Today is the 1st anniversary of the death of Rita Antoinette Rizzo, better known as Mother Angelica, the foundress of EWTN and many other initiatives.
May those who carry on with her work not disgrace her memory.
Here is one of the defining moments of her ministry.
It was World Youth Day in Denver. There was a “stations of the cross” that was , quite frankly, blasphemous. Mother reacted strongly.
Please, all of you, pray for her. She would love that Masses are offered for her. She would love rosaries.
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If it wasn’t for EWTN’s use of Latin in the Mass, I would probably have never discovered the Latin Mass (EF). It was EWTN that caused me to come to a deeper knowledge of my faith. Thank you Mother.
….and then the floodgates opened.
I did not know Mother Angelica then, as I had not become Catholic and did not have cable. I was appalled when my sister-in-law came back from Denver….. and seemed to have misplaced her faith along the way.
I wonder what Mother would think about the situation of the Church in our day?
AMEN! I sure miss her. If she isn’t in Heaven, I ask the Lord to take her today. What a wonderful woman!
Yesterday on my way home from Mass, I listened to the tributes from both Raymond Arroyo’s show and Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s show. I purposely took a longer way home to keep listening, stopping off for lunch after Mr. Arroyo finished his tributes.
It’s amazing on how an idea, a small amount of money, and prayers accomplished so much. Mother Angelica accomplished more productivity in evangelization, Catechesis, and education (1993 was early in my reversion story as a retread college student at a good Catholic Student Center, although I never watched EWTN until 2001 when I was living out of a suitcase for work ) with far more less funding than another Catholic outfit that had a $40 million dollar budget for communications.
The people alive today who thought her network would be cancelled in six months are sticking their foot in their mouths. One source yesterday said that after she died, Pope Francis said that Mother Angelica went straight to Heaven – I am sure she is there too, talking with Mother Teresa.
It’s sad then when women of accomplishment get mentioned, Mother Angelica is never on the list. Look at what she did – started a network with a lot of nerve and not a lot of money and it’s still going strong. But she was Catholic nun who was faithful to the Church and to many people that doesn’t count. It’s sad.
Dearest Mother Angelica, please pray for us.
God knows where I’d be without Mother T_T I’m not exaggerating when I say I might have been one of those nutso Wiccans who tried to “bind” the POTUS over the weekend. That had been my trajectory before I stumbled upon EWTN.
At each of Mother’s “I will be…..” I cheered, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I believe this says it all:
“For Catholics, Mother Angelica preserved devotions and liturgical practices many thought lost. She offered hope to the hopeless and broadcast a vibrant orthodoxy that took root during the papacies of Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI” (Raymond Arroyo, Easter Sunday, 27 March 2016).
Her commentary LIVE at the Denver World Youth Day was a moment of deepest consolation and conversion for me. I am always in her debt, as all of us are whether anyone knows it or not.
That said, her anniversary brings to mind St. Bernadette. I can’t quote her, but she once articulated the fear that no one would pray for her upon her death, knowing everyone thought her a saint. She needed and wanted prayer – we can’t forget good Mother Angelica, who risked so much to support us in faith.
While I often wish to know what she would have to say during our current “epoch,” I think our Lord allowed her to be absent for this inning out of His abundant mercy. May that same mercy sustain us until we find relief.