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Raymond
Arroyo
MOTHER ANGELICA: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF A NUN, HER NERVE, AND A NETWORK OF MIRACLES Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: Image (2005.2007) ISBN-10: 0385510934 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com Would you recommend this book to other readers? yes * * * * * review: MOTHER ANGELICA (2005) is the notably well written biography of Rita Antoinette Rizzo, born April 20, 1923 in Canton, Ohio and now in November 2010 living quietly in shattered health in Alabama. A one-time drum majorette with only a high school education, Rita Rizzo has since 1944 been a Roman Catholic "Poor Clare" Franciscan nun. Her name in religion became Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation. Her mother Mae Gianfresco Rizzo had been asked by the Abbess of the Adoration Monastery in Canton to choose Rita's new "name in religion." Mae picked Angelica because Rita had always been an "angelic and obedient daughter" (Ch. 4). In time Rita/Angelica would move south with other Poor Clare nuns of Ohio and found Our Lady of the Angels monastery in Irondale, Alabama, becoming in the process Mother Mary Angelica. In 1981 she founded the still thriving Eternal Word Television (EWTN). 1992 saw her creating WEWN an AM-FM shortwave radio network that broadcasts Catholic programs worldwide. In 1999 Mother Angelica and her nuns moved to a new location in Hanceville, Alabama and named it The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. In 2001, always in terrible health, Angelica handed over control of EWTN to a board of Lay Catholics. Nowadays showing the effects of numerous strokes, Mother Angelica in her prime wrote 53 books and was greatly admired by Pope John Paul II and supported in her quarrels with at least two American bishops by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). TIME Magazine described Angelica as "arguably the most influential Roman Catholic woman in America." This bare bones overview is fleshed out in 19 chapters, with photographs, by her onetime colleague in media, Raymond Arroyo. At a time when American Catholics distrust as never in history their bishops (because of covering up clerical sexual abuse of the young), a surprisingly high percentage trust and respect a little Italian-American nun with only a high school education. She said, "Give me ten Jehovah Witness type Catholics and I can change the world" (Ch. 9). And by any objective standard, she may well have changed the world. And kept that troubled world accessible to conservative Roman Catholics. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/review.php?work=36343735 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 11/29/2010 name of review: Dodos (sic!) for Jesus rating: * * * * * review: Mother Angelica at one point called herself and the handful of nuns in her monastery "Dodos for Jesus!" She should, of course, have spelled the word correctly, "Dodoes." But her core TV and short wave radio viewing and listening audience and the readers of her 53 books were and are ordinary Roman Catholic lay people. And they willingly put up with misspellings from their saintly heroine. She loves and understands simple Christians, and they return the favor. Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo in Canton, Ohio in 1923. After an unhappy childhood in a broken home, Rita barely made it through high school, though she did have moments of fun as a drum majorette. She became a nun, a Poor Clare Franciscan, the kind that is supposed to have little contact with the outside world, spending a quarter of her waking day in prayer and contemplation. Things worked out otherwise for Rita, who became Sister Mary Angelica and later, when she founded a new monastery near Birmingham, Alabama "Mother" Angelica -- an abbess. She received dispensation from her bishops to be out in the world to manage her media empire. In 1981 Angelica founded EWTN, Eternal Word Television Network, a Roman Catholic first. In 1992 came WEWN, a first American Catholic AM-FM short wave radio network. She covers the globe. And down the decades Angelica has had terrible health and has for the past few years been incapacitated by strokes. She had made a big difference in the world of media. Read MOTHER ANGELICA because it is unusually well researched and written by a longtime lay collaborator of the object of the biography. Read it as well to uncover a great life in which a lightly educated nun has two popes for friends and two American bishops for enemies. Read MOTHER ANGELICA for a score of funny, insightful one liners. For example, after 1979 Angelica became friends with Protestant media stars Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. She appeared on programs of their PTL network. In one broadcast, Mother told Jim Bakker: "I am convinced God is looking for dodoes.
He found one: me! There are a lot of smart people out there who know it
can't be done, so they don't do it. But a dodo doesn't know it can't be
done. God uses dodoes: people who
are willing to look ridiculous so God can do the miraculous" (Ch.
10).
