Feast Day Of St. Angela Merici

Council of Trent Issue Saint Angela Merici Scott 111 (1946) Saint Angela Merici: 450th Anniversary of Death Scott 850-852 (1990) January 27th is the feast day of St. Angela Merici. Born around the year 1474, Saint Angela Merici was the foundress of the Company of St. Ursula, known as the Ursuline Order, the focus of which was education for girls. The order was named after a 4th-century Roman virgin martyr (d. ca. 383). The order started in 1535 in Brescia, Italy and was the first teaching order for women. The students wore no special habit and took no religious vows but were educated to follow a model life of Christian virtue. St. Angela's Rule of Life was approved by Pope Paul III in 1544, shortly after her death in 1540. Saint Angela Merici is commemorated on one of the stamps of the Council of Trent series, shown above, marking a new type of order in the Catholic Reformation era. St. Angela was canonized in 1807, and many Ursuline schools have been are established, especially in the United States. REFERENCE: Thomas Crimando, Vatican Notes, Volume 39, Number 1, page 1, 1990, New Issues Vatican Philatelic Society website, www.vaticanstamps.org, Stamp Database Search