Taken from "Following The Spirit Angela Merici and the Ursulines"

St. Angela's spirituality continued:

With regards to poverty, Angela refers above all to "poverty of spirit, through which a person strips the heart of every affection and hope for created things, and of self. In God one has all wealth... Let each one strive to be stripped of everything and to put all of her wealth and love and delight not in possessions, not in food and over-eating, not in relatives and friends, not in herself, nor in any of her own attributes and knowledge, but in God alone, and in the kind and ineffable Providence that is his alone." (Rule Chapter 10)

She urges obedience to God's Commandments first, and then to what "Mother Church commands," and finally to individual spiritual and secular authorities. However, one other form of obedience seems to be far more fundamental: "Above all, (the women should) obey the counsels and inspirations which the Holy Spirit continually sends into the heart..obey God and each creature for the love of God, as long as nothing is commanded against one's own integrity." (Rule chapter 8) The individuals obedience to the Holy Spirit and to God's guidance, as well as her personal integrity, takes priority over obedience to all earthly authorities.

This spiritual understanding of the Evangelical Counsels, more than anything else, distinguishes the first Ursuline Rule. Angela admittedly included traditional characteristics of religious life, but she interpreted them anew and thus created a freer, more independent, yet committed way of life for women. The independence of this new way is also visible in the leadership structure which Angela intended for her community. It is true that, if the need arose for material affairs to be put in order, four "prudent and honorable" widows and four "mature men who have led upright lives" were to be called in. However, the spiritual leadership lay in the hands of four women elected by the community, from within the community. It is remarkable that no office of leadership was provided for priests. They had an important function as father confessors and as ministers of the Eucharist, but they played no role in the spiritual or secular leadership of the community. As an assembly of women, the community was intended to be independent of outsiders. (9th Legacy)