Blessed Ursuline of Parma

Ursulina Veneri of Parma (Parma, 1375 – Verona, April 7, 1410) was a Benedictine oblate declared blessed. Ursulina, the daughter of Pietro Veneri and Bertolina, recovered from a serious illness at the age of eleven through the intercession of Saint Peter of Verona. Manuscripts preserved in the State Archives of Parma and the Municipal Archives of Siena, written by her confessor, testify that Ursulina led an intense spiritual and contemplative life. She was an oblate of the Benedictines of the monastery of Parma, although she was never bound to any monastic institution. During her life, the problem of the Western Schism, which distressed the Church, resonated deeply with her. On two occasions, though unsuccessfully, she traveled to Avignon accompanied by her mother to convince Clement VII to put an end to the division of the Church. Upon returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1396, she passed through Venice, where she left such a vivid impression of her holiness that, forty years later, the Republic sought to promote her canonization and dedicate a monastery to her. After Ottone III condemned her to exile—following his seizure of Parma upon defeating the Rossi, the faction to which the Veneri family belonged—she died in Verona on April 7, 1410. Her body was brought to the Church of Saint Quentin by her mother. Her feast day is April 7.