Mother Angelica: Her Grand Silence

Introduction

The spacious cell at the monastery where she spent her last years was almost always muggy—like any grandmother’s 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 nun’s spunk remained intact. I walked into Mother’s 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 Mother’s 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 Gabriel’s 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. Don’t 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 game—her 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 continued—vastly altered— right 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 Mother Angelica Live 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, we’d 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 holy—at 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 personality—her particular ability to connect with viewers and spiritually console them in moments of distress— that propelled the thing forward. They could feel her faith and were warmed by it. Away from the cameras, it was Mother Angelica’s mystical intimacy with pain and suffering that fueled EWTN’s growth and made her one of the world’s most beloved spiritual figures.

The rigid white headgear of her habit could barely contain the nun’s 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. She’d 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 Mother’s spiritual emphasis or style: “They don’t pay me any attention. They’re just waiting for me to die. But I won’t! 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 over—for 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 Angelica’s 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 story—a story that has been hidden from the public until now.

In her protracted silence—for more than a decade— Mother 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.

Our society has a tendency to ignore or diminish the value of the infirm and the frail elderly. Their suffering and physical debilitation are reminders of our own mortality and the last act that awaits us all. But as the lives of Blessed Mother Teresa and Saint Pope John Paul II teach us, the end can be the most efficacious part of a life. It is a time of weakness and physical hardship, but it can also be one of spiritual union with God. For those striving for holiness, the “last things” can include supernatural attacks—temptations to doubt after a lifetime of belief. Mother was no exception. As I spoke to the sisters who cared for Mother, I learned details about her last years that even those closest to the monastery could not fathom.

In these pages are the particulars of Mother’s 2004 secret journey to the Far East, a trip that would cost her dearly; firsthand, in-depth revelations of her physical struggles and the abiding faith that sustained her—even through the upheaval of her own religious community; accounts of the supernatural phenomena surrounding Mother in her last days and the spiritual warfare she waged in her cell; as well as intimate stories of her early years never before seen in print.

When I reviewed the three years of interviews I had conducted with Mother—her final interviews—I came across things I didn’t know existed, or had overlooked as I was writing the biography. Mother’s unpublished words shed new light on her painful final years, and put them in astonishing perspective. Having written an exhaustive biography of Mother Angelica and edited three volumes of her teachings and prayers, I thought I had written my last Mother Angelica book. My intention was to compose an epilogue for the biography consisting of a few details of her last days with some excerpts from our interviews and leave it at that. But when I sat down to write, so much new material emerged that another book presented itself.

Equally as fascinating as the facts surrounding Mother’s last years are the many lives she influenced during her long public absence. Via reruns on EWTN, Mother continued (and continues) to be a part of our lives. Though her live television career was long over, the heart of her ministry—pain and suffering offered up for the good of others—continued unimpeded in her final cloistered years. Gathered here is the fruit of her labors: the personal testimonies of many people scattered throughout the world whom she reached spiritually from a monastery bed in Hanceville, Alabama. 

This work also permits me a chance to reflect on my personal relationship with Mother Angelica, something I have never written about before.

What follows is the conclusion of Mother’s biography, a synopsis of her life leading up to this work, my personal account of our loving friendship, and a tribute to a cherished spiritual icon.

Attentive readers will notice that EWTN is mentioned only in passing here, as it had little connection to Mother in her final years. Following her resignation in 2000 and full withdrawal in 2001, she had no input into the day-to-day affairs of the network, nor was she or her sisters involved in the administration. That said, the spiritual ties to EWTN ran deep, and Mother always considered the network part of a personal mission entrusted to her alone.