Saint Angela of Foligno was born in Italy in 1248. Saint Angela was a mystic and a Franciscan Tertiary. In her prayer Angela pondered the Passion of Jesus and discovered, over and against her own doubts, that Jesus’ Passion is the pledge of God’s unconditional love for all creation.
Saint Angela, like so many early Franciscan brothers and sisters, focused her spirituality on the humanity of Christ and recognized the love of God shining through this same humanity.
Saint Angela recalled: "Once I was at Vespers and was gazing at the cross with the eyes of the body, suddenly my soul was set ablaze with love ... I saw and felt that Christ was within me, embracing my soul with the very arm with which He was crucified ... Henceforth my soul remained in a state of joy in which it understood what this man, namely Christ, is like in heaven, that is to say, how we will see that through Him our flesh is made one with God.
“This was a source of delight for my soul beyond words and description, and it was a joy that was abiding ... I was so completely certain that God was at work in me that even if everyone in the world were to say that I ought to doubt this, I would not believe them. In no way whatever can I be sad concerning the Passion; on the contrary, my joy is in seeing this man, and to come to Him. All my joy now is in this suffering God-man"
Saint Angela’s faith was strengthened through her contemplation of the Passion of Jesus.
She wrote: "On Wednesday of Holy Week, I was meditating on the death of the Son of God Incarnate, and trying to empty my soul of everything else so I could be more recollected in His passion and death ... suddenly, while I was engrossed in this effort and desire, a divine word sounded in my soul: ‘My love for you has not been a hoax’.
“These words struck me a mortal blow. For immediately the eyes of my soul were opened and I saw that what He had said was true ... Seeing in Him all the deeds of true love, I understood the perfect truth of what He had said, that His love for me had not been a hoax, but that He had loved me with a most perfect and visceral love ... I perceived all the signs and marks of the truest love in Him; how He had given Himself wholly and totally to me; how He had come so close to me: He had become human in order to truly feel and carry my sufferings in Himself".
The days of Holy Week are sombre and a certain heaviness surrounds the liturgies. But at the heart of Holy Week is a hidden joy: the joy of discovering that God’s love for us is not a hoax, rather all the deeds of true love are there, each day of Holy Week, each step of the journey, from the upper room, to the garden, to the place of the skull, to the tomb, to resurrection.
May we, like Saint Angela, discover this joy in our Holy Week journey.
