From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   "Which will love him more?"   
   Meditation: Luke 7:36-50   
      
    What fuels the love that surpasses all other loves? Unbounding   
   gratitude for sure! No one who met Jesus could do so with   
   indifference. They were either attracted to him or repelled by him.   
   Why did a rabbi invite Jesus to a nice dinner and then treat him   
   discourteously by neglecting to give him the customary signs of   
   respect and honor? Simon was very likely a collector of celebrities.   
   He patronized Jesus because of his popularity with the crowds. Why did   
   he criticize Jesus' compassionate treatment of a woman of ill repute -   
   most likely a prostitute? The Pharisees shunned the company of public   
   sinners and in so doing they neglected to give them the help they   
   needed to find healing and wholeness.   
      
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   21 July – Blessed Angelina of Marsciano TOR   
   Also known as   
   Angelina of Montegiove   
   Angelina of Corbara   
   Angelina of Foligno   
      
   Memorials   
   14 July   
   15 July on some calendars   
   21 July on some calendars   
      
   Foundress and Abbess, childless, Widow, Apostle of the poor, sick and   
   children – also known as Angelina of Montegiove or of Corbara. Born in   
   1357 in Montegiove, Umbria, Italy and died on 14 July 1435 in Foligno,   
   Umbria.  Patronage – the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angelina.   
      
   She founded a Congregation of Religious Sisters of the Franciscan   
   Third Order Regular, known today as the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed   
   Angelina. She is generally credited with the founding of the Third   
   Order Regular for women, as her religious Congregation marked the   
   establishment of the first Franciscan community of women living under   
   the Rule of the Third Order Regular authorised by Pope Nicholas V.   
   Unlike the Second Order of the Franciscan movement, the Poor Clare   
   nuns, they were not an enclosed religious order but have been active   
   in serving the poor around them, for much of their history.  She is   
   commemorated by the Franciscans on 4 June. Her liturgical feast is   
   today though post 1969 the date was moved to 13 June.   
   In 1357, Angelina was born in her ancestral Castle of Montegiove, some   
   40 kilometers from Orvieto, in Umbria, then part of the Papal States.   
   She was the daughter of Jacopo Angioballi, the Count of Marsciano and   
   of Anna, the daughter of the Count of Corbara, which is why sometimes   
   she is also referred to as Angelina of Corbara.   
      
   Left orphaned and alone, except for one sister, by the age of six, she   
   was raised by her grandparents. Angelina was married at age 15 to   
   Giovanni da Terni, the Count of Civitella del Tronto, in the Abruzzo   
   region, within the Kingdom of Naples but he died only two years later,   
   leaving her a childless widow. His death left Angelina in charge of   
   his castle and estate.   
      
   It was then that Angelina made the decision to dedicate her life to   
   God (it would appear that she had considered being a nun before she   
   was married). She was clothed as a Franciscan tertiary and, with   
   several companions, began an apostolic mission around the countryside   
   of the kingdom, preaching the values of repentance and virginity, as   
   well as service to those in need.   
      
   Angelina’s progress was arrested by the disturbance she caused in the   
   communities, where she called for young women to adopt religious life.   
   She was doubly charged with sorcery, the imagined origin of her sway   
   over women and of heresy, because of her allegedly Manichean   
   opposition to marriage. Angelina defended herself before Ladislas, the   
   King of Naples, who dismissed the charges but expelled her and her   
   companions from the kingdom, in order to avoid further complaints.   
      
   Angelina then went to Assisi, where she stopped to rest and to pray at   
   the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the cradle of the Franciscan   
   Order. There, she experienced a vision, wherein God instructed her to   
   found a cloistered Monastery under the Rule of the Third Order of   
   Saint Francis in Foligno. The local Bishop approved the plans with   
   little hesitation, as they meant an end to her troublesome active   
   ministry. She settled in Foligno about 1394. She soon joined the   
   Monastery of St Anna, a small community of women Franciscan   
   tertiaries, which had been founded in 1388 by the Blessed Paoluccio   
   Trinci (died 1390), a Franciscan friar who had been related to her   
   sister through marriage. Known as the “Monastery of the   
   Countesses”—due to the social standing of most of its members, he had   
   established it out of his vision of having these noble women of the   
   city serve as an evangelising force in their society. The women lived   
   ascetic lives in the Monastery and, not being nuns, followed a very   
   informal structure, free to come and go as they wished, that they   
   might be able to serve the poor and sick of the region.   
      
   Angelina took a leadership role in the small group and began to   
   organise their lives into a more regular form. By 1397 she was   
   considered the leader of the twelve founding members. In 1403 she was   
   able to obtain a Papal Bull from Pope Boniface IX which formally   
   recognised the status of the house as a Monastery. The reputation of   
   the community in Foligno was so successful, that quickly communities   
   of Franciscan tertiary women throughout the region sought to affiliate   
   with them. Communities under her authority were soon established in   
   Florence, Spoleto, Assisi and Viterbo, along with eleven others,   
   before Angelina’s death in 1435.   
      
   The diverse communities were recognised as a Congregation by Pope   
   Martin V in 1428. This decree also allowed them to elect a Minister   
   General (a title since reserved for the head of the friars) who would   
   have the right of canonical visitation of the other communities. The   
   Congregation held its first general elections in 1430, in which Angela   
   was elected their first Minister General. In this office, she   
   developed the Statutes for the Congregation, to be followed by all its   
   houses.   
      
   This degree of independence was not welcomed by the Friars Minor, who   
   had been granted complete authority over the tertiaries that same   
   year. The Minister General of the Friars, Guglielmo da Casala,   
   demanded that the Third Order Sisters of the Congregation be confirmed   
   under obedience to him. Angelina had to submit and, in a public   
   ceremony held in the Friars’ church in Foligno on 5 November 1430,   
   vowed obedience to the local Minister Provincial.   
      
   This act of obedience, however, was repudiated by the chapter of the   
   community at Santa Anna, saying that it was invalid due to having been   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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