10 January Blessed Ann of the Angels Monteagudo

10 January
BLESSED ANN OF THE ANGELS MONTEAGUDO
Nun and Virgin
Optional Memoria
Ann de Monteagudo was born in Arequipa, Peru in 1602 and in 1619 professed her vows in the monastery of Saint Catherine of Siena.  She was completely taken up in prayer with God, devoted her life to the imitation of Jesus Crucified, whose humility, patience, gentleness and prayerfulness she exemplified to perfection. Yet she did not neglect the needs of her neighbours, she faithfully fulfilled the offices of sacristan, mistress of novices and prioress to serve her community. Physical and mystical sufferings befell upon her together with heavenly illuminations. Confined to her bed in pain, she suffered neglect, distress, fever, loneliness and total blindness. She bore these afflictions during the last decade of her life with courage, serenity and resignation for love of her beloved souls in purgatory. She died in Arequipa on 10 January, 1686.
 
From the Common of Virgins or of Holy Women: for Religious, except the following.

THE OFFICE OF READINGS

Second Reading
From the Homily of Blessed John Paul II on the Beatification of Blessed Ana of the Angels Monteagudo.
(Arequipa, 2 February, 1985 nn. 5-7a; ASOP 93(1985)pp. 60-62.)
She realized the Dominican program of light, truth of love and life

We recognize this chosen daughter of your land whom today we can proclaim as Blessed of the Church: Sister Ann of the Angeles Monteagudo.  In her we especially admire the Christian example, the contemplative, the Dominican nun in the famous monastery of Santa Catalina, a monument of art and piety in which the Arequipans reasonably feels proud of.  In her life, she realized the Dominican program of light, truth of love and life, which is centered on the known phrase: to contemplate and to share what had been contemplated.

Sister Ana of the Angels realized this program with an intense, austere, radical surrender to the monastic life, according to the style of the Order of Saint Dominic, that is in the contemplation of the mystery of Christ, the Truth and the Wisdom of God. But at the same time her life had a particular apostolic extension. She was the spiritual teacher and faithful executor of the norms of the Church that urged the reform of the monasteries.  She knew how to receive all those who depended on it, leading them towards the paths of forgiveness and the life of grace. Her hidden presence was made known beyond the confines of her convent, with the fame of her holiness.  To the bishops and priests she helps them with her prayers and counsels, to the travelers and pilgrims who came to her, she accompanied them with her intercessions.

Her long life was almost consumed in its entirety within the walls of the monastery of Santa Catalina where at a tender age as a student, and later as a religious and superior.  During her last years she led a painful identification with the mystery of the Christ crucified.

With her life, Sister Ana of the Angels confirms the fruitfulness of the contemplative life in the Mystical Body of the Christ which is the Church. Contemplative life that has been rooted immediately here since the early moments of evangelization, and continues to be the mysterious wealth of the Church in Peru and of the whole Church of Christ. 

Imitating the charity and the ecclesial sense of her patroness, Catherine of Siena; with a meek and humble heart, open to the needs of all especially the poor; everyone found in her a true love. The poor and the humble found efficacious acceptance; the rich, understanding which does not misconstrue the demand of conversion; the pastors found prayer and counsel, the sick, relief; the sad, consolation; the wayfarers, hospitality, the persecuted , forgiveness ; the dying an ardent prayer.

The prayerful and effective charity of Sister Ana was present in a special way among the deceased, the souls in purgatory which she called “her friends”. In this way, enlightened by the ancestral piety for the deceased with the doctrine of the Church, and following the example of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino whom she was devoted, she extended her charity to the deceased with prayers and suffrages.

Today the Church in Arequipa and all of Peru desire to adore God in a special way for the benefits He had granted to the People of God through the service of this humble religious. Sister Ana of the Angels. In this way that mystery of God’s grace, within the womb of the Church in your land has been made manifest and reveals itself: it is Sister Ana of the Angels, the Blessed of the Church!

The holiness of man is the work of God. It is never enough to show gratitude for this work. When we venerate his works, the works of God, we venerate and adore He himself-God above all, the most holy.  And among all the works of the Lord, the greatest is the holiness of a creature: the holiness of man.

Responsory
V.   How great is your beauty, virgin of Christ! * You have been proved worthy of the reward given by the Lord, the crown of perpetual virginity.
R.   Nothing could bring you to surrender virginity; nothing could separate you from the love of the Son of God.
R.   *You have been proved worthy of the reward given by the Lord, the crown of perpetual virginity.

Alternative Second Reading

Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Nuns of Monte Mario (24 June, 2010, Rome)
The way of contemplative life places you in the heart of the Lord’s Mystical Body, the Church.
The community you make up is a place where you can dwell in the Lord; it is for you the New Jerusalem, to which the tribes of the Lord go up to praise the name of the Lord (cf. Ps. 121:4). Be grateful to Divine Providence for the sublime and gratuitous gift of the monastic vocation, to which the Lord has called you without any merit of yours. With Isaiah, you can affirm “the Lord formed me from the womb” (Is. 49:5). Even before you were born, the Lord had kept your heart for himself to be able to fill it with his love. Through the sacrament of baptism you received Divine grace in yourselves, immersed in his Death and Resurrection, you were consecrated to Jesus, to belong to him exclusively. The way of contemplative life, which you received from St. Dominic in the form of cloister, places you, as living and vital members, in the heart of the Lord’s Mystical Body, which is the Church; and as the heart makes the blood circulate and maintains the whole body alive, so your hidden existence with Christ, interlaced with work and prayer, contributes to sustain the Church, instrument of salvation for every man whom the Lord redeemed with his blood.

It is this inexhaustible source that you approach with prayer, presenting in the presence of the Most High the spiritual and material needs of so many brothers in difficulty, the strayed life of all those who separate themselves from the Lord. How can one not be moved by compassion for those who seem to wander aimlessly? How can one not wish that in their life they will encounter Jesus, the only one who gives meaning to existence? The holy desire that the Kingdom of God be established in the heart of every man, is identified with prayer itself, as St. Augustine teaches us: Ipsum desiderium tuum, oratio tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continue oratio (cf. Ep. 130, 18-20); because of this, as fire that burns and is never extinguished, the heart remains alert, it never ceases to desire and it always raises a hymn of praise to God.

Because of this, recognize that in everything you do, beyond the personal moments of prayer, your heart continues to be led by the desire to love God. With the Bishop of Hippo, acknowledge that the Lord has put his love in your hearts, desire that dilates the heart, until it makes it capable of receiving God himself (cf. In. O. Ev. tr. 40, 10). This is the horizon of the earthly pilgrimage! This is your goal! This is why you have chosen to live in obscurity and in the renunciation of earthly goods: to desire above all that good which has no equal, that precious pearl that merits the renunciation of any other good to enter into its possession.

Responsory

V.   How great is your beauty, virgin of Christ! * You have been proved worthy of the reward given by the Lord, the crown of perpetual virginity.
R.   Nothing could bring you to surrender virginity; nothing could separate you from the love of the Son of God.
R.   *You have been proved worthy of the reward given by the Lord, the crown of perpetual virginity.

Concluding Prayer

Bountiful God, you gave Blessed Ann the gifts of contemplation, of penitence and of charity towards her neighbors. With the help of her prayers and example may we worship you with this sacrifice of praise and learn what is pleasing to you through the signs of times. (We make our prayer) through our Lord. (Through Christ our Lord.)