January 27
The saints and feasts remembered on January 27, each with a short life, a Bible passage and a prayer.
Saint Angela Merici
Gathered women to teach girls the faith while living in their own homes
Angela Merici was born around 1474 in Desenzano, a town on Lake Garda in northern Italy. She lost both parents while still young and grew up with an uncle in nearby Salò. As a young woman she joined the Franciscan Third Order, which let her live a life of prayer without entering a convent.
Around 1516 she moved to Brescia, where people of every class came to her for advice and to make peace after quarrels. She saw how many girls grew up with no schooling and little teaching in the faith. In 1535 she gathered a group of women into the Company of Saint Ursula. They gave their lives to God but stayed with their families and taught the girls around them. This was new at a time when consecrated women were expected to live behind convent walls.
Angela died in Brescia in 1540. Her Company grew into the Ursulines, who spread across Europe and the Americas and became known for educating girls.
These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Deuteronomy 6:6–7 · BSB
A prayer
Faithful God, you led Angela Merici to see the needs of the girls around her and to gather friends who served you in ordinary homes and streets. Open our eyes to the young people near us, and give us patience and courage to share with them what we have received. Amen.
The lives are written with AI help from public-domain histories and checked before publishing; the prayers are ours. Bible quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. How we write.