Bakker was so taken with the tiny Italian American nun that he sent designers to build her first set. The control room was a Winnebago RV with misspelled motto, "Dodos for Jesus!" TIME magazine thought that Mother Angelica might be the most influential Catholic woman in America. Who am I to disagree? -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/reviews/d/UserReview- Ramond_Arroyo_Mother_Angelica_The_Remarkable _Story_of_a_Nun_Her_Nerve_and_a_Network_of_ Miracles-1666804-194488-Dodos_sic_for_Jesus. html#rid_194488 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 11/29/2010 title of review: A famous American nun's "theology of risk" rating: * * * * * review: Born Rita Antoinette Rizzo in Canton, Ohio in 1923, the future Poor Clare abbess Mother Mary Angelica had an unpleasant childhood. Her father John regularly beat her mother Mae before he split from them. Later when John remarried a 24 year old woman who had gone to school with Rita, her mother Mae resumed her maiden name: Francis, an anglicized version of Gianfrancesco. During a terrible illness, Rita was brought to be healed by (and was) in the simple home of an American lay mystic and stigmatist, Mrs Rhoda Wise. This experience turned Rita from luke warm to fervent Catholic Christian. For the rest of her life, according to author Raymond Arroyo, Rhoda Wise was frequently visited and spoken to by both Jesus and Saint Teresa, the Little Flower of Jesus and through her were channeled hundreds of miracles. Rhoda Wise became the dominant religious model in Rita Rizzo Francis's life -- and stayed so forever. After her healing experience with Mrs Wise, Rita did not think it odd when Jesus spoke directly to her. What would have been odd would be for her not to do what her Divine Spouse asked, even if bishops and other Catholics demanded different behavior. What the world remembers this still living but now for years much afflicted nun for is her work as a pioneering Catholic media personality. She founded first a television network EWTN, then an AM-FM shortwave radio network heard worldwide. Those achievements alone deserve the 2005 biography MOTHER ANGELICA. Striking to me, though not mentioned by her biographer, are certain similiarities in the life of Mother Angelica and recently beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman. There are of course differences: Newman was a towering intellectual, historian of ideas, founder of an Irish Catholic university and original theologian. Rita/Angelica barely made it through high school and grew up in a tough neighborhood speaking on friendly terms with mobsters, prostitutes and her mother's dearly loved Negroes. Angelica speaks to and for the 90% of ordinary Catholics for whom Newman's insights are too high. But the similarities! Each was early convinced that he or she "had a work from God." Both were masters of language (high and ordinary). And both followed advice from Newman's early Anglican poem "The Pillar and the Cloud" better known as "Lead, Kindly Light." For both acted on Newman's prayer: "... Lead
Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me." Mother Angelica never had a grand global vision for herself. She drifts upward toward her Spouse one step at a time. One year she and her sisters sell peanuts. Another time they make fishing lures. Always what God asks: a new monastery in Alabama, a television network, a short wave radio network. "One step
enough for me. Lead Thou me on!"
