The entrance to the Franciscan convent of "Maria Stern"
"HAPPY" TO FLY TO THE GOAL OF HER BURNING DESIRE
In 1866, five years after being called, "in a special way to religious life," Mother Frances finally convinced her parents of her religious vocation or at least to overcome their resistance. On September 22, as she wrote in her notebook, she took leave of her family and three days later, on September 25, obeying her father who wished her to choose at least a not excessively austere order, she entered the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Stern in Augsburg. On October 17, she began her postulancy. Later, in 1869, writing to her parents on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary, she expressed all her joy at the consent she had received after years of painful waiting:
“No one...is more grateful to you than me. Oh, how happy you made me when you gave me the consent to enter a religious order! Yes, heaven will bless you for all you have done”.
The 22-year-old girl knew the Institute very well. After elementary school, in the years of her adolescence, she had attended it as a student until she graduated as a teacher. Now entering to become a religious, she would have liked to put herself at the service of the poor and the sick, but she was asked to continue her studies of the French language and music and then devote herself to teaching. Once again, denying herself, she obeyed and, although suffering inwardly, threw herself headlong into the fulfilment of the assignments she received.
THE NOVITIATE AND THE RELIGIOUS PROFESSION
On June 3, 1867, Mother Frances began her novitiate, wearing the habit of the Franciscan Sisters of Maria Stern and taking the name Sister Mary Angela. However, "the ancient struggle", as she called it, did not cease. Order, devotion and hard work in the Stern Institute did not extinguish her inner dissension: "An austere Order suits you", was the murmur of her heart, that felt mysteriously drawn to higher goals and even a more radical lifestyle.
“After half a year I was invested, and scarcely had I put on the religious garb when the old struggle was upon me once more. ‘You belong in a strict Order’ echoed in my soul again. No one witnessed my struggle. Only the cathedral provost Allioli, of blessed memory, confessor to the Sisters of Maria Stern, allowed me a more austere way of life and reassured me”.
In the crucible of this restlessness and firmly resolved to seek and follow God's will, she made her religious vows on June 8, 1868: "I came to holy profession," she wrote.
