G’day! Today I am drinking green tea. It tastes excellent. Tomorrow, I will try jasmine tea. But that is not the point of me talking.
“If you’re breathing and got two legs, you’re called to holiness.”
Mother Angelica
This quote made me smile when I first saw it. Mother Angelica’s quotes are filled with humor, wit, and wisdom. Here she reminds us that everyone is called to holiness, not only the saints, priests, or your friendly and charitable neighbor.
Holiness may seem like it is too difficult to attain, or is not for you, or can only be reached by those who are, supposedly, spiritually elite.
But here’s the truth. Holiness is impossible to reach—if you try to reach it without God.
Hardship dominated Mother Angelica’s early life. Her father didn’t want children in the first place, and he was abusive. When her father left, leaving Rita, the future Mother Angelica, and her mother without support, Rita had to live in the refurbished attic of her grandparents’ house.
By the time she began religious life, her health was declining. Sister Mary Angelica suffered from swollen knees and pneumonia. Her tonsils had to be surgically removed. Kneeling was almost impossible and every waking hour was a nightmare.
Eventually, the abbess transferred Sister Mary Angelica to another convent in hopes this would relieve her knee problems. Her knees were miraculously healed when she woke the next day.
Sister Mary Angelica continued to trust in God.
Some time after her final vows, she discovered a television station owned by Baptists. This showed her the potential of television to inform the world of Christianity. When she tried to film her second series at a certain television station, she discovered something blasphemous was going to be aired there. Mother Angelica refused to film there and made her own television studio.
What were her resources? She had two hundred dollars, twelve cloistered nuns, a garage in her new monastery, and trust that the Lord would provide!
Yet this little network, which at one point was in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, has become the largest religious media network in the world.
How did Mother Angelica do it?
Did she have unlimited resources? No.
Did she have a button she could press to summon broadcasting equipment at a moment’s whim? Not to my knowledge.
She surrendered to God, trusting He would provide everything. Mother Angelica knew she could only become holy if she surrendered to God, and she lived it.
We have no power apart from God. The food you put in your mouth, the air you breathe, the blood that courses through your body, and the electrical signals that journey throughout your nervous system only are there because God willed them to.
Before the first satellite dish arrived, God gave Sr. Regina a vision of a flame emerging from the center of a satellite dish. God said, “No one will be able to extinguish this flame. This is my network, and it will glorify my Son.”
The following picture which was taken while the satellite dish was being installed shows a flame emerging from the center of the satellite dish. If you are listening to the podcast, you’ll have to visit the original article to see the image. I’ll explain why it looks edited in a moment.
Meow! I also wondered why this image looked edited until I realized it was taken in 1981. It had to be developed and certainly would not be valid in a photo editing program (Photoshop didn’t even exist until several years later)! EWTN states that professional photographers are stumped over the image. It cannot be explained to this day.
This goes to show that even ordinary people can give glory to God. You don’t need resources and money. You also don’t need to create a television network like Mother Angelica! Sometimes God calls us to give glory in Him during the daily life.
As we surrender further to God, we become more holy. We just can’t do it ourselves or make no attempts to purge our hearts of sin.
Information about Mother Angelica’s life was collected from ewtn.com/motherangelica/life.asp.
A Catholic Cat 
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