Saint of the Day: Bl. Maria Angela Astorch

Poor Clare Capuchin Nun (1592-1665)

Her life

+ Maria Angela was born in Barcelona, Spain. As a young woman she entered the Poor Clare Capuchin nun and she professed her religious vows in 1609.

+ She served her community as novice mistress and director of formation. She would go on to establish monasteries in Zaragoza and Murcia, serving as abbess of both communities. 

+ Maria Angela spent her free time studying Scripture and other theological writers and she was known for her profound devotion to the Divine Office. 

+ Honored as a mystic and visionary who could communicate with her Guardian Angel, she died on December 2, 1665, and was beatified in 1982. 

For prayer and reflection

“Maria Angela is… 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 and women open to the ways of God.”—Pope Saint John Paul II

Spiritual bonus

On this day we also remember Blessed Ivan Sleziuk. A Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest, he was named consecrated as co-adjustor bishop of Ivano-Frankivsk by Blessed Hryhoriy Khomyshyn (d. 1947) in April 1945. On June 2, 1945, Bishop Sleziuk was arrested by Communist authorities and sentenced to forced labors camps in Russia, he was repeatedly arrested and released, enduring interrogation by the KGB until his death on December 2, 1973. Blessed Ivan was beatified with other martyrs “Killed under Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe” in 2001.  

Prayer

O God, bounteous in all things to those who call upon you, who, through the daily office of praise, gave the Virgin Blessed Mary Angela the grace to enter wondrously into the depths of your hidden riches, grant, we pray, through her intercession, that we may direct all our actions to you, so that they may be to the praise of your glory, in Jesus Christ your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(from The Capuchin Missal)
Saint profiles prepared by Father Silas Henderson, S.D.S.