St. Angela Merici - January 27th

I would be remiss to miss the memorial day of my patron saint - St. Angela Merici. She was instrumental on my journey towards homeschooling as I discovered that she was a teacher of girls in their homes!

Here is a link to a wonderful website with information about her life. Unfortunately, some of the pictures are no longer available, but there IS a photo of her in her tomb (she is considered an incorruptible).

Saint Angela Merici was not included in the 1570 Tridentine Calendar of Pope Pius V, because she was not canonized until 1807. In 1861 her feast day was inserted in the Roman Calendar, but not on the day of her death, January 27th, since this date was occupied by the feast day of Saint John Chrysostom, but instead on May 31st. In 1955 Pope Pius XII assigned this date to the new feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen, and moved the feast of Saint Angela to June 1st. The celebration was ranked as a Double until 1960, when Pope John XIII gave it the equivalent rank of Third-Class Feast. Finally, in 1969, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration, ranked as a Memorial, to the saint's day of death, January 27th.

Most especially, the following information (which I cut and pasted from the aforementioned website), is most inspiring to me on those hard homeschooling days.

Saint Angela: the gift of the teacher

Iconography has often represented Angela surrounded by young girls and attributed to her that work which her followers carried out; they had actually learnt this art from the writings left by Angela herself. Her writings "The Testament" and "Memoirs" in fact can be referred to young people to be educated because in them a splendid formation program can be discovered. Here are – in practice – some of the upholding structures of pedagogy, which comes from Angela Merici’s intuitions.

1. In order to educate, first of all one has to respond to the more urgent material needs since it is not possible to preach sublime truths to those who lack even the necessities.
2. Angela recommends that material necessities and not only the spiritual needs of her "daughters" are taken care of.
3. Real education is not possible without love.
4. Education surpasses the strengths of the teacher: hence one must do one’s best to obtain from the Lord the necessary graces, which God never refuses those who believe and trust in him.
5. The teacher must respect his students because without respect there is no love and without love there is no education.
6. The love which Angela demands from those who educate is a mother’s love: this is the characteristical aspect of her charity. A teacher must love, as a mother does, naturally; they must love each and every student in particular; help each one with the same disinterest of which only a real mother is capable.
7. The love that Angela demands from the educators must also be a joyous love.
8. Educating means helping to grow; and all forms of growth need time and patience.
9. To form young people, the educator must look after them, consider each one individually and guide them according to their temperament.
10. How can all this be done? Through frequent meetings, loving motherly visits, not inspections.
11. If Angela wants her "daughters" to be educated with tenderness, this certainly does not mean weakness: those responsible for them are "mothers" but they must strive for the real good of each and all. So they will need to know how to reproach and if necessary punish, as long as the punishment is born out of love.
12. The real aim of education is to form enriched personalities and to prepare the young to a fully responsible life."