Maria Angela of Astorch

Ten years after the death of Saint Teresa of Avila (October 4 1582), Barcelona, Spain, became the birthplace of Angela Astorch, who likewise as a religious led a life of sanctity her case not among the Carmelites but, rather, in the order of the Poor Clare Capu¬chins. Like Saint Teresa she founded several new houses of her religious community. Moreover, she was likewise notable for her strong ecclesiastical sense, so that one could place on her lips also the words "After all, I am a daughter of the Church."

Maria Angela of Astorch, who was born on September 1, 1592, lost her parents at the age of five. The little girl then came down with a very serious illness and actually died of it. According to contem¬porary reports-her first biographers, including the famous Jesuit Father Luis Ignacio Zevallos, have attested to their reliability and truthfulness-the girl was brought back to life again by the Servant of God Mother Angela Margarita Serafina, who a few years previ¬ously had started the first convent of Capuchin Sisters in Barcelona. This same Capuchin convent took Angela in when she was eleven years old. As she matured, she arrived at the decision to consecrate herself completely to God as a religious according to the rule of Saint Clare of Assisi.

The young nun soon distinguished herself by the various virtues demanded of the Sisters of her order and by her great fidelity to the ideal of the seraphic Saint of Assisi. Already at the age of twenty-five she was commissioned to found a Capuchin convent in Saragossa, where she then assumed the office of novice mistress and finally that of abbess. Then she founded another convent in Murcia. Through the good example and enterprising spirit of Abbess Angela this convent soon achieved a remarkable splendour. She composed mystical writings, which, though unpublished, are still stored in the archives of the convent in Murcia; in these works the abbess provided her Sisters with a valuable manual on attaining Christian perfection.

After a life of prayer and penance, characterized above all by the faithful recitation of the liturgical prayers of the Divine Office, Abbess Angela died-highly respected and admired on account of her heroic virtues and her mystical experiences-on December 1665. During the seventy-third year of her life, and the twentieth year of her successful service as abbess in Murcia.
Pope John Paul II spoke of this Spanish Sister at the beatification ceremony on May 23, 1982, in Saint Peter's Square in Rome:
Maria Angela Astorch is another example of sanctity that has matured in Spain. She belongs to the family of religious known as the Poor Clare Capuchins.

In the successive stages of her life, first as a simple religious, then as a young mistress of novices, later in charge of the for formation of the professed, and finally as abbess, she left everywhere, in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Seville and Murcia, a wonderful witness of fidelity to her own consecration and love for the Church.

Gifted with intelligence above the ordinary, she found support in the solidity of the revealed word and of ecclesiastical writers which she studied and knew in depth. This gave her in turn a sound understanding both in theory and practice of the ways of that spirituality which lives in intimate union with the Church, especially by means of the liturgy, the sacred texts and the divine office. For this reason we might describe her as a mystic of the breviary.

In the work of formation she used that noble way which God had made use of in her case. For this reason she was able to respect the individuality of each person, helping the one con¬cerned "to keep in step with God", which means something different for each one. In this way her profound understanding did not become inert tolerance.
Maria Angela is, for this reason, a figure to whom we should look with attention in our times. From her we can learn to respect the ways of man and at the same time make men open to the ways of God.