities under her authority were soon established in
Florence, Spoleto, Assisi and Viterbo, along with eleven others,
before Angelina’s death in 1435.

The diverse communities were recognised as a Congregation by Pope
Martin V in 1428. This decree also allowed them to elect a Minister
General (a title since reserved for the head of the friars) who would
have the right of canonical visitation of the other communities. The Congregation held its first general elections in 1430, in which Angela
was elected their first Minister General. In this office, she
developed the Statutes for the Congregation, to be followed by all its
houses.

This degree of independence was not welcomed by the Friars Minor, who
had been granted complete authority over the tertiaries that same
year. The Minister General of the Friars, Guglielmo da Casala,
demanded that the Third Order Sisters of the Congregation be confirmed
under obedience to him. Angelina had to submit and, in a public
ceremony held in the Friars’ church in Foligno on 5 November 1430,
vowed obedience to the local Minister Provincial.

This act of obedience, however, was repudiated by the chapter of the
community at Santa Anna, saying that it was invalid due to having been
forced under duress and without their approval. The Holy See confirmed
their autonomy the following year. To avoid the potential for future
repetition of this conflict, the Congregation put themselves under the obedience of their local Bishops, with their spiritual direction to
come from the Friars of the Third Order Regular of St Francis of
Penance.

Angeline died on 14 July 1435 and was interred in the Church of St
Francis in Foligno. Her remains were removed to a grander shrine in
1492. Her cultus was approved and Beatification granted on 8 March
1825 by Pope Leo XII.

Due to the requirement of keeping their communities small and simple, Angelina’s Congregation gained greatest popularity in the 15th and
16th centuries. In 1428, they had been put briefly by Pope Martin V
under the jurisdiction of the Friars Minor, with a specific mandate
for the education and instruction of young girls. Even so, their work
was fairly apostolic until they were required to become an enclosed
religious order in 1617, having taken solemn vows with a strict
separation from the affairs of the external world, limited to the
education of girls within the cloister. With a 1903 lift of papal
enclosure, a wider apostolate was again permitted and the Congregation
became known as the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angelina. As of
1750, they consisted of 11 houses and 80 members.
As of the year 2000, they have houses in Brazil, Madagascar and
Switzerland, as well as in Italy.

https://anastpaul.com/2020/07/21/

Saint Quote:
The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends,
but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls
see each other.
The more we are united to Him by love,
the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.
-- St. Elizebeth Ann Seton


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17. With those who are perfect and walk with simplicity, there is
nothing small and contemptible, if it be a thing that pleases God; for
the pleasure of God is the object at which alone they aim, and which
is the reason, the measure, and the reward of all their occupations,
actions, and plans; and so, in whatever they find this, it is for them
a great and important thing.
--St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

This is the reason why St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. John Berchmans, St.
Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, and so many others were so observant even of
the least Rule, so exact in all their ordinary occupations and so
careful to perform well every work trusted to them, however trifling
it might be. It is stated that the celebrated Father Ribera kept up
through his whole life the same exact observance which marked his
novitiate.

(Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints". July: Simplicity)

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