The Catholic Defender: Angela of Foligno "the Mistress of Theologians."

She is sometimes called "the Mistress of Theologians." Her tomb is in the church of St. Francis in Foligno. Many miracles have been recorded there.

Born in Foligno on January 4, 1248 to a well-to-do family, she soon lost her father, and received little supervision from her mother. Thus, did she spend youth far from faith. Beautiful, intelligent, passionate, she married a notable local man, by whom she had several children.

Blessed Angela of Foligno was born in 1248 of a prominent family in Foligno, three leagues from Assisi.

Some saints show marks of holiness very early. Not Angela! Born of a leading family in Foligno, Italy, she became immersed in the quest for wealth and social position. As a wife and mother, she continued this life of distraction.

She was born on 21 March, 1474 in Desenzano, a small town on the shore of Lake Garda in Lombardy. When Angela was only 10 years old, she and her older sister became orphans. They went to live with their uncle in Salo, where they led a quiet and devout Catholic Christian life.

In her late 30s, she experienced a moral crisis. She had committed a sin so serious that she feared hell. She prayed through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, who had died some 60 years earlier, and he appeared to her in a dream promising he would render her aid. Soon after, Angela met a relative who was a Franciscan friar and priest. She made a full confession, did penance for her sins, and began to embrace Franciscan spirituality.

Around the age of 40, she recognized the emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the Sacrament of Penance. Her Franciscan confessor helped Angela to seek God’s pardon for her previous life and to dedicate herself to prayer and the works of charity.

Blessed Angela of Foligno was born in 1248 of a prominent family in Foligno, three leagues from Assisi. As a young woman, and also as a wife and mother, she lived only for the world and its vain pleasures. But the grace of God intended to make of her a vessel of election for the comfort and salvation of many. A ray of the divine mercy touched her soul and so strongly affected her as to bring about a conversion.

Shortly after her conversion, her husband and children died. Selling most of her possessions, she entered the Secular Franciscan Order. She was alternately absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of Foligno as a nurse and beggar for their needs. Other women joined her in a religious community.

She also entered the Third Order of St. Francis, and presently found herself the superior and guide of others who followed in her path. Many women joined her, even to the point of taking the three vows. She encouraged them in works of charity, in nursing the sick, and in going personally from door to door to beg for the needs of the poor.

Meanwhile, Angela became still more immersed in the contemplation of the Passion of Christ, and she chose the Sorrowful Mother and the faithful disciple John as her patrons. The sight of the wounds which her Lord suffered for her sins urged her to the practice of still greater austerities. Once Our Lord showed her that His Heart is a safe refuge in all the storms of life. She was soon to be in need of such a refuge. God permitted her to be afflicted with severe temptations. The most horrible and loathsome representations distressed her soul.

At her confessor's advice, Angela wrote her Book of Visions and Instructions. In it she recalls some of the temptations she suffered after her conversion; she also expresses her thanks to God for the Incarnation of Jesus.

Angela's birth date, which is not known with certainty, is often listed as 1248. She was born into a wealthy family at Foligno, in Umbria. Married, perhaps at an early age, she had several children. Angela reports that she loved the world and its pleasures. Around the age of 40, she reportedly had a vision of Francis of Assisi and recognized the emptiness of her life. From that time, she began to lead a life devoted to higher perfection.

After making a pilgrimage to Rome, Angela gave away most of what she owned to the poor. Later, she went on a pilgrimage to Assisi, where she experienced the first of many visions. Her spiritual life deepened and she became a woman of profound prayer. Eventually her spiritual director began recording her mystical visions. It is reported that she also received the stigmata of Christ.

"Enlightened by grace," Blessed Angela of Foligno wrote in this account. "I realized my sinfulness; I was seized with a great fear of being damned, and I shed a flood of tears. I went to confession to be relieved of my sins, but through shame I concealed the most grievous ones, but still I went to Communion. Now my conscience tortured me day and night. I called upon St. Francis for help, and, moved by an inner impulse, I went into a church where a Franciscan Father was then preaching. It is reported that in the year 1285 she had a vision of both the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Francis of Assisi, who called her to penance.

