ARTICLES

It's One Long Purification

What Mother Angelica Taught Raymond Arroyo

BY ROSEANNE THERESE SULLIVAN

Between mid August and early September 2005, Raymond Arroyo, Eternal Word Television Network news director and author of Mother Angelica: The Amazing Story of A Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles, endured a dizzying variety of life changing events.

First came a blessed event -- the birth of Mariella, the Arroyos' third child. But ten days later, Arroyo and his family got swept into a terrible tragedy.

Saturday, August 27, 2005, Arroyo, his wife, Rebecca, their baby, sons Alexander, 6, and Lorenzo, 2, fled their home near New Orleans. Two days later, Katrina swept away everything they had left behind.

When reporters talked with him in September, Arroyo was thanking Mother Angelica, both for taking them into a guest house at her monastery and for lessons that helped him make it through.

The string of stressers continued. As Arroyo later told the story at the EWTN 25th anniversary family celebration in San Francisco in January, Doubleday had lined up a string of talk show appearances in New York in conjunction with the release of his biography of Mother Angelica on September 6, but, breaking news bumped Arroyo off the shows. The book seemed doomed.

Then Doubleday called at the end of the week to tell him that the book had, somehow, made it to the New York Times Bestseller list, where it stayed for four weeks. "Four weeks," Arroyo exclaimed. "A book about a nun!"

The book held for months on the Publishers Weekly Religious Bestseller List and continues high on the Catholic Booksellers bestsellers list. Doubleday was planning a push for the book with a tie into Mother's Day, which promised to extend its time on the charts even further.

The book's continued healthy sales are remarkable because, as a recent Publisher's Weekly article stated, "getting on the charts is hard, staying on is even harder.

I spoke to Arroyo after his visit to San Francisco to find out more about how the lessons he learned from Mother Angelica and her life are continuing to affect him in the middle of the bad and good upheavals.

You're having to keep up with your role as the news director and anchor on The World Over Live, also traveling to promote the book, while starting your life over from scratch after Katrina. How are you juggling it all?

I'm living in Mother Angelica's present moment. She had this idea, don't cling to yesterday. Don't concern yourself with tomorrow. Just live in the moment that God is calling you to right now.

It's a cute idea. [He laughs.] But practicing it is difficult....You do learn to do it, though. It's sound advice. It has really gotten me through this whole period. There is so much coming at me between special events in Rome, the weekly live show, a cycle of illness in our home. Rebecca lost a grandmother. All of this while the book inexplicably went forward. It is still doing what it's supposed to do. But we're all paying the price here.

You stress in your book that every victory at the network was preceded by suffering.

That is the center of Mother Angelica's life. I think it's the center of every human's life. The trick is learning to understand it and not letting it frustrate you or throw you off the path. That's hard. But it can be done. And that's what she's taught me.

We had the baby, then Katrina hit, and six days later the book came out. I proceeded with the book tour. And it hit the New York Times Bestseller list. And you see it's still a force. It is still selling. People are still buying it and interested and passing it on to friends. It's amazing the ripples of the story as it moves out. And people realize what this woman went through -- who she is really beyond the television personality. It isn' t as if there is some hidden Mother Angelica. There is just so much more to her than meets the eye.

With this book tour I was able to connect with Mother Angelica's entire extended family. Few people have her kind of influence.

I met a couple who were on drugs, and they were just killing themselves, until they came across Mother Angelica one evening. Connecting their own dysfunctional background with her hurting and her pain and her difficult background was the bridge for them. Through that they were introduced to the whole Catholic enchilada. They found redemption, and they found peace and a way to battle their addictions.

At the end of my talks with them, people will stand up, bursting into tears and say, "she's my mother too. I owe my life to her and my family. This is my daughter who wouldn't have been born if it hadn't been for Mother Angelica." You hear those stories. I was really quite touched.

It also helps me get through this period to see to see what people are going through. Losing a house isn't such a big deal.

I read somewhere that you said it's purifying.

"Katrina" means purification. Heh! Her work has been very slow in New Orleans, I might add. But certainly in the lives of so many friends and in our lives, it's one long purification. I've been living through Lent since August.

There is something freeing about all this. You're detached from all the stuff you thought you needed. We have the kids. I got a few books out. My Sinatra collection.... Everything we need we have.

You wrote about how when Deacon Bill Steltemeir [EWTN chairman] first saw Mother Angelica, he started hearing, "Until the day you die" every day for a month until he drove down from Tennessee to see her. Was there anything like that with you?

Nothing quite like that. I came to do a profile on Mother in 1995. Early in '96, she asked me to start a news operation. "It'll be good for your soul."

My wife and I were ready. I was covering politics at the time. Politics is a shifting animal; it's like sand. Yesterday's hot story is tomorrow's has been. It's ephemeral. I wanted something more lasting.

You write and speak a lot about Mother Angelica's life as a parable that shows that God can do great things through you if you cooperate with Him.

If you are open to where He's taking you to. In Mother's life also you see these great illnesses and sufferings that presaged any major growth for the network. That's what happens in all our lives. You go through purging experiences, whether they be illness or loss of a loved one or some traumatic event -- like the loss of a house. It prepares you for the next thing He wants of you. It's a horrible time. Horrific. If you have the faith to cling to the bark like a little baby, if you keep walking, there is this great thing ahead. You have to go through this because you're not ready for it.

Would you have had those thoughts before you came to EWTN 10 years ago?

No. She was right. I came down and joined the network, and it was good for me spiritually.