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Angela Merici had a dream in her beloved Italian countryside that came to fruition in 1535. Throughout the centuries, the message of that dream whispered across the globe; it was welcomed in  Ireland  in 1771.  We rejoice in Angela’s courage because she acted on her dream with open eyes and made it possible. Why did she do what she did? How did she do it? Has what she did any relevance for our lives today? As we reflect on those questions let us look at some of the core elements of her vision.

Firstly, for Angela, unity was central; a unity in diversity, a unity that we nourish in our hearts and then go out and spread around us. It is a unity we have to work at and long for. In her Last Counsel, she writes: “See how important is this unity and concord. So long for it, pursue it, hold onto it with all your strength”. What could be more relevant in the fragmented times in which we live!

Gospel Peace was very close to Angela’s heart. During her lifetime, she often found herself to be a peacemaker. Like ourselves, she, too lived in turbulent times, masked by wars, injustice and corruption. She excelled in making peace between mothers and fathers, between children and their parents, between nobles and politicians. In her Second Counsel, she writes, “Be gentle and compassionate…for you will achieve more with kindness and gentleness than with harshness and sharp rebukes”. She is very clear in her message to all of us to be people of reconciliation at the heart of the world…a clear call to us today

What about her attitude to each individual? She understood the uniqueness of each individual as loved by God. She taught us how to transform our hearts, make them places where others feel at home, find their way, and grow in love and happiness. What a challenge!

God clearly graced Angela with a special gift – a vision for all time. She faithfully brought that vision to fruition. She passed the responsibility onto all of us to keep it alive. The particulars will change but the core remains the same. Following in her footsteps may we all in the Ursuline family grow into the persons God called us to be and make a difference in our world.      

B.O’ S

What would it be like if we all slow down…sit down…and listen?

Will you take the challenge? 

For just one day…

Find a quiet space in your home… or perhaps somewhere outside… where you can see or hear no other person.

Put down your phone…take off your head phones…take away anything can intrude into the quiet of this time.

Now for just fifteen minutes make yourself comfortable…and sit…

Just sit and listen…

You may at first feel time dragging…wondering how long is fifteen minutes…you may find yourself waiting for it to be over.  But persevere…just slow down…and sit…and listen.

Listen to the sounds around you over which you have no control…

Allow them to speak to you… and then let them go…

Savour the silence…enjoy the moment…

And then when it is over…say thank you to yourself for taking this fifteen minutes for you.

And tomorrow do the same again…let it become YOU time…  let the world go by without you for these minutes.

And keep doing this every day and then allow yourself to listen for the voice of God speaking to you…you might be amazed at what you hear…in this YOU time…shared only with God.

Karen OSU

How many of us begin a new year by making resolutions to change some aspect of the way we live…eat less…move more…lose weight…save money…eat less meat…recycle more…waste less…

For some perhaps this new year the one where you have made major plans for your life…move house…change jobs…try a new career…return to college…

What if we paused the making of resolutions…stopped writing the list of all the things we want to change about our life…or lifestyle and instead chose to listen…to be open…to wait…to discern…  What if we instead of making the changes for ourselves we decide to listen for God’s call in our lives…await his unfolding plan… what might this look like each day?

Being open to God’s plan might bring us to pray more…to sit silently listening…  It will lead us to observe…to hear…to be open to all the ways God uses to point us to his plan…to show us his direction for the year ahead…

Is it worth a try…at least for a little while?

Karen OSU

As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family this weekend it led me to reflect on what family is all about and what we can learn from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

Mary and Joseph were a couple planning their life together, I am sure they had dreams and plans for their life together and yet God intervenes and upsets their own plans to enable His plan for the whole of humanity to unfold through the messages of the angel to each of them.

Gabriel visits Mary and names her as the favoured one…this is not of her choosing…rather she has been chosen from the beginning of her own life…it has always been her destiny to be the Mother of Jesus…and it is by God’s grace that she says her few words…”Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord”  This is her YES to God…her yes to motherhood…her yes to discipleship…it is also her yes to love and to sorrow…to joy and to pain…

Throughout the life of her son, Jesus, Mary is seen often, yet heard little…she listens intently… she ponders deeply all that is happening.  When she does speak it is to assist her son in accepting and understanding who he is…and who he is for the world.  In this we hear Mary scold him for going missing on the journey home when he is found in the temple among the scholars… we hear Mary at the wedding in Cana when she instructs the servants – Do whatever he tells you – pointing her son and others to his first miracle…to his life and his mission.  It is never about her…it is always about Christ…always about his mission to bring the Good News to all people.  When Simeon speaks of the pain she will endure at her son’s passion and death she is silent…she listens…she accepts and she ponders and cherishes it all in her heart. But in the midst of her listening…her few words…her pondering…she breathes out joy…joy for all to see…joy for us all to witness.

Joseph, a carpenter by trade faces a dilemma, Mary is expecting a child and it is not his child…he is alone…he has a choice to make – will he publicly divorce her or will he do it quietly – Joseph chooses the kind, quiet way, the way of compassion and mercy for Mary, sparing her public disgrace when the angel intervenes saying “take Mary home as your wife” and that he is to name the child “Jesus”.  Joseph is entrusted with God’s greatest gift, his Son – to care for, to build a home for, to nurture and guide in his formative years. 

