Robaird O’Cearbhaill
Hong Kong Correspondent
Mother Angelica, described in her 2016 Deadline death tributes as a “media giant,” found faith and courage to achieve astonishing religious TV success, as her EWTN biography shows.
“You want to do something for the Lord … do it. Whatever you feel needs to be done, even though you’re shaking in your boots, you’re scared to death – take the first step forward. The grace comes with that one step and you get the grace as you step. Being afraid is not a problem; it’s doing nothing when you’re afraid.”
That “first step forward” evolved into a giant institution. EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) is the world’s largest religious TV and radio network, broadcasting to 350 million households in 145 countries in several languages.
Originating as a successful public speaker, distributing her tapes, the future Mother Angelica began her TV channel in 1981.
From very modest equipment in her convent garage, with dynamic sponsor appeals and very generous donations from tycoons and a major charity, the network bloomed quickly from nearly $US 1million in debt. Several near financial collapses followed over the first years, but were overcome by her “Theology of Risk.” Mother Angelica was skilled in business but success was provided by God, she stated categorically.
Who would have predicted that her low academic skills, coming from an abusive father and desperate poverty would do so well? Her father, who left the family, and gave almost no financial support to her mentally fragile mother, who threatened suicide frequently. Born Rita Antoinette Rizzo in 1923 she also had another disability to prevent her from success: poor health. Adding to that her mother left the Church for ten years.
The two events that seem miraculous, perhaps turned Rizzo towards vocation. The first when she was pulled out from the road away from a speeding car into the center space. She said hands pulled her out.
The second was the sudden disappearance of a disabling, painful stomach disease after seeing mystic Rhoda Wise (Servant of God since 2016). “Rita receives a miraculous healing from her recurring stomach ailment. The experience changed her life. She realizes that God loves her personally – and she begins to love Him back,” her EWTN biography reveals.
It was the next year in 1942 that Rizzo found her vocation, her biography reports. “After completing the Way of the Cross at St. Anthony’s, facing a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, Rita suddenly realizes she has a vocation, which she needs to keep secret from her mentally unstable mother.” But given her very low school grades, entering a religious community was challenging. It took two years more of applications before she was accepted, a convent and became Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, a Franciscan nun.
In 1946 after waking up free of very painful knees, her order recognized she had a vocation. She made her first profession of vows the same year.
After building her own convent, the sister finally became Mother Angelica in 1960.In 2009 Angelica and Deacon Bill Steltemeier, (then chairman of EWTN’s board of governors) were awarded the highest papal medal (Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice) from Pope Benedict XVI for service to the Church. (Photo by EWTN).
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