The twenty-first century challenges people of faith to take the message of Jesus into society and the church. War, violence, and inequity have become part of everyday experience in U.S. society, as scandal within the clergy and hierarchy has become part of the Catholic experience. At the same time, models of self-giving in service to those in need and laity seeking a voice in the well-being of the church are equally compelling as people of faith live responsibly and faithfully. These dedicated people offer hope in the contemporary world.

Ursulines have been part of this Christian commitment to influence society and the church since their founding by Angela Merici in 1535. She represents an icon of the independent and dedicated woman who recognized unaddressed needs and ecclesiastical scandals in her environment. Her response was respectful of prevailing institutions but unflinchingly realistic in responding to real needs.

Angela envisioned a company of dedicated women embedded in their society, with contemplation in their prayer life informing their action for others. The dynamism of her insight quickly spread and put down roots beyond her lifetime and beyond the city of Brescia, Italy, to live and flourish to the present on all continents.

Ursulines are her worldwide descendants, marked by her spirit, aspiring to be contemplatives in action. They are women religious, part of the larger community of men and women religious faithful to the Catholic church and dedicated to adapting the mission of Jesus to the times, in the U.S. and in distant places.

Before universal public education, Ursulines were best known as educators who educated girls for responsible family life, citizenship, and loyalty to the faith. With the accessibility and pluralism of public education in the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S.,Ursulines rededicated themselves to the moral and religious as well as intellectual and imaginative education of parochial schools for boys and girls, private secondary schools, and colleges, part of the U.S. Catholic school system.

More recently, and side by side with education, Ursulines extended their mission to new enterprises that build a society of peace and justice and work for the integrity of creation. Like the model found in Angela Merici,these new ministries identify the structures and needs in their cities and regions that call for change, assess their abilities to undertake those changes, and gather men and women who will join them in responsive initiatives.

Ursulines are women empowering others,who have committed themselves to a mission of service. Their members offer services that seek to equalize pervasive inequities of class and race; simplicity of lifestyle to counter secular materialism; and life in common as witness of the church as a gathering of people faithful to the vision of Jesus.