The Two Ladies of Education

Today is another double saint day.  I just could not decide which of these two saints to paint so  Isat down yesterday and painted them both.  After reading about their lives, I now feel it is fitting that they should be painted together as they both influenced the education of others.

St. Ursula

Feast Day: October 21
Born:  Some time before 4th century
Patron: Catholic education (especially of girls); educators; holy death; students; teachers
England

Ursula is a legendary saint as we know little about her other than her death and the veneration after this event.  Even her death was exaggerated to legendary extremes do to a misunderstanding.

From what we can gather from the stories, she was the daughter of a Christian king.  She was asked to marry a man she did not desire.  She requested a three year reprieve in order to go on a pilgrimage to Rome.

On her return, Ursula and her group of companions were attacked by Huns.  She was killed because she refused to marry their chieftain.  The numbers were in the thousands most likely because of a writer's error in the tenth century.

The only real evidence we have of Ursula and her maiden companions is an inscription on a church in Cologne built to commemorate a group of virgins who were martyred before the 4th century.

SO...why paint a peg doll for a legendary saint?

There happen to be a group of women who have dedicated their work to God...and these nuns known as "The Company of St. Ursula" beginning in 1540.  This order of nuns was established by St. Angela de Merici.  The religious order was dedicated to educate young girls.  It was the first teaching order of women established by the Church and continues this purpose to this day.  The order began with humble roots as Angela was only seventeen years old when she gathered her small group of women together to teach and pray.  However, the group were granted the popes approval and spread quickly throughout the area before her death and then into several countries (even the United States as early as 1727).  More on St Angela de Merici in a future post (January).

St. Ursula and her companions, pray for us!

St. Laura of Saint Catherine of Sienna

Feast day: October 21
Birth: 1874
Death: 1949
Born as María Laura Montoya Upegui
Columbia
Patron of suffering from racial discrimination, orphans, Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Immaculate Mary and of Saint Catherine of Siena

Laura's father was killed when she was a young child during the Colombian Civil War of 1876.  She was sent to live with her grandmother.  In order to help her widowed mother, Laura earned money as a school teacher.  However, she felt called to the religious life and entered the order of Discalced Carmelites.  She became unsettled in this life as a cloistered nun and felt called to missionary work.

In 1908, Laura began to use her training as a teacher as she began her missionary work in the surrounding regions.  She then founded the "Works of the Indians" in South America in order to assist the native people.

She would eventually form her own order (Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and Saint Catherine of Siena) that was dedicated to resolve issues of bigotry and to the service of the natives.  She was often criticized for her work but she continued to persevere even when she became ill and was confined to a wheelchair.

She died in 1949 but her order spread to other countries, which include 19 countries today.  She was only recently venerated by Pope John Paul II in 2004 and later canonized by Pope Francis in 2013.

St. Laura of St Catherine of Sienna, pray for us!