From Dr Carole Hill
Sir, - I fear I must contradict Jane Christmas ("A man for all
seasons, but no plaster saint", Faith, 30 January) and come
running to the defence of poor St Angela of Foligno (1248-1309) -
in my opinion, a wildly inappropriate parallel life to use in
discussing the life and gifts of Thomas Merton - and ask on what
evidence she is labelled "a good-time girl who whored her way
through life"?
I believe Angela confessed to sins left unnamed, like many
another. Perhaps Ms Christmas has been misguided by the sexual
imagery and metaphor redolent of 13th- century visionary mysticism,
and Angela's inclination to strip (literally) to the buff before
the cross as she drew closer to the poverty characteristic of
medieval Franciscan spirituality. She became a tertiary of the
Franciscan order.
Much more shocking to the modern sensibility was Angela's
constant prayer that her family, including her many children,
should all die to release her to singular commitment to God,
mirroring dramatically Christ's gospel injunction to leave behind
father, mother, and family ties, to follow him alone.
In short, Angela was engaged in an exercise in imitatio
Christi. When they all did expire in rapid succession, she
was, naturally, grief-stricken. Her spiritual aspirations and noisy
mystical experiences, loud enough to get her thrown out of the
basilica in Assisi, were very similar to a slightly later
would-be-saint and female mystic, our own Margery Kempe of Bishop's
Lynn.
CAROLE HILL
29 Friars' Quay
Norwich NR3 1ES