Raymond Arroyo - Mother Angelicas Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality

Contents

FOR MY LITTLE ONES:

Mariella, Lorenzo, and Alexander

AND FOR MOTHERS:

The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, The Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word,
and
Her spiritual children, the world over

Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight.

L UKE 10:21

Introduction

When she first saw the plump Franciscan nun on TV, Markie Works wanted to flip the channel. Oh forget this, she told herself on a Chicago night in April of 2001. But as she reached past the empty beer bottles for the remote, something about the nun held her attention.

Markie was routinely using drugs at the time and ending her evenings with a succession of nightcaps. Considering all the woman had lived through, one could hardly blame her. Markie was eighteen months old when her mother was fatally shot in the head by an uncle. Abuse and a series of bad choices had led her to the fleeting comforts found in thin white lines of powder and at the bottom of a shot glass.

Earlier that week, her physical and emotional condition had so deteriorated that Markie had begged God to take her life, or rescue her from the life she had been living. Then she happened across this nun.

Mother Angelica was responding to a viewer, near the end of her live call-in show. The despondent caller had been mistreated and rejected by her mother all her life. After sympathetically listening, the straight-talking nun in her espresso-tinted habit leaned forward, looked with genuine concern into the camera lens, and said: Its all right honey. Ill be your mother now.

Markie began bawling. Something in the nuns demeanor, something so honest, so real, touched her wounded heart. It was as if Mother Angelica was speaking directly to her. The bottled-up pain she carried over the loss of her mother, the wretched choices, the misery of her present condition spilled out in a cleansing torrent of tears. In that moment, Angelica became Markies spiritual mother. Her problems didnt vanish, but she immediately realized that she no longer had to carry the cross alone.

She began tuning in to Mother Angelica Live each week, and slowly found her way out of the despair that had consumed her life. Today Markie is free of drugs and alcohol, has a family, and is deeply grateful to Mother Angelica for the spiritual guidance, and the teachings that got her through the dark times. She is not alone.

One could say that Angelica, or Rita Rizzo, as she was known before religious life, was a mother from early childhood. By the age of seven she was already providing emotional support and protection to her birth mother, Mae Rizzo. Her father, John, had walked out on the family when Rita was only five.

Singed by the fires of abandonment and disability, she learned at a tender age to rely on God alone. This difficult background and the time spent in prayer as a contemplative nun would acutely shape the later teachings of Mother Angelica. In her lessons, she sought to apply traditional Christian spirituality to the confused, complex world she knew all too well. Her teachings pulsed with a practical simplicity, an earthy humor, and a beguiling wisdom that would draw many eyes and hearts.

For nearly three decades, Mother Angelica, speaking the language of the common man, used every form of the media to spread her message of hope to the masses. In 1972, she founded a print shop, where her nuns published millions of her spiritual mini books. Following the example of her Divine Spouse, she traversed the countryside delivering inspiring, often uproarious, talks on the spiritual life. And in 1981, at fifty-eight years of age, against all odds, she built the largest religious media empire on the planet, The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)which would make hers a household name.

Mother would continue teaching millions until a massive stroke hit her on Christmas Eve, 2001, limiting her speech and effectively ending her public career. Still, she remains a cultural force.

Today she can be seen and heard in reruns on cable television, AM/FM, satellite and shortwave radio, the Internet, and even your iPod. Yet for all her renown, there existed no single volume which preserved her remarkable spirit and provided a full sampling of her major teachings. Mother Angelica, her nuns, and I believed this omission should be corrected.

Throughout the book tour for my biography, Mother Angelica, the Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles, I cant tell you how often people waited on line to share how Mothers story or words had transformed their lives. Misty-eyed CEOs, lawyers, maids, truck drivers, and home-schooling moms stood in queues to pay tribute to her, and to ask questions, sometimes very pointed questions: How can I find Gods will in my life as Mother did? How can I pray more deeply? How can I overcome the faults that seem to be holding my life hostage? How did Mother find the strength to cope with all the suffering she experienced?

You hold in your hands the answers to these universal questions, and many more.

If my biography was the body of Mothers life, this is its lifeblood. Herein are the beliefs, teachings, life lessons, wit, and prayers that sustained Angelicas incredible journey.

Many of the quotes that follow have not been heard since Mother first uttered them. They are drawn primarily from her live appearances before secular and church groups, a Bible study conducted in her monastery parlor for an ecumenical guild of women in the early 1970s, private lessons given to her nuns over a thirty-year period, and interviews with me from 19992001. Through a special collaborative agreement, Mother Angelica and her monastery gave me unprecedented access to materials thought lost, and many transcriptions and recordings never seen or heard by the public.

Believing that there is power in things done or said the first time, I opted to go back to the earliest teachings of Mother Angelica and to trace their evolution. Hers was a lively art. As she turned to inspiration for the bold strokes that would define her life, so she would rely upon it to lend expression and cogency to her teachings. While confronting real-world concerns and questions before live audiences, whether her nuns or the public, Mother Angelica would coin new phrases and give shape to the original yet timeless philosophy she would call on again and again. The distillation of her initial creativity would appear decades later on her television programs. But those early efforts, when she was still refining her message, contain an improvisatory crackle, a vibrancy and passion that rival even her best television work. The final selections here capture her ideas and advice at both the moment of their inception and, in some cases, after years of fermentation. All are pithy, insightful, and so relevant.

Rather than getting lost in the speculative concepts and theological hairsplitting that is the business of others, Angelica offers practical, everyday spiritual answers to laypeople in distress. The solutions are not always easy, but they are doable.

In some ways this work is like a sit-down with Mother Angelica; a chance to soak up the wisdom and joy of a woman who has lived a life of indomitable faith. This little book is broken into digestible chapters that the reader may dip into for a quick infusion of inspiration, or can be used as a continual devotional for daily spiritual reflection. But be forewarned, this is a devotional like none other. Once you plunge in, your spirit may be as agitated as your funny bone. Dont say you werent warned.