HISTORY
Mother Angelica
Few people have made such a mark on the Catholic world in recent history as Mother Angelica. The feisty Italian-American nun was known to millions through her “Mother Angelica Live” shows on the global Catholic television network she founded. Her salty humor and down-to-earth manner were coupled with an intense love for Jesus Christ and an ardent desire to proclaim the truth and beauty of our Catholic Faith. A passion for reaching souls and spreading the Kingdom of God to the ends of the earth drove her to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead in harnessing the powers of the printed word, radio, television, and Internet for His Glory.
A beacon of guidance for her Sisters, she navigated the post-Vatican II era and instilled traditional monastic values combined with a free, joyful Franciscan spirit and child-like trust in God’s Providential Care. Her energetic zeal was refined in the fires of suffering, as she battled poor health and much chronic pain throughout her life. Not being afraid to deal with asthma attacks or the effects of strokes in her live TV appearances, she witnessed to all her viewers the truth that “His power is made perfect in weakness.”
Mother’s greatest witness was her fervent love for our Eucharistic Lord and her never-failing generosity in pursuing whatever she felt God was asking of her. Her life was poured out in self-gift to Him and love for others as she embraced a uniquely prophetic call within her cloistered contemplative vocation. Having completed what God asked of her, she handed over the administration of EWTN to lay employees and immersed herself in the monastic life she loved so deeply. Embracing her personal crosses as a sacrifice for the good of souls, she became a living oblation in the last years of her life after a major cerebral hemorrhage left her bedridden and unable to speak for nearly 15 years until her death in 2016.
Memories From Sisters Who Knew Her Best
"Mother had a great detachment from everything. She was never attached to praise, money, or things. One time I remember that she was sent a card praising her, and she ripped it up and threw it away. Many of us would have kept the card and re-read it to continue the good feeling of being praised… as we used to say in Ohio, it would be like a caramel that we sucked on all day. Mother was not like that. And when her mother used to give her a hat to wear, Mother would just put it on. Her mother would tell her that she needed to arrange it, to make it look nice, but those things didn’t matter to Mother."
Sr. Mary Michael, PCPA
"Mother loved to read God’s Word in the Bible, and give us lessons on the New and Old Testaments alike. However, she really loved the Gospel of St. John, especially the prologue and chapter six on the Eucharist. She would give us lots of lessons on those. When I entered the Monastery, I didn’t have a Bible, so Mother gave me hers to read and study. Because English was not my first language, Mother would explain many of the passages that I had questions on privately, so I experienced firsthand, through all of her lessons, how much Mother loved Scripture."
Sr. Mary Gabriel, PCPA
HER WRITINGS
While she is best known as the foundress of the first global Catholic television network, Mother Angelica began her mission of evangelization with simple pamphlets known as Mini-Books. Her intimate familiarity with the Scriptures, common-sense approach to holiness, humor, and passionate desires for souls to know God’s deep love for them, shone through every page.
The Mini-Books were designed to be a quick, easy read and were given away in boxes–to be scattered like seeds in public places. When they could not continue to have the books printed by an outside company, Mother went with $200 in her pocket to purchase the equipment for setting up a print-shop in the Monastery. Happily ordering over $10,000 worth of special machinery, Mother trusted in God’s Providence and a friend donated the funds needed by the time the bills were due. The Nuns learned to run the printing press, and a sign hanging in the shop proclaimed, “We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re getting good at it!”
From profound reflections on the faculties of the soul in “Keys of the Kingdom”, beautiful meditations on our Blessed Mother in “Promised Woman” and pithy remarks in “Spiritual Hangovers”, the books were an instant hit. Mother’s direct realism and deep faith captured her readers and requests for Mini-Books began to pour in from around the world. In 1976, when Philadelphia hosted the International Eucharistic Congress, a 4th grade teacher asked Mother to send Mini-Books for her students to hand out to those attending. Over the course of the event which drew thousands of attendees from across the globe, including a Polish Cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, the children handed out over 150,000 Mini-Books. Mother was elated to reach so many souls!
