Blessed Angela of Foligno Is Among the Most Profound and Significant Experiences in Catholic Tradition

lessed Angela of Foligno B U U 1248-1309

1 The spiritual experience of Blessed Angela of Foligno is among the most profound and significant experiences in Catholic tradition.

The stages in the ascetical and brought me such ecstasy. I would never have mystical journey of Angela can be found in believed that the most holy Angels were so the book known as the “Memorial”, better gentle and capable of giving souls such delights. known as “The Book of Blessed Angela of I had prayed to the Angels, especially the Foligno.” The book was edited by Friar Seraphim, and the most Holy Guardians Arnaldo, her relative and confessor. told me: ‘Now you are receiving what the Among the many passages we cite Seraphim possess and you can thus take part the one about the vision of the Angelic in their joy.’” Thrones: “...Then I saw Jesus Christ arriving So great is Blessed Angela’s with an army of Angels, and the magnificence devotion to the Holy Eucharist that one of His escort was savored by my soul with day, during the Holy Mass celebrated by immense pleasure. I was surprised I was able Friar Arnaldo, she hears the words: “Here is to rejoice at the sight of the Angels, because, all the joy of the Angels. Here is the delight as a rule, all my joy is focused on Jesus of the Saints. Here is all your happiness. Christ. But I soon noticed in my soul two At this moment, the Son of God, in His

perfectly distinct joys: one coming from humanity and divinity, is on the altar and God, the other from the Angels. But they is in the company of an immense multitude did not resemble each other. I was admiring of Angels.” the magnificence which surrounded the Lord. Unfortunately, we don’t know the I asked what it was that I was witnessing. date of Angela’s birth. Some say she was ‘They are the Thrones,’ a voice said. The born in 1248 at Foligno of a well-to-do multitude was dazzling and infinite, so much family. In 1285, she is converted, goes to so that, if number and measure where confession in the Cathedral Church of not laws of creation, I would have thought St. Feliciano of Foligno, after which — due that the sublime crowd before my eyes was to her desire for adulation and her incessant countless and boundless. I could not see the search for the vanities of life — she got away beginning or the end of that crowd, whose from her religious practices and maybe from number transcends our figures.” the faith itself. She begins to live according In another passage, we witness to the Rule of the Third Order Franciscan Blessed Angela’s overflowing joy for having and shares her home with a friend by the experienced the presence of the Angels in name of Masazuola. During her pilgrimage her life, in particular, that of the Seraphim: to the Tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, she received “I was experiencing such infinite delights a great mystical grace. Around 1291, she and such joy at the presence of the Angels. enters the Third OrderS Franciscan. She dies Their conversation filled me with such on January 4, 1309.