Raymond Arroyo - Mother Angelica Her Grand Silence: The Last Years and Living Legacy

The spacious cell at the monastery where she spent her last years was almost always muggylike any grandmothers room. The whir of the oxygen machine in the corner ricocheted off the tiled floor, providing the only constant sound in the space. Bookshelves and a dresser near her bed were laden with statues of saints, an oversized Child Jesus, religious cards, and relics. And there, bundled in a hospital bed, beneath a faded painting of the wounded Savior, a white ski cap atop her head, lay the most powerful and influential woman in Catholicism: the indomitable Mother Angelica.

As late as 2010, although she was bedridden and weakened by a stroke, the old nuns spunk remained intact. I walked into Mothers cell one afternoon to find her tugging the bedsheets up over her mouth, engaged in a daily war.

Mother, you have to eat if you want to stay strong and healthy, the tiny Vietnamese nun, Sister Gabriel, fussed, extending a spoonful of mashed potatoes toward Mothers face. Angelica, having none of it, turned her glance toward the doorway.

Is she trying to force-feed you again? I jokingly asked as I entered.

Mother smiled broadly, tilting her face toward Sister Gabriels spoon, and lowered the bed linen. Then just as the food approached, she yanked the sheet up again blocking the potatoes entry.

Oh, Mother, Sister Gabriel said in frustration. Delighting in the mayhem, Angelica let loose a wheezy cackle for my benefit. She winked at me and then having had her fun, quickly opened her mouth to accept the first morsel of lunch.

She always gives me a hard time with lunch. Dont you, Mother? Sister Gabriel said, offering a second scoop of potatoes. Mother pursed her lips and slowly shook her head from side to side. Lunch was over.

The moment struck me as classic Mother Angelica: the steely will, the slightly subversive humor, the joy that millions all over the globe had come to love were on full display for anyone entering that overheated room. I was partly to blame for the show. Sister Catherine, the onetime vicar of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, claimed that Mother would perform when I showed up. It was as if she remembered the fun we had in days gone by and wanted to let me know that she was still gameher disability be damned.

My regular visits with Mother Mary Angelica never really ended. The frequency of our personal meetings was impeded by her stroke and her eventual confinement to the cell, but they continuedvastly alteredright up until her passing.

Mother Angelica hired me as news director at EWTN in 1996 and over time became much more than an employer to me. I cohosted her MotherAngelicaLive program for a few years, and we often had long personal conversations at the end of the workday or after the live shows on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. While I was working on her biography, from 1999 to 2001, wed meet every Saturday in her monastery parlor, peering at each other through the wrought-iron latticework separating the world from the cloister. During those intense interviews she could be explosive, hilarious, conspiratorial, and holyat times all at once. With Italianate gusto she shared how a tenacious faith reshaped the life of a wounded girl from Canton, Ohio, and changed the world.

In the lusterless suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, this crippled nun, who barely graduated high school, founded a cable network in her cloister garage in 1981. She would tend the fledging operation for two decades, crossing swords with errant bishops, beating back takeover attempts, and struggling with her own infirmity to make the Eternal Word Television Network the largest religious media organization on the planet. It was her personalityher particular ability to connect with viewers and spiritually console them in moments of distressthat propelled the thing forward. They could feel her faith and were warmed by it. Away from the cameras, it was Mother Angelicas mystical intimacy with pain and suffering that fueled EWTNs growth and made her one of the worlds most beloved spiritual figures.

The rigid white headgear of her habit could barely contain the nuns expressive face as she related the dramatic turns in her life during our times together. With each interview my understanding of her deepened along with our friendship. At times Mother would get so comfortable, especially over shared meals, that she would shift her weight in the overstuffed leather parlor chair, place a long, lean hand against her face, and really open up. Shed share troubles and fears, intimacies and secrets restricted to only a few of her sisters.

In June 2001 our conversation turned to some bishops who had caused her heartache in the past, men who never really cared for Mothers spiritual emphasis or style: They dont pay me any attention. Theyre just waiting for me to die. But I wont! Ha ha. Her eyes twinkled with mischief; a satisfied smile spread across her face. Then she exhaled and suddenly the mood changed. I talked to the Lord recently, she confided in a hush, and I said I would like to stay until the worst is overfor the Church, for the community.

The Lord accepted her proposal. But I doubt if even Mother could foresee the consequences of her request.

Later that year, on Christmas Eve, a stroke precipitated by a cerebral hemorrhage nearly killed Angelica, depriving her of the speech that had built her broadcast empire. In 2004, an injury would shrink her world, physically restricting her to a corner bedroom at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery. To outsiders, and even to some of her closest collaborators, it would appear Mother Angelicas story was over. The old abbess became ill, was shut up in her room, and waited for God to come for her. But there is much more to the storya story that has been hidden from the public until now.

In her protracted silencefor more than a decadeMother Angelica would struggle for her soul, fight for her religious community, see the fulfillment of her last mission, and radically transform the lives of people she had never known. She would indeed stay until the worst was over.