Photo: Rita Antoinette Rizzo, held by her mother Mae Helen Rizzo
HANCEVILLE – Mother Angelica, given name Rita Antoinette Rizzo, was born in Canton, Ohio on April 20, 1923. She was the only child born to John and Mae Helen Rizzo. John abandoned the family when Rita was very young and by 1929, he and Mae were divorced. Mae maintained full custody of Rita but struggled with chronic depression and poverty.
“We (my mother and I) were like a pair of refugees,” Mother Angelica once said. “We were poor, hungry and barely surviving on odd jobs before my mother learned the dry cleaning business as an apprentice to a Jewish tailor in the area. Even then, we pinched pennies just to keep food on the table.”
Rita had a great deal of physical suffering throughout her life. As a teenager, she was plagued with severe stomach troubles, which were only relieved through the intercession of St. Therese. Realizing God’s immense love for her through this incredible healing, Rita gave herself totally to God.
One evening in 1944, Rita stopped at a church to pray and felt that God was calling her to be a nun. After talking to a local priest about her calling, she was encouraged to begin visiting convents. When she stopped at the Poor Clare Monastery at the St. Paul Shrine in Cleveland, she felt like she was home.
Knowing it would be hard to leave her mother, Rita left home and wrote her mother in a letter informing her of her decision and desire to follow Christ in religious life.
“My own dearest Mother, when you receive this letter I will be in Cleveland. I have entered the Adoration Monastery. You know it better as St. Paul’s Shrine. A cloister, my mother is a heaven on earth. There will I tell Him with every breath that I take that I love Him. There will I make reparation for all the cold hearts in the world. Something happened to me after my cure. I fell completely in love with Our Lord. Always yours, Rita xxx (An excerpt from Rita's letter to her mother upon entering the monastery.)” – olamnuns.com
On November 8, 1945, Rita was vested as a Poor Clare nun and became Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, the name her mother had chosen for her.
In 1946 young Sister Angelica had an accident with an industrial waxing machine that knocked her over and injured her spine. She faced an operation that could have left her completely paralyzed. Because the desire to serve God was so strong, Sister Angelica promised God that if she could walk after the surgery, she would build Him a monastery – in the South. True to her word after the surgery was a success, Sister Angelica began the lengthy process of obtaining permissions and raising the money to build a monastery.
On January 2, 1953, she made her solemn profession of vows at Sancta Clara Monastery in Ohio. This was only the beginning of Sister Angelica’s religious life. Little did she know at the time, she would go on to much bigger things and become well known and dearly loved by Christians and non-Christians all over the world.
Be sure to read The Life and Times of Mother Angelica Part 2 in next week’s edition of The Cullman Tribune.
