Mother Angelica passed away at 5 pm central time on March 27, 2017 on Easter Sunday. She was 92 and died of natural causes.
While most people know Mother Angelica is the foundress of EWTN and a spunky television personality, fewer people know about her mystical experiences.
In 1995, Mother Angelica went to South America with a few nuns to garner support for a Spanish version of EWTN.
One stop was at the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus in Bogotá, Colombia. After Mass, they prayed in a small side chapel before the Infant Jesus image.
Suddenly, while she was silently standing and praying, the image came alive!
“Build me a temple,” the smiling child Jesus said to her, “and I will help those who help you.”
The two nuns with her heard and saw nothing, but Mother Angelica fell into a state of deep religious ecstasy. When she finally came out of it, she burst into tears, and later said her “heart was beating 100 miles per hour.”
Once she arrived back home to her Alabama, convent she shared this story with her fellow nuns and they immediately looked for land to build a shrine.
Soon, they discovered a piece of land and former soy bean farm just north of the convent. As soon as she set foot on it, Mother Angelica knew it was the right place, later saying she “felt the presence of God very strongly.”
Without any money from EWTN, entirely as a project of the convent at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, the building commenced and the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament opened just in time for the year 2000 jubilee!
But her mystical visions did not end there.
In Alabama, the Child Jesus continued appearing to her regularly, even in the hallways of her convent. They had short conversations here and there.
Of course, mystical visions were not the basis for her greatness as a holy woman, but rather her faithfulness to God. This is something all of us, by the grace of God, can do, too.