Ursulines (religious order)

• Formation: 1535
• Founder: Saint Angela Merici

Ursulines are members of a Roman Catholic order of women. The order was founded in Brescia, Italy by Angela Merici, who organized twenty-eight young women into the Company of St. Ursula, whose purpose was girls’ education. They took as their patron Saint Ursula, a martyr whose legend dates back to the fourth century, when she and a group of virgins were killed in Cologne by invading Huns. At the time of their founding, the Ursulines did not take vows with the Church. Instead, they lived with their families, coming together for prayer and meeting to organize charitable work and educational outreach. The Ursulines governed themselves without guidance from men or the Church, assuming an active, independent, and leadership role highly unusual for women of the time. The Ursuline model spread quickly within Italy and to France, with the groups acting independently from one another and developing their own constitutions. In 1544, Pope Paul III officially approved the order and by the end of the century, the Ursulines became a monastic teaching order, with sisters living in community in convents. Eventually, they were divided into two branches. The secular branch is the Company of St. Ursula, also known as the Secular Institute of St. Angela Merici. Its members, also known as Angelines, are lay, single, Catholic women who live "a life-long consecration to God in poverty, chastity, and obedience," according to the Secular Institute's website. The Federated Secular Institute has Companies in twenty-six countries around the world. The religious branch, the Order of St. Ursuline (OSU), retains the monastic organizational form.

History

The religious dedication that led Angela Merici to found the Ursulines grew out of her struggle to cope with family tragedy. Born in northern Italy, Angela lived with her parents and sister near Lake Garda, where she worked on the family farm. Her parents were devout Christians who encouraged their daughters to develop routines of daily prayer. When Angela’s entire family suddenly died, she went to live with a nearby uncle. In shock and grieving, she prayed constantly, begging God’s assurance that her family was now safely in heaven. Alone one day in the fields, Angela experienced a vision in which the skies opened up. From heaven came an assembly of young women and angels, suffused with light and singing. As they approached her, Angela recognized one of the women as her sister. Angela was inspired by this experience, believing it was her purpose to establish a community of religious women.

Angela Merici joined the third order of Saint Francis, whose lay members helped the clergy assist the sick and the poor. On her way to a mission in Brescia, she encountered members of Divino Amore, a group that set up orphanages, cared for widows, established shelters for prostitutes, and helped those suffering from syphilis and other diseases. Merici developed important relationships with these religious workers, and many looked to her for spiritual leadership. It was from this group that Merici drew the close community of women that formed the Company of St. Ursula in 1535.

Over the next few years, similar groups formed in Italy, France, and Germany. However, enthusiasm for Merici’s model of a women’s congregation developed more quickly than its formal organizational structure. As a result, the practices, customs, and style of dress of each group varied from place to place. Merici and other leaders worked to develop a uniform constitution for the company, but many details were left unsettled by 1540, when Merici died of natural causes. Over the next several decades, the Church extended its influence over the independent Ursuline groups through a series of actions. Paul III granted approbation to the order in 1544, when the Rule of St. Augustine was adopted. In 1572, the Archbishop of Milan extended monastic enclosure status to the Ursulines, organizing them into convents. In some areas, Ursulines remain a strictly monastic order, while in others, Ursulines have modified this form of organization.

The Ursulines first spread to North America in the early 1600s, when officials in Canada appealed to the Church, requesting religious women who could convert Indigenous children to Christianity. In 1639, a wealthy French widow traveled to Quebec, accompanied by Ursulines and other sisters. This group eventually founded the first Ursuline convent in North America. The French also founded the first Ursuline convent in the United States when a group of sisters traveled to New Orleans in 1727. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ursulines from Europe embarked on missions around the world, founding orders in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

In 1900, sixty-two Ursuline convents worldwide formed the Ursulines of the Roman Union at the invitation of Pope Leo XIII. The Roman Union has a common constitution and is led by a prioress general from headquarters, called a generalate, in Rome. Over the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the number of convents that have joined the Roman Union or other Ursuline Unions has grown, both in number and geographical reach. By the 2020s, the Roman Union comprised over 2,260 sisters in nearly forty nations, including the United States. There are also independent Ursuline congregations around the world.

Beliefs and Practices

Ursulines continue to carry out the educational work that has formed the basis of the order since its founding. In European communities, Ursulines typically run boarding schools, while the United States features both boarding and day schools, as well as parochial schools. Since the first women’s Catholic colleges were formed in Ohio in 1871 and in New Rochelle, New York, in 1904, the sisters have also focused on higher education.

In the monastic Order of Saint Ursula, sisters work in one of two grades, either serving as teachers or focusing on the spiritual and organizational duties of the convent. They wear a wide-sleeved black habit with plain white linen guimpe and bandeau. Full sisters wear a black veil, while novices are veiled in white. Those wishing to enter the order serve as postulants in their chosen community for a six-month probationary period before studying for two years in a central novitiate. At the end of this term, sisters pronounce their vows. After three years, their vows are made perpetual.

The Ursulines’ focus on women’s education has resulted in many success stories in the United States, including the first female pharmacist and the first women’s author of literary merit. They are responsible for establishing the first free school for girls, and the first classes for enslaved women and free women of color.

Bibliography

"About the Sisters." Ursuline Sisters, www.osucentral.org/about-the-sisters. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.

Clark, Emily, editor. Voices from an American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard and the New Orleans Ursulines, 1727–1760. Louisiana State UP, 2007.

Cummings, Kathleen Sprows. New Women of the Old Faith. North Carolina UP, 2009.

Fidelis, Mother Mary. "The Ursulines." The Catholic Encyclopedia, www.newadvent.org/cathen/15228b. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.

O’Reilly, Bernard. St. Angela Merici, and the Ursulines. BiblioLife, 2009.

"The Roman Union." Ursulines of the Eastern Province, osueast.org/how-we-share-our-lives/the-roman-union. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.

"Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown." Ursuline Sisters Mission, www.ursulinesistersmission.org/about/our-life-and-ministries. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.