Raymond Arroyo - Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles

Table of Contents

For the mother of my children, Rebecca
my mother, Lynda
and
all mothers everywhere

Praise for MOTHER ANGELICA

A rattling good story of fear, faith, courage, and bulldog tenacity, beautifully told. The drama of Mother Angelicas life is a powerful reminder that the extraordinary lies just beyond the ordinaryif we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

GEORGE WEIGEL, author of Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II

Raymond Arroyo invites the reader to join him on the wild ride of the Holy Spirit that transformed Rita Rizzo into Mother Angelica, one of the feistiest and most effective evangelists of our time. It is an invitation not to be declined.

Father RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS, editor-in-chief of First Things magazine

In Raymond Arroyos entertaining Mother Angelica, she emerges as a daring entrepreneur who really did do it all for God and as a traditionalist who has felt the need to challege the progressive wing of the American Catholic Church... He is a solid journalist and his account makes it pretty clear that Mother Angelica is both a tough nut and something of a diva under her wimple.

The Wall Street Journal

Raymond Arroyo masterfully captures the complexities, humanity, and tenacity of Mother Angelica, who has long been one of my own personal heroes. The founder of the Eternal Word Television Network, Mother Angelica is a woman who dared to dream, to stand up for what she believed in, and whose faith showed that anything is possible. In Arroyos hands, she becomes someone you wish you had the opportunity to know and love. Read this book and believe.

NICHOLAS SPARKS

A superbly written, broadly researched biography of a fascinating, audacious, stubborn and deeply religious woman.

St. Anthony Messenger

Mother Angelica is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, and is truly one of my heroes. With his insider perspective, Raymond Arroyo has done a masterful job capturing not only Mothers immeasurable accomplishments but also her remarkable personality. Like Mother herself, this book has the unique combination of being both inspiring and entertaining.

THOMAS S. MONAGHAN, founder of Dominos Pizza and Chancellor of Ave Maria University

The book is a solidly researched, professionally told account of one of the most improbable successes of recent years.

National Review

Mother Angelica is a fascinating read about an amazing woman.

St. Cloud Visitor

Raymond Arroyo, one of Americas leading journalists in reporting religion, has written a fascinating story of how faith transformed a cloistered nun into a media giant. This is an exciting rendition of a story that is more extraordinary and surely more heartwarming than fiction.

ROBERT NOVAK, syndicated columnist

Mother Angelicas personal words to me, her courageous example, and her constant prayers helped inspire my portrayal of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ. No one could have captured the essence of this modern-day saint better than Raymond Arroyo. His narrative gifts and understanding of Mother are clearly evident in this truthful and often candid depiction of one nuns struggle to bring God to the multitudes. Surely this book, and Mothers life will have an incredible enduring legacy.

JAMES CAVIEZEL, actor

It is a great read... Mother Anglica is an important part of the history of religionand not only of Catholicismin the last half century, and in Mother Angelica she receives a critical appreciation worthy of her person and achievements.

First Things

Raymond Arroyo captures the life of this complex woman dubbed the miracle woman by members of Pope John Paul IIs curia in his book... Mr. Arroyos book is a must read for Catholics or anyone interested in the Church. With great reverence and wit he paints a masterful portrait of the woman who brought Rome to the masses.

The U.P. Catholic

If Rita Rizzo was an unlikely candidate for a Poor Clares convent, Mother Angelica was an even more unlikely choice to establish, in Alabama, the business empire that is the Eternal Word Television Network. In this candid, captivating biography, Raymond Arroyo delivers not just a great story of a savvy and courageous woman, but multiple examples of the claim that all things are possible with God. I highly recommend it.

RON HANSEN, author of Mariette in Ecstasy

A page-turner about an elderly nun? It seems improbable, but when the nun is the formidable Mother Angelica and her biographer the eloquent Raymond Arroyo, the result is a book that few readers will be able to put down. Arroyo has produced a spellbinding tale of how Rita Rizzo emerged from a broken home, battling poverty, illness, and uncomprehending clerics to become the queen of Catholic media and a leader of the New Evangelization in America.

MARY ANN GLENDON, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University and author of A World Made New:Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declarationof Human Rights

Mother Angelica is the beautifully told story of a beautiful woman of God whose toughness, tenacity, drive and determination built a network to bring the Catholic truth and culture to a nation that has never been more desperately in need of them.

PAT BUCHANAN, columnist and author of The Death of the West

But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong.

I CORINTHIANS I:27

Prologue

ON CHRISTMAS EVE morning, 2001, the crumpled abbess lowered herself into the waiting wheelchair and tried to reassure her daughters. For weeks, the sisters had tensely monitored her every move, hoping their vigilance could somehow stave off the next illness or setback. From the nuns shared looks of desperation to the reflexive aid they offered whenever she stumbled or even hesitated, she could feel their worry. Jesus is coming today, she announced with calm determination on that morning. Pointing to the hallway, she directed the sister pushing her out of the cell. Im going to the chapel to wait for Him.

She wouldnt have to wait long.

Gliding past the closed doors of the great monastery hall, filled only with the sound of sisters rustling into their habits, the old nun looked as if she had just returned from the front lines of an extended war campaign. And perhaps she had. Public battles with a cardinal and her local bishop, a Vatican investigation, the death of a cloistered friend of forty-nine years, and constant health troubles had taken their toll on Mother Mary Angelica by late 2001. Even the millions who invited her into their homes each week might not have recognized her. A sling held Angelicas shattered right arm, the result of a fall a few days earlier. A patch covered her sagging left eye, which refused to closea memento of the stroke shed suffered in September. And the mouth that made bishops tremble and carried salvation to the lost on seven continents drooped pathetically, disrupting the once-jolly face. Angelica was now a living icon of redemptive suffering, the embodiment of what she had long preached to her sisters.