Angela - teacher of hope
16/01/2025
Novena to St Angela - 2025 
Angela - teacher of hope
„Hope does not put us to shame,
because God's love
has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us.”
(Rom. 5:5).
INTRODUCTION:
Much of St Angela's teaching is concerned with hope – a theological virtue that causes believers to expect happiness in God and union with Him in love.
Angela was, in the full sense of the word, a woman of hope because her life was rooted in Christ. She left us an example of what God can do if we only accept Him into our lives and trust completely in His plans for us. Saint Angela was sure that all who lovingly and trustingly entrust themselves into God's hands will be filled with His presence and holiness, that God will do great things in their lives. Fidelity to Christ's spousal love bears the fruit of a lively and dynamic faith; an attitude that inflamed the people she met.
Prayer for each day of the novena:
In the name of the Blessed and Indivisible Trinity.
St Angela, you wish us to live in the hope of participating in the glory of God. You want us to rejoice today in the wreath of glory that is prepared for us for eternity.
St Angela, pray for us to God that we may look beyond and that our gaze may not stop only at what is temporal and human. Intercede for us and ask for enlightened eyes of the heart for us, that we may already participate in the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together with the angels and the saints. Amen.
Day 1 - Rooted in Christ
“That they should do honour to Jesus Christ, to whom they have promised their virginity and their very self. That they should place their hope and love in God alone, and not in any living person. Comfort them, encourage them, let them go forward willingly. And tell them this good news which I announce to them on behalf of Jesus Christ and of our Lady: how much they have to exult and rejoice, for in heaven a new crown of glory and joy is prepared for all of them, one by one, provided they stand firm and steady in their resolve, and strive to observe the Rule. And they should never ever doubt this. Although at times they will have troubles or anxieties, nevertheless this will soon pass away and be turned into gladness and joy. And then, the suffering of this world is nothing in comparison with the blessings which are in Paradise.”
[St Angela Merici, Fifth Counsel, 21-30]
Day 2 - God, the Giver of Hope
“Do not be afraid of not knowing and not being able to do what is rightly required in such a singular government. Have hope and firm faith in God, for he will help you in everything. Pray to him, humble yourselves under his great power, because, without doubt, as he has given you this charge, so he will give you also the strength to be able to carry it out, provided you do not fail for your part.”
[St Angela Merici, Counsels, Prologue 14-16]
Day 3 - The Path of Hope
“I have this firm and unquestioning faith and hope in infinite divine goodness, that not only shall we easily overcome all dangers and adversities, but also, to our great glory and jubilation, we shall defeat them. We shall even spend this very short life of ours in consolation, and our every sorrow and sadness will be turned into joy and gladness, and we shall find the thorny and stony paths blossoming for us, and covered with paving
of finest gold.”
[St Angela Merici, Rule Prologue 25-27]
Day 4 - God, the Only Good
“Finally, we exhort each one to embrace poverty, not only effective poverty of temporal things, but above all the true poverty of spirit by which man strips his heart of all affection and longing for created things, and of his very self. And in God he has all his wealth; and apart from God sees himself to be completely poor, and a total nothing, and with God to have everything. And so, let each one strive to strip herself of everything, and to place all her wealth, and love, and delight, not in goods, not in food and gluttony, not in relatives and friends, not in herself and in her own resources and knowledge, but in God alone and in his gentle and ineffable Providence alone. Do not trouble yourself about any of your temporal needs, because God, and he alone, knows, can and will provide for them, He who wants nothing for you but only your good and your joy.”
[St Angela Merici, Rule X, 1-6, 8-13, 16-18]
Day 5 - Radical Sacrifice
“So then, O my Lord, my only life and hope, I pray that you deign to receive this most vile and impure heart of mine, and to burn away its every affection and passion in the fiery furnace of your divine love. I pray that you receive my free will, every act of my own will, which by itself, because it is infected by sin, does not know how to discern good from evil. Receive my every thought, word and deed, everything that is mine finally, both interior and exterior. All this I lay down as an offering at the feet of your divine Majesty. And I pray that you deign to receive it even though I am unworthy of this. Amen.”
[St Angela Merici, Rule V, 35-44]
Day 6 - Help of the Holy Spirit
“May the strength and true consolation of the Holy Spirit be in you all, so that you can sustain and carry out vigorously and faithfully the charge laid upon you, and at the same time look forward to the great reward which God has prepared for you if you strive, each one for her part, to be faithful and full of concern for his spouses who have been entrusted to you, to guard them and watch over them as most vigilant shepherds and good servants. How much, therefore, must you pray God to enlighten you, and direct you, and teach you what you have to do for love of him in this task.”
[St Angela Merici, Counsels, Prologue 3-7]
Day 7 - God, the Unfailing Hope
“Have hope and firm faith in God, for he will help you in everything. Pray to him, humble yourselves under his great power, because, without doubt, as he has given you this charge, so he will give you also the strength to be able to carry it out, provided you do not fail for your part. Act, move, believe, strive, hope, cry out to him with all your heart, for without doubt you will see marvellous things, if you direct everything to the praise and glory of his Majesty and the good of souls.”
[St Angela Merici, Counsels, Prologue 15-18]
Day 8 - God, Faithful to His Promise
“And tell them this good news which I announce to them on behalf of Jesus Christ and of our Lady: how much they have to exult and rejoice, for in heaven a new crown of glory and joy is prepared for all of them, one by one.”; “Therefore encourage them to continue courageously the task they have begun. And at the same time rejoice, because, without doubt, what I say to you will be so.”
[St Angela Merici, Fifth Counsel 24-25 , Last Counsel 21-22]
Day 9 - Jesus, the Only Treasure
“Now I am more alive than I was when they saw me in the flesh, and that now I see them and know them better. And can and want to help them more. And that I am continually among them with my Lover, or rather ours, the Lover of us all, provided they believe and do not lose heart and hope. And so, especially for those you see disconsolate, doubtful and faint-hearted, enlarge the scope of the promises, which will not go unfulfilled.
Tell them that they should long to see me not on earth, but in heaven, where our love is. Let them set their hopes on high and not on earth. Let them have Jesus Christ for their only treasure, for there also will be love, which is to be sought not here in this world, but above, in the high heaven at the right hand of the Father”.
[St Angela Merici, Fifth Counsel 35-44]
Prepared by Sr Daria Klich OSU