Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, And a Network of Miracles | 
| Author: Raymond Arroyo
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 1323887
Format: Large Print
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 663
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0786283033
Dewey Decimal Number: 271.97302
EAN: 9780786283033
Publication Date: March 22, 2006
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Product Description
The extraordinary saga of Mother Angelica, founder of the multimillion-dollar Eternal Word Television Network and “the most influential Catholic woman in America” according to Time magazine
In 1981, the year after Ted Turner founded CNN, a simple nun, using merely her entrepreneurial instincts and $200, launched what would become the world’s largest religious media empire in the garage of a Birmingham, Alabama, monastery. Under her guidance, the Eternal Word Television Network grew at a staggering pace, both in viewership and in influence, to where it now reaches over a hundred million viewers in hundreds of countries around the globe.
Born Rita Rizzo in Canton, Ohio, in 1923, Mother Angelica was abandoned by her father and raised in poverty by a mother who suffered from suicidal depressions. As a young woman, Rita developed severe abdominal pain that doctors dismissed as a “nervous condition,” but when she sought the prayers of a local mystic, her symptoms disappeared. Awakened to the power of prayer, she vowed to dedicate her life to God and became a cloistered nun, expecting to spend her life hidden from the world. But Rita’s faith soon compelled her to unlikely endeavors, from establishing a monastery in Alabama to starting the world’s first Catholic cable network. Relying solely on “God’s providence,” Mother Angelica built an empire without concern for budgets or fund-raising campaigns, achieving what even the highest levels of the Catholic Church had been unable to do.
Raymond Arroyo combines his journalist’s objectivity and eye for detail with more than five years of exclusive interviews with Mother Angelica. He traces Mother Angelica’s tortured rise to success and exposes for the first time the fierce opposition she faced, both inside and outside of her church. It is an inspiring story of survival and proof that one woman’s faith can move more than mountains.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 101 more reviews...
A Testament to Mystery, Miracles and the Regeneration of the Church November 22, 2008
At the end of this remarkably interesting book, Raymond Arroyo offers two testimonies to the work of Mother Angelica - the founder of EWTN - the Eternal World Television Network, or the `world's largest religious media empire' as the book's dustjacket describes it.
The first testimony comes from Father Richard John Neuhaus who said, `The greatest thing John Paul II did was constructing and putting in place the authoritative interpretation of Vatican II. And though we are still in a state of confusion and enormous damage, I think one can say the tide has turned, and Mother Angelica played a significant part in that.'
The second is from Arroyo's own pen, `More than preaching at them, Mother gave her flock things to do. She used television to teach and popularize pious devotions thought lost to modernity.
It can be safely said that no one in America, and perhaps in the world did more than Mother Angelica to perpetuate and stoke interest in the Rosary, Eucharistic adoration, Latin in the liturgy, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, litanies and traditional prayers.'
Thus, what is apparently bound up with Mother Angelica's life mission is a remarkable worldwide `turning of the tide', whereby much of the post-Vatican II spirit that threatened to wash away so very, very much of the Catholic Tradition has been perhaps decisively checked.
Mother Angelica's life mission ... this fascinating account, details her remarkable life, from her miserable childhood in an Ohio slum, to the miraculous encounter with a stigmatic, which inexplicably healed her from a severe medical condition and led to her vocation ... and onwards through an intensely dedicated religious life, lived out amidst an ongoing series of seeming miracles - all of which eventually led to founding the `world's largest religious media empire'.
With nothing to her name, but two hundred dollars and faith in God.
Arroyo is a good storyteller, telling a truly riveting story. This is thus a fascinating book that appeals on many levels simultaneously.
But for me, the most important level of all - was the way in which the book testifies to what Neuhaus calls a 'turning of the tide', whereby a post-Vatican II trajectory that seemed headed towards a very largely Protestantised, even secularised Roman Church was halted.
Halted, not so much from so called "heavy-handed Vatican authoritarianism" as many of a liberal persuasion claim, but from the **grassroots**, grassroots which testify to the fact that Catholics the world over love and revere the practice and tradition of the Catholic Mystery.
I came to this book, never having seen Mother Angelica or EWTN at all - being a traditional Catholic, but also without being plugged into television for many years.