"I gathered courage to confess all my sins to him, and I did this immediately after the sermon. With zeal and perseverance I performed the penance he imposed, but my heart continued to be full of bitterness and shame. I recognized that the divine mercy has saved me from hell, hence I resolved to do rigorous penance; nothing seemed too difficult for me, because I felt I belonged in hell. I called upon the saints, and especially upon the Blessed Virgin, to intercede with God for me.

"It appeared to me now as if they had compassion on me, and I felt the fire of divine love enkindled within me so that I could pray as I never prayed before. I had also received a special grace to contemplate the cross in which Christ had suffered so much for my sins. Sorrow, love, and the desire to sacrifice everything for Him filled my soul."

About this time God harkened to the earnest desire of the penitent: her mother died, then her husband, and soon afterwards all her children. These tragic events were very painful to her; but she made the sacrifice with resignation to the will of God. Being freed from these ties, she dispossessed herself of all her temporal goods with the consent of her confessor, a Franciscan friar named Arnoldo, so that being poor herself, she might walk in the footsteps of her poor Savior. It was to Arnoldo what she dictated her account of her conversion, now known as the ‘Memoriale,’ or the ‘Book of Visions and Instructions.’

In it she recalls some of the temptations she suffered after her conversion; she also expresses her thanks to God for the Incarnation of Jesus. This book and her life earned for Angela the title “Teacher of Theologians.” She was beatified in 1693, and canonized in 2013.

she called out to God, "Glory be to Thee, O Lord! Thy cross is my resting place."

These painful trials lasted over two years; but then the purified and tried servant of the Lord was filled with great consolation. She obtained a marvelous insight into divine things and was very frequently found in ecstasy. For a time she had the stigmata, and for many years Holy Communion was her only food, until at last, completely purified, she entered into the eternal joy of the Supreme Good on January 4, 1310.

Blessed Angela of Foligno said, "To know oneself and to know God, that is the perfection of man; without this knowledge, visions and the greatest gifts are of no account."

Pope Innocent XII approved the continual devotion paid to her at her tomb in Foligno, where many miracles were attributed to her. He beatified her in 1693.

At Christmas 1308, 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 in her sleep on 3 January 1309.

Angela died surrounded by her community of disciples. Her remains repose in the Church of St. Francis at Foligno. Many people attributed miracles to her, which were accomplished at her tomb.

Angela died on January 3, 1309. She was beatified by Pope Clement XI on July 11, 1701. On October 9, 2013, Pope Francis declared her a saint. Her feast day is celebrated on January 4 (January 7 in the United States)

Her incorrupt body is preserved in a glass reliquary at the Church of Saint Francis in Foligno. Numerous miracles have been reported at her tomb. She is known as the “Mistress of Theologians” for her writings and visions.

Words from Angela of Foligno:

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."

God is the one who leads me and elevates me to that state. I do not go to it on my own, for by myself I would not know how to want, desire, or seek it. I am now continually in this state. Furthermore, God very often elevates me to this state with no need, even, for my consent; for when I hope or expect it least, when I am not thinking about anything, suddenly my soul is elevated by God and I hold dominion over and comprehend the whole world. It seems, then, as if I am no longer on earth but in heaven, in God.

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 and want this light to be intensified within you, pray. And if you have reached the summit of perfection, and want to be superillumined so as to remain in that state, pray.

This embrace of God sets ablaze a fire within the soul with which the whole soul burns for Christ. It also produces a light so great that the soul understands the fullness of God's goodness, which it experiences in itself, and which is, moreover, much greater than the soul's experience of it. The effect then of this fire within the soul is to render it certain and secure that Christ is within it. And yet, what we have said is nothing in comparison to what this experience really is.

My heart was drawn out of all worldly concerns and placed in God in such a manner that I could neither think of nor see anything except God. Whether I spoke or ate, or whatever I did, it did not prevent my heart from always being in God.