“Pray that God enlighten you,
direct you, and teach you what
you are to do.”
~St. Angela Merici |
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Our Roots  The Angela Merici Center for Spirituality is a ministry of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville. It is rooted in the gospel and life of Jesus and in the life and Rule of St. Angela of Merici, their foundress.
Angela Merici was an Italian peasant woman who was born over 500 years ago. She spent her life in prayer and service to those around her. Unlike the women of her day, she never married and never joined a convent. She ministered to the untouchables, men and women suffering and dying from syphilis, young girls and women who were victims of human trafficking, and those who came to her for spiritual guidance.
At the age of 60 she gathered around herself a group of women who, like Angela, desired to deepen their relationship with God through prayer, the Scriptures, worship, community and service to those around them. She called them The Company of Saint Ursula.
Over the past 500 years, Ursuline Sisters around the world have followed in the footsteps of Saint Angela. Now, the Angela Merici Center for Spirituality seeks to serve the spiritual needs of others and live out of the spirit, compassion, and energy of Saint Angela as she saw it expressed through the life of Jesus, the Christ, the Lover of us all. |
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Making Headlines
The Angela Merici Center for Spirituality works toward social justice as well as helping others with spiritual direction and exploring their relationship with God. Our services sometimes make the news.
Click here for some of the latest headlines.
Click here to learn more about our current programs, retreats, and other offerings.
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Our Vision
The charism (gift of the Spirit, driving energy) of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville is to live what may appear to be two mutually exclusive ways of life: the way of action and the way of contemplation. By following the examples of Jesus and Saint Angela, the Ursuline Sisters have discovered that rather than being mutually exclusive they are necessary to one another.
The way of contemplation invites us to “take a long, loving look at the real” so that we may take a long, loving, look at the REAL (adapted from Walter Burghardt, S.J.). This does not mean that we must live in monasteries or become hermits, but that we choose to live a life that is intentional, with eyes wide open and with a slowness to judge ourselves and others. As we look at our lives with purpose and love, we eventually begin to notice the One in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), the One who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:17), the Divine, God.
Living contemplatively makes a way for us to experience unconditional love that transforms us into the person we were created to be and to live fully as promised by Jesus. This deepening awareness of the Divine in our daily lives causes us to experience our true identity as the Beloved. We are no longer bound by all the voices within us and around us that tell us how to live. We can now let go of them and hear the “still, small” voice that whispers out of our True Self, that spark of the Divine that dwells within each of us.
As we learn to listen to our True Self, we are free to make choices about how we live our lives, the way of action. This action is not grounded in our woundedness, greed or poor self-esteem. We no longer act out of a need to be needed, to please or rescue others, to escape pain or suffering or any of the other motivations of our mindless actions. We are now free to act out of love. As an expression of our experience of being loved, we in turn love others and seek ways to promote justice, live simply and meet the needs of others. In this, the dream of God for all humanity will be fulfilled “…on earth as it is in heaven.”
The charism (gift of the Spirit, driving energy) of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville is to live what may appear to be two mutually exclusive ways of life: the way of action and the way of contemplation. By following the examples of Jesus and Saint Angela, the Ursuline Sisters have discovered that rather than being mutually exclusive they are necessary to one another. The way of contemplation invites us to “take a long, loving look at the real” in our lives. This does not require a monastery or hermitage, but the choice to live life intentionally, with eyes wide open. Looking at our lives with purpose and love, we begin to catch glimpses of the Holy, the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). Living contemplatively also makes the way for us to experience our true identity as God’s beloved. We experience the ultimate freedom that empowers us to hear and respond to the “still, small” voice that whispers out of our True Self, that spark of the Divine that dwells within each of us. As we learn to listen to our True Self, we are free to make choices about how we live our lives, the way of action. Our actions are no longer reactions to our need to be needed, to please or rescue others, to escape pain or suffering or any other motivation. As an expression of our experience of being loved, we in turn love others and seek ways to promote justice, live simply and meet the needs of others. In this, the dream of God for all humanity will be fulfilled “…on earth as it is in heaven.” |
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