I also came with a certain caution. Although I consider myself traditional, I make a profound distinction - too often lost, alas! - between traditionalism and fundamentalism.
There is not space here to adequately deal with this distinction. But what I wrote in my Amazon review of Colleen Carroll's The New Faithful, might serve to clarify a little:
"Fundamentalism focuses on literalism and single-issue ethics - premarital sex, abortion and so forth. Traditionalism is different. John Paul II ... is clearly a traditionalist. "Fidelity to roots" John Paul said, is not "a mechanical copying of the past. Fidelity to roots is always creative."
Thus, John Paul stood for fidelity to the Church's tradition. But he was neither a literalist, nor of a static persuasion."
A true tradition then, is not dead and static, but living and evolving ...
I am a traditionalist therefore, who is cautious about fundamentalism in its many aspects - for example, a lamentable capacity for invective and polemic (which, I hasten to add, seems just as tragically evident in the Church's liberal wing).
Having completed Arroyo's remarkable tale, I cannot say I am an uncritical admirer of every aspect to Mother's ministry.
But then, each of us is profoundly fallen, filled with shadow. And attributing a pure, shadowless quality to any human being, save Our Lady and Our Lord is hardly Catholic.
As with even the best of us, all-too-human motives sometimes eem to be at work with Mother Angelica - along with genuine inspiration and even divine intervention.
In the mixture of shadows and light in Mother's ministry, I found myself with profound questions, concerning the working of Grace and Providence, through limited human beings and even through sometimes narrow human agendas.
Yet whatever human failings may *inevitably* be at work in the story of EWTN, I find it hard not to conclude that the Angels profoundly recognised Mother Angelica's tenacity, sincerity and total commitment to her sense of God's calling.
And also hard not to feel that the spiritual world met her dedication, with a *parallel* response.
And the result of this lifelong story of faith, total commitment, apparent miracles and providence?
The result certainly appears to be exactly what Father Neuhaus has intimated, a PROFOUND CONTRIBUTION to John Paul the Great's campaign to save the Church from the worst, most reductionist excesses of Vatican II.
This book I suspect will mainly be read by the legions of Mother's adoring fans.
But I wish I could convince some of my more liberally minded friends to *honestly* confront Mother's story and *honestly* ask themselves: What is ***GOING ON*** behind the appearance of continuous, sustained providence and continuous miracles, that are clearly in evidence here, leading to such dramatic and improbable, yes, ***completely improbable*** success?
Whatever fallen human agendas may be inevitably present here, this book is *also* a testament to Mystery and Miracles, and to a woman very evidently filled with faith, courage, sincerity and tenacity.
For that, and many other reasons besides, it both deserves and rewards careful attention.
What no one ever dreamed to accomplish September 25, 2008
This book describes the story of a seemingly common nun who achieved what no money or famous tycoon could have accomplished. Catholic programming 24/7 throughout the world - radio, TV and website. God works marvels thru his weakest servants!
Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles July 26, 2008
Mother Angelica reminds me of my Mother.
I've watched her on EWTN for many years. I never realized what she had to go through to get her ministry to the point it is now.
A real page turned that has inspired me to visit the Abbey in Hanceville, AL this Fall.
Buy it, borrow it,(but, don't steal it). You will enjoy it.
A very moving account May 29, 2008
Thank you, Raymond Arroyo (and all those who helped him), for writing this wonderful biography of the much loved Mother Angelica and narrating the story with such sincerity. I laughed, I cheered, I cried ... Few books cause one to do that. Her story needed to be told to remind us all of the powerful love of God, His will to do miracles for our salvation, and the astonishing things that can happend when we step aside and let Him work through us, weak and miserable as we are.
Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles March 5, 2008
I wondered what Mother Angelica was like in her spiritual life. On television broadcasts, she always presents herself with common weaknesses and failings, yet communicates plausible remedies to overcome every obstacle. She's as true to form as one might imagine. Raymond Arroyo's writing style is captivating as he shares the life story of this amazing woman of faith. It's inspirational and humorous with so many twists and turns that I've found myself enjoying my second read as much as the first.
Raymond's ability to discover hidden qualities of Mother Angelica, is noteworthy; a masterful writing of a deeply spiritual woman.
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