One can see in this a crisis for the couple…how will they explain this to their families…how will their life now unfold…how will others react to this new situation…how will they cope… and yet Mary and Joseph accepted the disruption to their own plans to be available to realise God’s plan. It is Joseph who provides for…creates a home for…nurtures…teaches and most of all loves Jesus as his own child as he grows and matures…and then when Jesus reaches the age of about 12 we do not see Joseph again…Mary continues to accompany her son through to adulthood and Joseph disappears from the narrative…his role in our history is complete.

When I think about Joseph…I see compassion…care…kindness…and love for Mary and Jesus…he was there with them for all the time he needed to be – perhaps this is the same in our families sometimes – we are in the right place, at the right time for as long as we need to be to offer the love, the compassion, the kindness, the nurturing that is needed by another to give them the roots they need for their life.

Mary and Joseph together give Jesus the roots he needs in their family – they teach him, nurture him to adulthood…point him to who he is to be for all of humanity – they give him roots and when his time comes they give him the courage and trust to take his wings and fly…to become who God has sent him to be for all people.

In our own families we are blessed when we too are given roots to know who we are…to know love…compassion…trust…faith… and then the courage to open our wings to fly and to become the best version of ourselves as God created us to be…

Karen OSU

Feast day: November 25th

Ursuline Foundation day: November 25th, 1535

The influence of St. Catherine can be found in many spheres of life. The annual St. Catherine’s Day Hat Parade takes place on the 25^th of November in New Orleans. The parade followed an earlier French tradition in which young unmarried women of 25 years, known as Catherinettes, wore handmade hats using the colours of yellow and green – the former represented faith and the latter wisdom, and would  “cap” St. Catherine’s statue in the hope of getting a husband.  Besides being patron saint of milliners, St. Catherine  was also patron saint of philosophers, educators, navigators, wheelwrights, young women, to mention a few of the many occupations that she  was invoked  and prayed to as patron saint.

St. Catherine’s fame was not confined to various trades and occupations. November the 25^th heralded the beginning of winter in Estonia. Her name is  found in places as far apart as Santa Catarina state in Brazil, the Santa Catalina Mountains in Arizona to the Catharina crater on the moon. She is also well known by the Catherine wheel fireworks, which captures the spiked wheel of her martyrdom. St. Catherine Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge bear the spiked wheels on their crests. Many churches from the grandeur of Se Cathedral in India to the modern church in Nairobi, Kenya are dedicated to her. Ireland is pockmarked with holy wells, churches, stain glass windows and tomb effigies of St Catherine. By far the most impressive site dedicated to her is the 6^th century Monastery of St. Catherine, at the foot of Mount Horeb (Sinai) where her bones are enshrined in a marble coffin. An icon depicting six scenes of her life can also be seen there.  Scenes from her life can be visited as well in the Chapel dedicated to her in the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome painted by Masolino da Panicale .

The story of St. Catherine captured the imagination of many of the artists of the middle Ages, since she was the most painted saint of that time.  The most famous of these artists would be Caravaggio, Raphael, Hans Memling to mention but a few. The latter with many others, painted The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine to The Christ Child. For Ursulines, Romanino’s depiction of The Mystic Marriage painted in 1536 and exhibited in the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, gives us a glimpse of what Angela would have looked like, prior to her death. St. Angela expresses her sense of mystical marriage succinctly, “You have Jesus Christ as your one and only treasure”. (5^th Counsel)

St. Catherine was interwoven in St. Angela’s life before choosing her feast- day as the foundation day for her Company. Angela’s mother was called Catherine, she would have heard her story in The Golden Legend  read to her by her father and it was on St. Catherine Day that she arrived back safely from her perilous journey from the Holy Land.

So, what do we know about St. Catherine?

According to The Golden Legend, her father was King Costas of Egypt. She was born in the 4^th century and received her education in the great schools of Alexandria, famous for their learning. According to the booklet published in the monastery of Sinai (where I had the privilege to visit) “A Syrian monk taught her about Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of the soul and converted her to Christianity; she was baptised Catherine.” (p.13) One story tells us that after her baptism she had a dream in which she was praying in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus.  The child offers her a ring as sign of espousal promising that she would be his bride for all time.

A persecution of the Christians followed under Maximinus. Catherine outwitted him in her arguments, much to his chagrin. He gathered fifty philosophers to continue the debate and she not only converts them to Christianity, by her faith, erudition and persuasive words, but gave them the courage to suffer martyrdom, through being burned by fire, by order of Maximinus. The Sinai booklet tells us that “Under torture she succeeded in converting members of the Emperor’s family and of the Roman aristocracy to Christianity…After Catherine’s execution her body vanished….About three centuries later, guided by a dream, a monk of the Monastery …found her body, brought it down from the mountain and placed it in a golden casket in the Church”. (p.13)

Echoes of Catherine’s life are found in St. Angela’s prayer; “My Lord…give me the grace to die rather than offend your Divine majesty …willingly I would shed my blood (if I could) in order to open up the blindness of…minds”. She ends the chapter on Virginity with these words, “Furthermore, let each one be willing to be ready to die sooner than ever consent to stain and profane such a sacred jewel”. Like Catherine, Angela used persuasive words right through her writings, words that build up and encourage, such as exhort, recommend, endeavour, strive, persevere, embrace, urge and learn. Perhaps her attitude to learning is best summed up by her words in the second counsel, “You will gain more by showing affection and kindness than by harshness and sharp reproofs”.  

We can appreciate the deep link between Catherine and Angela and why the latter choose the 25^th of November, Catherine’s feast- day to gather 28 women in the room in St. Afra’s to sign their names to the book of the Company, the beginnings of the Company of St. Ursula.

Let us pray with Angela in evoking St. Catherine for her protection and care.

Moya OSU