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   GENERAL AUDIENCE: SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF ANGELA OF FOLIGNO   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 13 OCT 2010 (VIS) - Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis during   
   this morning's general audience to the Italian Blessed Angela of Foligno (ca.   
   1248 - 1309). The audience was celebrated in St. Peter's Square in the presence   
   of 25,000 people.   
      
   This great mediaeval mystic generally arouses admiration "for the heights she   
   scaled in her experience of union with God", said the Pope. "However, perhaps   
   too little attention has been given to her first steps, to her conversion and   
   the journey that led her from her starting point of a 'great fear of hell', to   
   her goal of complete union with the Trinity".   
      
   Angela was born into a rich family and received a worldly education. She   
   married very young, had a number of children and lived a carefree life until   
   dramatic events such as the violent earthquake of 1279 and the consequences of   
   a war with the city of Perugia led her to question the meaning of her   
   existence. In 1285 she received a vision of St. Francis of Assisi whom she   
   asked for help in making a general confession of her sins. Three years later,   
   her husband and children having all died, Angela sold her goods and in 1291   
   entered the Third Order of St. Francis.   
      
   Her story is recounted by her confessor in the "Book of Blessed Angela of   
   Foligno". At the beginning of her spiritual itinerary the blessed felt the fear   
   of hell for her sins. "This fear", the Pope explained, "reflected the kind of   
   faith that Angela had at the moment of her conversion; a faith still poor in   
   charity; that is, in love for God. Penance, fear of hell and atonement opened   
   before Angela the prospect of the painful 'way of the cross', which ... would   
   lead her to the 'way of love'".   
      
   "Angela felt she had to give something to God to make up for her sins, but she   
   slowly came to realise that she had nothing to give Him; indeed, that she was   
   'nothing' before Him. She understood that it was not her will that could give   
   her the love of God, because her will could give her 'nothing', it could only   
   give her 'non-love'". Little by little "she came to a profound understanding of   
   the central reality: that what would save her from her 'unworthiness' and from   
   her 'deserving hell' would not be her 'union with God' or her possession of the   
   'truth', but the crucified Jesus, ... His love, ... and her self-identification   
   and self-transformation in the love and suffering of the crucified Christ".   
      
   "Angela's conversion", the Holy Father concluded, "reached maturity only when   
   in her heart she saw God's forgiveness as a gratuitous gift of the love of the   
   Father, Who is the source of love". On her spiritual journey, "the move from   
   conversion to mystical experience, from that which can be expressed to that   
   which is inexpressible, came about through the crucified Christ. ... All her   
   mystical experience thus tended to perfect 'likeness' with Him through   
   increasingly profound and radical purifications and transformations. ... Such   
   identification also meant living as Jesus lived, facing poverty, contempt and   
   suffering. ... A sublime journey, the secret of which was constant prayer".   
   AG/VIS 20101013 (540)   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS =Meridian, MS= bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)