Angela of Foligno

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Blessed Angela of Foligno
Blessed Angela of Foligno
Born	1248 in Foligno
Died	January 4, 1309
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism
Feast	March 30
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Angela of Foligno (born circa 1248, died 4 January 1309) was a Catholic mystic who was born and lived in Foligno, Italy, near Assisi. She married at an early age and when was in her thirties, she committed a sin so shameful that she was not able to confess it to anybody. She prayed to the late Francis of Assisi, who then appeared to her in a dream and offered to help.

Angela recorded the history of her conversion in her "Book of Visions and Instructions", which contains seventy chapters, and which was written from Angela's dictation by her Franciscan confessor, Fra Arnaldo a Franciscan friar in Foligno. Some time after her conversion Angela had placed herself under the direction of Fra Arnoldo and took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis.

In the course of time the fame of her sanctity gathered around her a number of Tertiaries, men and women, who strove under her direction to advance in holiness. Later she established at Foligno a community of sisters, who to the Rule of the Third Order added the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, without, however, binding themselves to enclosure, so that they might devote their time to works of charity.

Angela passed away, surrounded by her community. Her remains repose in the church of St. Francis at Foligno. Many people attributed miracles to her, which were accomplished at her tomb. Pope Innocent XII approved the veneration paid to her in her beatification. Her feast day is celebrated in the Franciscan Orders on the March 30.

Blessed Angela's authority as a spiritual teacher may be gathered from the fact that Bollandus, among other testimonials, quotes Maximilian Sandaeus, of the Society of Jesus, who calls her the "Mistress of Theologians, whose whole doctrine has been drawn out of the Book of Life, Jesus Christ, Our Lord."