In later years Mother Angelica would speak of her "theology of risk." She told TV evangelist Jim Bakker that she was a "dodo" for Jesus. What smart people saw as impossible, dodoes tackled simply because Jesus told them to. Jesus had a long tradition of choosing the lowly and foolish of this world through whom to channel His miracles. The book MOTHER ANGELICA is a pleasure to read. It is well researched. It richly deserves the audience it has already won. -OOO- recommended reading: -- Martin Marty - PILGRIMS IN THEIR OWN LAND. -- Ronald L. Numbers - PROPHETESS OF HEALTH: ELLEN G. WHITE. -- Anna Whitelock - MARY TUDOR. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Mother-Angelica/ Raymond-Arroyo/e/9780385510936/?itm=1&USRI= arroyo-+mother+angelica =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 11/29/2010 title of review: "To the mother in law of Jesus and my own sweet mother" rating: * * * * * review: In November 1945 Rita Antoinette Rizzo became a novice in a community of Poor Clare nuns of Saint Francis of Assisi. Here are some excerpts from a letter the 22-year old future abbess Mother Angelica wrote to her mother Mae Rizzo: "To the mother in
law of Jesus and my own sweet mother,
"Today the greatest possible honor has been bestowed upon you and I. ... to be espoused to the King of Kings ... His eyes rested on you and me. ... there is no one on earth that needs Him more than we do, needs Him every moment of the day. ... I want to thank you once more for bringign me into the world, for taking such good care of me. ... May I become worthy of such a mother. Iask for your blessing on this our day of days that I may become what Jesus wants me to be. Your loving child, and spouse of Jesus, Sister Mary Angelica" (Ch. 4 of MOTHER ANGELICA by Raymond Arroyo. Not too many years later mother would become daughter's first postulant nun in a newly founded monastery near Birmingham, Alabama. This story only gets better and better. Angelica and her nuns raise money by selling peanuts and then by making and selling fishing lures. She founds the first Catholic TV network, Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and first short wave radio network. She wins the admiration of Pope John Paul II and of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. So she drives an American Archbishop to distraction because she thinks little of his theology of the Blessed Sacrament. So she outmaneuvers her local bishop. She is simply doing what Jesus asks her to do. And Catholics and other Christians feel her love and send it right back to Mother Angelica. -OOO- tags: EWTN, eternal word television network, WEWN, catholic short wave radio network, rita antoinette rizzo, mother angelic http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Angelica-Remarkable- Network-Miracles/dp/0385510934/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid =1289839128&sr=8-2 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=- (5) epinions.com 11/30/2010 Review Title: "If I'm going to hell, it's not going to be over peanuts" Product Rating: * * * * * PROS: Beautiful writing. A wise-cracking nun as heroine. Catholic TV and short-wave radio networks. CONS: A biographer too close to and fond of Mother Angelica. Needed: a Devil's Advocate. BOTTOM LINE: Affectionate and well written biography of America's leading Catholic female media pioneer. Her "theology of risk" created EWTN (TV) and WEWN (short wave radio) networks. Terrible childhood. Dreadful illnesses. Triumph. aohcapablanca's Full Review: Mother Mary Angelica lives! Born Rita Antoinette Rizzo in a tough part of Canton, Ohio in 1923, she resides with shattered health in the Poor Clare Monastery that she founded in northern Alabama. Creator of the Eternal Word Television Network and WEWN short wave radio, author of 53 short works: these three achievements alone make Angelica deserve Raymond Arroyo's biography of 2005. You might need to be a Roman or Eastern Catholic to empathize with Angelica's brief stint speaking in tongues (when she also discovered the power of Scriptures), or her personal encounters with Jesus, Saint Michael the Archangel and other beings beyond our space-time continuum. But anybody can appreciate the wit and wisdom of "the Zinging Nun" (Ch. 15). This soubriquet she earned for her standing up to more than one American Catholic bishop and to "liberal American Catholics" in general. Here are a very few (and not necessarily the best) samples of her simple, straight from the shoulder writing that stay with me: -- An early fundraiser by Mother and her Poor Clare nuns involved peanuts. In 1967 they created the Li'l Ole Peanut Company. It was up and running within a week. The nuns scalded and roasted peanuts. They packaged. They sold. They made good money (Ch. 8). Years later when a shifty supplier tried to extort a kickback, Mother nixed the shakedown. And shut down the Li'l Ole Peanut Company. She said, "If I'm going to hell, it's not going to be over peanuts" (Ch. 9). -- Before a series of strokes took away her writing skills, Mother Angelica published 53 pamphlets and short books about religion. A nun who watched her writing them in the convent chapel said, "It was like a tape recorder had gone on in her mind, she could hear the words, and she'd keep writing and writing." She never prepared a text or even an outline for her public speaking. As for her booklets, Angelica told a reporter: "It's like a mystery story. I don't know
what's coming next. ... When the thoughts stop, the book is finished"
(Ch. 9).