“Unless we are willing to do the ridiculous, God will not do the miraculous,” was one of her favorite maxims. Within a couple years, Mother moved beyond the printed word as a tool for her missionary efforts when she visited a TV station and said, “I gotta have one of these.”
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery began when a young nun in Canton, Ohio made a deal with God. Having suffered a debilitating accident and faced with the reality of never being able to walk again, Sister Mary Angelica prayed: “If You let me walk again, I’ll build You a Monastery in the South.” After a risky surgery proved successful, Sister Angelica shared her desire to start a new foundation with her Superior and received permission to pursue it.
In 1962, 5 nuns left Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton, Ohio to establish the first PCPA Monastery in the Deep South. With the invitation of Archbishop Toolen, they put down roots in Irondale, a small city in the present Diocese of Birmingham. Facing many difficulties, in an area of very few Catholics, they were able to build Our Lady of the Angels Monastery.
Over the next decades, our community grew along with Mother Angelica's special mission of evangelization. Eventually, EWTN, the first Catholic television station, was born. The global network which began in the Nuns’ garage slowly developed into a campus of studios and control rooms surrounding the Monastery.
By the mid 1990’s, Mother knew we needed more space and silence in order to live our contemplative life. Having found a large piece of land about an hour north in Hanceville, a Monastery based on the architecture of Assisi was planned. After Mother Angelica’s trip to Columbia in 1997, when the Child Jesus spoke to her with the words, “Build Me a Temple, and I will help those who help you,” a greater divine design began to take shape. The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a center of Eucharistic devotion and evangelization, became a destination for pilgrims from around the world and an oasis of prayer and peace in the midst of a parched and violent world.
We live our cloistered contemplative vocation behind the walls of the Monastery, inviting the faithful to join in our dedication to Perpetual Adoration by offering pilgrims the opportunity to participate in our Adoration and communal times of prayer. Our unique mission at OLAM also encompasses interceding for Priests, especially those making retreats at our Priest Retreat House, and daily supporting with prayer all the works, employees, and viewers of EWTN.
Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration
The PCPA order was born in the heart of a young French woman who longed to dedicate her life to God in a religious vocation. Listening to a homily on the Gospel story of the ten lepers, the future Mother Marie de St. Claire Bouillevaux was stirred with the desire to make reparation for the ingratitude which so pained Our Lord’s Sacred Heart. Drawn to the Franciscan spirituality of joyful self-gift, radical embrace of the Gospel and ardent love for the humanity of Christ, Mother Marie de St. Claire Bouillevaux and a Capuchin Friar, Father Bonaventure Heurlat, established the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. Officially founded on December 8, 1854, we share a birthday with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception proclaimed by Pope Pius IX.
From the first small house in Paris, our Order grew and spread. Even the ravages of war played a part in God’s Providence as monasteries spread from France to Poland, Germany and Austria to escape the areas of conflict. By 1921, two intrepid Nuns from our Vienna Monastery crossed the Atlantic ocean to make the first American foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. In turn, within a few short years the young U.S. foundation would send Sisters across the globe to establish a PCPA Monastery in Quilon, India. Our Order spread throughout India and Bangladesh, and now reaches even to the remote area of Kazakhstan.
Our beloved Mother Angelica entered our Cleveland Monastery in 1944 and then as a novice, joined a group of Sisters who began Sancta Clara Monastery in her hometown of Canton, Ohio. By the 1960’s, Mother Angelica followed God’s call to serve as the Foundress of the first PCPA Monastery in the South, Our Lady of the Angels. In 2005, OLAM gave birth to a daughter-house in the Diocese of Phoenix, AZ, Our Lady of Solitude Monastery.
After 170 years, Our Eucharistic Lord continues to draw young hearts to our charism. Hidden in the heart of the Church, our cloistered vocation is a witness to all of the primacy of God, the power of prayer, and the beauty and joy which flow from a life given totally to Him. Through our charism of Perpetual Adoration of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament in a spirit of reparative thanksgiving, we pour out our lives at His Feet in loving return for all the good things He has done for us. Under the shadow of His Abiding Presence, we intercede for the needs of the Church and the whole world, offering our gratitude and praise on behalf of every soul.