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From a Man Who Knew Angela Merici's Heart

Gabriel Cozzano, Angela’s Secretary and Chancellor of the Company (1540-1546) probably knew Angela’s heart better than most. Some tidbits of information follow to give a different perspective.

 “Gabriel Cozzano. A man of indeterminate age, apparently rather dull, about whom practically nothing is known except that he is called “Grammaticus et litterarum professor” in the epitaph which he composed for Angela’s tomb, and “notary” in an official act. This is the man of discretion, though, whom Angela chose to be her private secretary before appointing him chancellor of the Company and its protector.”

“. . . what counts also is that it is from Cozzano that we learn about the Madre, her intentions, and about the life of the early maidens of the Company. He pours all his heart and zeal into this, thereby discounting any suggestion that he was an unfeeling man. We cannot but be moved by his loyalty to the foundress, her thought and her work. 

This is how he presents the Madre surrounded by her daughters: “She was like a sun that gave light to all the others. She was like a fire, a conflagration of love that set them all alight. She was like a throne of God which instructed them…” (MTS, p. 176)

. . . Cozzano gives us some explanation, as far as it is possible, of Angela’s regret at having been so slow to begin to serve his divine Majesty (Rule V, 27) by making us feel her hesitations: “First of all, God himself inspired and at the same time compelled our Mother foundress to plant and to establish in his name this holy Rule of life. So very true is this, that she did not call it her Company, but that of Jesus Christ. . . and although she had been inspired with the idea of it from an early age and shown it from on high, and although she had a great longing for it, she had never wanted to start it, however, until commanded by Jesus Christ to do so, until he had cried out with her heart and had impelled and constrained her to begin and to establish it.” (MTS. 255).

Then there is that little personal detail which brings us a new insight into Angela’s intimacy with her Lord: “How many times, not in a human spirit or in a spirit of untruthfulness and vanity, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, she used to call him her “LOVER” so close was this generous and sublime soul bound to God by love.”

Resources used above
Angela Merici – The Scribe and the Witness – Writings of Gabriel Cozzano
Marie-Benedicte Rio, osu
MARIANI, TAROLLI, SEYNAEVE, Angela Merici , Contribution towards a Biography

Pictures of the December 6 Elves Party and Foundation Day, December 13