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Elisabetta
Maddalena
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Angela Merici had promised:
«Hold this for certain: that this Rule has been planted directly by his holy hand, and he will never abandon this Company as long as the world lasts» (Last Legacy).
It must be accounted an act of God’s Providence that, 56 years after the Napoleonic suppression, the Company was able to revive according to its Rule, through the work of the noble sisters Maddalena and Elisabetta Girelli.
Born on October 3, 1838, and September 26, 1839, respectively, and educated by their parents Giuseppe and Camilla Moro to cultivate elevated spiritual ideals, they wanted to travel the road of Christian perfection but remain in the world. In searching for a rule of life, they encountered the “Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate”, begun a bit earlier by a simple peasant, Angela Maccagno, of Mornese Monferrato.
Because the Pious Union had a rule very similar to that of St. Angela Merici, Bishop Girolamo Verzeri suggested that they revive the Company of St. Ursula, with the adaptations required by the times.
On June 13, 1866, he issued the canonical decree formally reconstituting the Company, under the patronage of the Immaculate Virgin, and on July 29 of the same year 58 virgins made their profession and 52 began the path to admission.
In 1867 the Company made St. Afra its headquarters.
The Girelli sisters resettled the spiritual centre of the Company on the via Martinengo in Brescia, in a house bequeathed to them, which they renovated and named “Casa S. Angela” [St. Angela House] (1899).
The Girelli sisters’ methods were well focused and suited for the formation and promotion of the Company. It spread throughout the diocese, offering valuable assistance to parish work, winning the esteem of the clergy and people.
At their deaths (Bettina on January 21, 1919, and Maddalena on March 7, 1923) the Girelli sisters left the Company solid in its spiritual formation and organised internally and in its outer relationships, so that, united and faithful, it was able to face the complexities of the successive decades.
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