Angeline of Marsciano

Angelina of Marsciano, T.O.R. (or Angelina of Montegiove; 1357 – 14 July 1435) was an Italian religious sister and foundress, and is a beata of the Roman Catholic Church. She founded a congregation of religious sisters of the Franciscan Third Order Regular, known today as the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angelina. She is generally credited with the founding of the Third Order Regular for women, as her religious congregation marked the establishment of the first Franciscan community of women living under the rule of the Third Order Regular authorized by Pope Nicholas V.

Unlike the Second Order of the Franciscan movement, the Poor Clare nuns, they were not an enclosed religious order, but have been active in serving the poor around them for much of their history. She is commemorated by the Franciscans on 4 June; her liturgical feast is 13 July.

Left orphaned and alone, except for one sister, by the age of six, she was raised by her grandparents. Angelina was married at age 15 to Giovanni da Terni, the Count of Civitella del Tronto, in the Abruzzo region, within the Kingdom of Naples, but he died only two years later, leaving her a childless widow. His death left Angelina in charge of his castle and estate.

Angelina took a leadership role in the small group and began to organize their lives into a more regular form. By 1397 she was considered the leader of the 12 founding members. In 1403, she was able to obtain a papal bull from Pope Boniface IX which formally recognized the status of the house as a monastery. The reputation of the community in Foligno was so successful that quickly communities of Franciscan tertiary women (called bizocche locally) throughout the region sought to affiliate with them. Communities under her authority were soon established in Florence, Spoleto, Assisi and Viterbo, along with 11 others, before her death in 1435.

Legacy and veneration Angeline died on 14 July 1435.

Blessed Angelina was interred in the Church of St. Francis in Foligno. Her remains were removed to a grander shrine in 1492.

Due to the requirement of keeping their communities small and simple, Angelina's congregation gained greatest popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1428, they had been put briefly by Pope Martin V under the jurisdiction of the Friars Minor, with a specific mandate for the education and instruction of young girls. Even so, their work was fairly apostolic until they were required to become an enclosed religious order in 1617, having taken solemn vows with a strict separation from the affairs of the external world, limited to the education of girls within the cloister. With a 1903 lift of papal enclosure, a wider apostolate was again permitted, and the congregation became known as the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angelina. In 1750, it consisted of 11 houses and 80 members.

In 2000, it has houses in Brazil, Madagascar and Switzerland, as well as in Italy.