January 27 is the feast of St. Angela Merici (1474-1540), the foundress of the Company of St. Ursula — the Ursulines — and the pioneer of women's education in the Church. Born at Desenzano, on Lake Garda, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis after the death of her parents, and in 1516 moved to Brescia, where she gathered a group of women for the education of poor girls. The Company of St. Ursula, founded in 1535, was a new kind of religious institute: women living in their own homes, taking vows, and working in the world — the first secular institute of women in the Church.
Angela's Rule (1535) gave the Ursulines their form: simple vows, no common life, no enclosure, and the work of teaching girls. The model spread through Italy and France, and the Ursuline schools became the Catholic alternative to the new Protestant girls' schools of the Reformation. The first Ursuline monastery with enclosure was founded at Milan in 1572, and the Ursulines became a cloistered order in 1612, while the original secular form continued in Italy.
Angela died at Brescia in 1540 and was canonized in 1807. Her body lies in the Church of Sant'Angela Merici at Brescia, in the former Ursuline house. From Brescia, where she founded the Company, to Milan, where the Ursulines took enclosure, the January 27 feast is the feast of the woman who founded the first institute for the education of girls.
