The Badger Catholic: Mother Angelica

There are giants who walk among us as we make our pilgrimage through life. Many of us see the problems and situations that confront us and are immobilized by their complexities. Still, others just stand on the sidelines and hope that someone will provide solutions. But, it is the giants who act.

As a community, the Church is strengthened by our brothers and sisters who contribute to and face the challenges of fulfilling the great commission of Our Lord Jesus Christ: “Go preach, teach and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

In our modern world, we have been blessed to have figures that transcend to popular culture and appeal to the broadest base. Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II) are great examples of persons whose faithfulness produced witnesses for the world, as God used them as His instruments, to further the Gospel message. By the world’s standards, they would be considered individuals of ordinary backgrounds, nothing special, but in the community of the Church they possessed an unspoken element that the world fails to recognize. They were individuals of extraordinary faith with a trust in the living God.

Recently, a giant passed from this life to the next. Mother Angelica, well known in Catholic circles here in the United States, was buried most appropriately during the Easter octave after years of suffering which left her incapacitated. Mother Angelica, one of the great Catholic communicators of the twentieth century in the United States, spoke through the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) that she established with faith, guts and determination.