Sacred Heart celebrates founder St. Angela Merici

On St. Angela Merici’s feast day, January 27, Sacred Heart Academy will hold a celebratory mass in her honor.

St. Angela Merici is more than just a saint whose feast day is listed on January 27 in the Sacred Heart student planner. In fact, Sacred Heart owes its very existence to St. Angela. According to the website Catholic Online, she founded the Company of St. Ursula, now known as the Ursuline Sisters, which went on to create schools that would provide young girls with a religious education; a goal that was achieved through schools like Sacred Heart Academy and the success of the young women that have attended it.

Her legacy lives on through the teachers at Sacred Heart like Tess Gates, a senior religion teacher who was a student here before she began teaching. When asked what it meant to Ms. Gates to be a teacher at an Ursuline school that was founded upon the works of St. Angela, she responded, “[It] means that my life is forever different because of her, especially since I was educated at Sacred Heart. Because of her, I had that opportunity [to be educated] and now I can help give that opportunity to other young women.”

Second semester of senior religion this 2014-2015 school year is based on learning about the works of St. Angela, how her legacy lives on through the Ursuline charism to serve others through a contemplative love of God, and how girls at SHA can live similar lives to St. Angela once they graduate. Some of the senior religion classes made posters with interesting facts about St. Angela to hang in the hall. They did this to bring awareness of her to the rest of the student body.

St. Angela Merici was born in 1474 in Italy. After the death of her sister, she received a vision from God revealing that her sister was in heaven and that she was to devote her life to God. At a young age, St. Angela answered God’s call and began a way of life completely devoting herself to Christ and serving others.

All around her, St. Angela witnessed poor girls growing up with no education. During the time in which she lived, only rich girls or nuns received an education. This disturbed St. Angela and she felt called to do something about it.

She first began teaching girls in her own home, but later had another vision from God calling her to found an order of women that would devote their lives to the religious teaching of young girls. In 1535, St. Angela gathered with 12 young women in her small home, where they committed themselves in the founding of the Company of St. Ursula.

Also according to Catholic Online, over time, the group grew in number and St. Angela taught her companions how to be consecrated to God and the importance of acting as Christ in the world around them. Their goal was to serve others, and they did so in educating young girls.

To this day, the company of women St. Angela Merici started exists and is known as the Ursuline Sisters. The motto of the schools they began is “serviam”, which is Latin for “I will serve”. Her dedication to Christ and serving others left a legacy behind of quality religious education provided to young women, who then go into the world and carry out St. Angela’s way of living themselves.

St. Angela was young when she answered God’s call. She not only wanted to educate young girls, but show them despite the forces that act against them, they can make a difference in the world in which they live. This idea is carried out every day by the Valkyries at Sacred Heart.

The entire student body, administration, staff and nuns from the Mother House will soon gather in Sacred Heart’s gym to sing, celebrate and honor our founder St. Angela Merici.