-- Rita's stressed out mother, Mae, had become completely dependent on her daughter and did not want her to become a nun. Rita had to sneak away to do so. Later, on the day she became a Poor Clare novice, Rita wrote to her mother reminding her that when Mae gave Rita to Jesus as his bride, Mae had become Jesus's mother in law! -- Author Arroyo sums up Mother Anglelica's life at the very end of his biography (pp. 327 - 331). If you read nothing else, read those pages. According to Bishop Foley of Mobile, with whom she more than once crossed swords, Mother Angelica inaugurated a new form of Catholic evangelization in the USA. Author Raymond Arroyo puts it this way: "Her everyman spirituality caught the
attention of channel surfers and the hurting alike. While their mouths
opened with laughter, she fed them digestible bits of Church doctrine
to be consumed and lived. In the confusion of the post-Vatican II
Church, Angelica's network became an immovable rock of assurance,
anchored to the Pope in Rome."
From Rome Cardinal Francis Stafford noted: "Without
her, the plain Catholic would have been further confused, but with her
they had a clear vision of the beauty, glory, and truth of the Church."
Wrote one woman: "She saved our children and their hippie mothers" (Ch. 19). -- A final quote. Mother Angelica had been swept up in many a heady crusade after the Second Vatican Council. She and her nuns had done charismatic. They had spoken in tongues. They had modernized their garb. But in 1993 she erupted. When Pope John Paul II visited Denver for World Youth Day, a female mime represented Jesus during a re-enactment of the Passion. In a subsequent midday broadcast called "The Hidden Agenda," Mother Angelica let loose in a rant excerpted over several pages of her biography. "But they depicted Our Lord as a woman, an
abomination to the Eternal Father! ... You know, as Catholics we've
been quiet all these years. ... I'm tired of your inclusive language
that refuses to admit that the Son of God is a man! ... I am so tired
of you, liberal church in America. ... You're sick. ... You have
nothing to offer. You do nothing but destroy. .. You can't stand
Catholicity at its height, so you spoil it, as you've spoiled so many
things in these thirty years" (Ch. 15).
Rita Rizzo has accomplished much. She has rocked many a complacent boat. Until I read this biography (commended to me by my wife and her sister), I could not have put together two accurate statements about "the Zinging Nun." I had read nothing by her. I had never heard her speak on radio or watched her on TV. By contrast I have spent many hundred of hours studying and being fascinated by an intellectual Catholic like Cardinal John Henry Newman. I have to admit, however, that Raymond Arroyo has brought his lightly educated, self-deprecating subject to life. Rita Rizzo has suffered far worse health than any human I have known personally. After her own early healing, she fell passionately in love with Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, and has listened carefully for His guidance ever since. Don't even think about getting between Rita/Angelica and her Divine Spouse! On the other hand: Arroyo's biography is one-sided. Mother Angelica needs a modern equivalent of the old Devil's Advocate: someone whose divine task is to scrutinize her human failings. For example: she went for decades without holding elections for Abbess in her Alabama monastery. If Jesus told her to do something: buy a cable satellite dish, for instance, she just did it. She never budgeted. Her debts grew steadily higher and higher. (This was part of her "theology of risk.) Hundreds of time Angelica should have sought permissions from her superiors. She rarely did. Still, after an official Visitation from Rome, all of her administrative failings of obedience were retroactively forgiven. On balance, Rita/Angelica made herself the apostle of the little people: the grieving, the marginalized, even the Playboy Bunnies whom she used to encounter at early cable TV conferences. Mother Angelica always got along with males, better than most nuns do. Starting with local Italian communities, Angelica found volunteers by the hundreds to be carpenters, electricians and on and on. Late in life, at Lourdes, disappointed after receiving no healing, Mother Angelica said that she had "lost hope." Then an Italian baby with Down's syndrome whose despairing parents could not get her to stop crying was placed in Angelica's arms for long minutes of falling silent and being prayed over. "Mother Angelica recovered her mission and
gained a tiny miracle in return" (Ch. 19).
I suspect that few non-Catholics kind enough to read my review will choose to read MOTHER ANGELICA. But go to amazon.com and glance at the scores (yes, beyond five scores!) of reader reviews. And you might concede that "the Zinging Nun" has changed more lives than one. -OOO- P.S. My thanks to category lead DRAMASTEF for helping me find this book among those somewhat obscurely listed by epinions. Recommended: Yes. http://www.epinions.com/reviewBook_Mother_Angelica_ The_Remarkable_Story_of_a_Nun_Her_Nerve_and_a_Network _of_Miracles_RAYMOND_ARROYO/content_532755025540 |