AN INVITATIONSeptember 15, 2025

AN INVITATION

The year 1990 is filled with memories of celebrating my 25thJubilee in the Ursuline community. These are wonderful memories of celebrations of community, family, love, gratitude and pilgrimage. I celebrated well and perhaps best by traveling to Angela’s holy land of Italy with a small group of pilgrims led by a good friend, Sister Martha Buser, a Kentucky Ursuline. By the end of this memorable time, Martha had asked me to take over leadership of the pilgrimages for her as she was retiring her pilgrim staff. Thus began my life as a newly minted pilgrim.

Each journey has brought me many gifts and Angela’s blessing. Over the years, I have met many women and men who are deeply in love with Angela and all that is Ursuline. So, today I would like to invite you on a pilgrimage of sorts. Please sit back and relax, open your mind to the exploration of Angela’s life as a pilgrimage and open your heart to wherever she is leading you and whatever is the gift of your pilgrim journey with her.

Breathe deeply allowing each breath to relax you and bring you into the beauty and peace of Lake Garda. Imagine yourself walking the beach with Angela and quietly soaking in the sounds from the Lake, the waves splashing against the shore, the gulls noisily flying above you and the horn from the ferry that will soon carry you to Salo, Angela’s new home. You walk silently aware of the heaviness that Angela carries in her grief at the loss of her sister and parents. She and her younger brother must now move to her Uncle Bianco’s home. Her pilgrimage begins today with you as you board the boat and watch Desenzano fade into the distance. Angela prays with you, “Do not be afraid…have hope and firm faith in God, for God will help you in everything.” (Prologue to the Counsels} You and Angela embrace each other recognizing that Angela’s prayer is as much for her own journey as it is for yours.

Life in Salo is dramatically different from life on the farm. Together you follow Angela into the new life of the city. It is hard for her to live in the midst of city business. However, Angela invites you into hours of prayer away from the noise of Salo. It is in Salo that Angela joins the lay Franciscans. This gives Angela time to spend time with God alone and she encourages you to “Act, move, believe, strive, hope, cry out to him with all your heart, for without doubt you will see marvelous things if you direct everything to the praise and glory of His Divine Majesty and the good of souls.” (Prologue to the Counsels)

Angela spends time with her spiritual family now as she leads you to Masses and prayers of the Franciscan life. You understand that leaving the farm and the solitude creates a distance from the holiness that had been hers. Meeting the many Friars encourages and creates a community for which she longed and which you joyfully join. When Angela’s spiritual director asks her to travel to Brescia to minister to Caterina Patengola, her joy and excitement are palpable. Brescia, however, is a scary place. Brescia and its citizens are suffering the results of many invasions and attacks and sadness hangs over the streets like storm clouds. Angela is invited into service as a healing presence and accepts the invitation immediately. Soon the city begin to call her -- “Madre” and relies on her intercession with God. Angela spends hours in prayer with you for and with her friends. Angela says that God is asking her to “Learn from Our Lord who, while he was in this world, was as a servant, obeying the Eternal Father even unto death.” (First Counsel) Together you continue the work of service to the Brescians in need.

Your pilgrimage continues. You travel to the Holy Land and find the difficult journey just another step toward following Jesus and “to always let your principal resource be to gather at the feet of Jesus Christ.” (Last Legacy)

You then travel to Rome together Angela where you meet Pope Clement VII. However, you come back to Brescia to continue ministry there even though Clement requested that Angela remain in Rome. The final pilgrimage is into the Alps to the Holy Mountain where you again join the Franciscan Friars in prayer. Here Angela is accompanied by the women who form a community of prayer with her. After traveling back to the Sacra Monte a second time, well we know the rest of the story -- that on her return to Brescia Angela and her Daughters founded the Company of St. Ursula. Angela leaves you, well us, with a very sweet promise as you end your pilgrimage: ”And take care, take care I say, not to lose your fervor, for every promise that I make to you will be fulfilled for you beyond measure. Now I am going, and you, in the meantime, do what has to be done. But first I embrace you, and to you all I give the kiss of peace, begging God to bless you. In the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” (Last Legacy)

As we conclude this meditation, I invite you to continue your journey with Angela. Ask her to join you in all your prayers and in your moments of joy and the times of sorrow. As a good mother, she is always with each one of her sons and daughters.

Sister Mary Ellen Brinovec