The following reflection was given by Sr. Janet M. Peterworth, OSU, at the feast day Mass of St. Ursula in the Motherhouse Chapel on October 21, 2024.

I want to tell you a story. It is a family story. I have told it more than once and most of you here have told it as well. This family story that I am telling dates from the 5th century, and it involves a young princess and a bunch of her friends. Now, because this family story has been told for so long there are many versions of it. And as with all family stories, it grows in the retelling at family reunions. Now mind you, much of what is told in our family story could not be fact checked on Google. I am telling our family story today in the light of the Gospel we have just heard and especially the words of Jesus about losing and gaining your life.

Now, back to the story. So, Ursula was a princess from Britain. Her father had arranged a political marriage for her. But Ursula, whose name means “Little She-Bear,” told her father that she really wanted to give herself body and soul to Christ. This did not sit well with her father who was not Christian, so father and daughter entered into negotiations.

Now, Ursula asked her father if she could make a pilgrimage to Rome to get the blessing of the Holy Father. And she asked her father if he could get 1,000 women from 10 other kingdoms (and also 1000 ships) to go to Rome with her. If he could, then she would enter into the political marriage he wanted. Ursula did not think her father could ever do this, so she thought she would be safe from the marriage. However, her father got on Facebook and that fast he had 10,000 women plus the 1000 Ursula got herself and off they went to Rome to visit Pope Siricius. (Who may or may not have been Pope at that time. Names get mixed up in family stories.)

Now, the family story differs here in that some think that Ursula only took 10 women with her. So, it might have been only 11 women who went. But isn’t it more exciting and glamorous to picture a flotilla of 11,000 women (on who knows how many ships) sailing the waters to Rome? Does make for a nice story. Little did these women11,000 or 11?—know that they were living into Jesus’s words, “If you would save your life, you’ll lose it. And if you lose your life for my sake, you’ll save it.”

By the way, the family story says in some versions, that Ursula taught these 11,000 women (or was it 11?) the tenets of Christianity and so they all became Christian on the voyage. That is the reason, some who tell this story say that Ursula became the patroness of educators and schoolgirls as well as the muse for the Sorbonne in France.

Now, it is on the way back from Rome that the family story becomes dark. Somehow…some way…there was a marauding group of men on the banks of the Rhine River near Cologne lying in wait for these women. As the family story goes, this group of men were Huns and Attila was their leader. Now, 5th century men had not heard of a woman’s right to say “no” or anything about sexual harassment lawsuits. So, when the women resisted the men’s advances that made the Huns angry. And somehow among all those women (the family story says) that Attila, the Hun, found Ursula and when she told him to back off, he got angry and threw an arrow at her, and it pierced her right in the heart.

And years later, the family story goes, the people of Cologne found lots of bones buried right on the banks of the Rhine. So, they concluded as best they could without any DNA proof, that these bones were the bones of Ursula and her companions. And they built a beautiful church there to honor these women and the story has been told ever since…in one version or another.

But this family story is seldom told in the light of today’s gospel, “If you lose your life for my sake, you will save it.” Ursula, who was never canonized by the church was declared a saint by the people of the Middle Ages (long before the church instituted a rite of canonization) exactly because they concluded that she and her companions lost their lives for Christ’s sake at the hands of Attila. And Ursula, the leader of this group, was dearly loved for her courage and determination.

And while the Church says she is the patroness of schoolgirls, I would like to suggest that the Church consider Ursula as the patroness of all the women who have said “no” in dark alleys and who were shot dead. She should be the patroness of all women on college campuses who are assaulted and left for dead by frat boys who were drunk and on a rampage. I suggest that she should be the patroness of all young girls who are forced into a child marriage in exchange for a few cows or for women who are taken advantage of by politicians or corporate heavyweights who think their power allows them to do anything they want with women. I think the Church should consider Ursula the patroness of women who have stayed in abusive marriages because the Church frowns upon divorce or women who are in prison because they protected themselves or their children in self-defense from an abusive spouse, but the law declared them murderers instead. I think Ursula should be the patroness of teenagers who sail away from home after an argument with a parent but sail right into the arms of unscrupulous traffickers who trap them into a sex trade that is worse than these girls could imagine.

I suggest also that we give Ursula the title that our Sacred Heart Academy uses, “A Strong Woman of Great Faith,” instead of just treating her as a legend. For that is what she was and that is exactly why Angela chose to name her company after Ursula.

 

About the artwork:

This beautiful mosaic of Saint Ursula sheltering her companions under her cloak hangs in the Desenzano Room of the Ursuline Motherhouse in Louisville. The Ursulines from Straubing, Germany, commissioned Josef Eberl to create this piece based on a design by Flemish artist Hans Memling (1494). Eberl’s original mosaic is inserted on the outside wall of the Straubing Ursuline Convent, and this piece is a close reproduction.
The mosaic is on wood with a base of maroon paint, which is overlaid with silver and white etchings. The date on the ship’s sail of 1691 represents the founding of the Straubing Ursulines, and 1858 represents the founding of the Louisville Ursulines. This mosaic was presented to Sister Angelice Seibert and the Louisville Ursulines in May 1983, for their Jubilee Year.