c. 2003 Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ The founder of EWTN Global Catholic Network, whose reputation for glib wisecracks on a TV talk show made her perhaps the most famous living nun in the world, struggles for words now.

Her 80th birthday falls on Easter Sunday, but she can say little about what she would certainly have viewed as a joyous intersection in her life. “Happy birthday,” Mother Angelica says, managing a slight, brief smile. “Happy Easter.”

Her greatest talent, a gift of gab that built an international media empire that broadcasts to 80 million homes, now eludes her. It has been more than a 16 months since she hosted “Mother Angelica Live!” on Eternal Word Television Network. Then, she could hold audiences spellbound, talking for an hour straight with no breaks if she wanted, wrapping up her show with verbal precision as technicians counted down the final seconds.

This Easter, she has experienced a rebirth, not as a TV star but as a praying nun, her original ambition.

As she gradually recovers her speech and continues her recovery from two strokes suffered in 2001, she has returned to her monastic roots. She leads her nuns in rote prayers she has recited all her life _ the only words that seem to come easily anymore.

After the first stroke, she returned to the airwaves wearing an eyepatch, one side of her face drooping, but her comic approach to moral teaching intact. Another more serious stroke, on Christmas Eve 2001, nearly killed her. It has taken brain surgery and intensive rehabilitation to get to the point where she can now greet visitors to the sprawling shrine and monastery she built on 300 acres in a rural area 40 miles from Birmingham.

“I feel better,” she says at one point in an interview. “Oh, boy,” she says with a sigh, echoing one of her old favorite expressions. “I feel better.”

That has been enough of a triumph for her fellow nuns to celebrate this Easter, as Mother Angelica turns 80 on the day that commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A year ago, she had just gotten out of the infirmary and could not speak at all. Now she fully participates in the daily activities of the 35 cloistered Poor Clare nuns at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, which she founded in the Birmingham suburb of Irondale in 1962. She started EWTN in a garage next door in 1981.

In a photo session, Mother Angelica sat sternly in a chair in the chapel at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. A flash of her old assertiveness emerged. “I want my picture with the baby,” she announced clearly.

The sculpture of a baby Jesus in the corner behind her, like the marble floors and gold-leaf decor in the soaring 13th-century-cathedral-style building, was inspired by a vision she had of the baby Jesus in 1995 asking her to build a temple.

“When Mother Angelica does something, she does it big,” says Sister Mary Catherine, mother vicar. She now handles leadership of the monastery.

A week ago on Palm Sunday, Mother Angelica’s humor re-emerged. The other nuns brought her a piece of meat that was too rare, took it back and brought another, then took that away. After watching all this food-swapping in silence, Mother Angelica unzipped her famous lip. “Why don’t we just go out for dinner?” she says.

Of course, the nuns live secluded behind iron bars and never go out to eat.

“They were all laughing,” Mother Angelica recalled.

Her quips are spontaneous but infrequent. When asked direct questions, Mother Angelica thinks, halts and has difficulty expressing herself. She can answer yes and no questions, but sometimes gets confused and answers no when she means yes.

“It’s hard to see her like this,” says Sister Mary Agnes, a nun at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery since 1986, when it was still next to the TV network. The nuns moved their monastery to rural Alabama in 1999.

Sister Mary Catherine says Mother Angelica has stubbornly refused to continue her speech therapy. “She thinks it’s a waste of time,” she says. “She seems kind of frustrated at times.”

The renowned TV nun continues with physical therapy, which includes walking a mile with her walker every day.

“Gradually, she’s getting better,” Sister Mary Catherine says. “She has the facial expressions she had before. You know what she’s thinking by her expression.”

“She gets her ideas across,” Sister Mary Agnes says. That includes acceptance of her situation, to be nearly speechless after a life so full of words. “She feels it is God’s will.”

Asked if she misses doing her TV show, Mother Angelica answers, “Yes and no.” She tries to elaborate, but pauses. “Yes and no,” she repeats.

No one expects her to play any role in the TV network in the future, other than appearing in videos leading prayers, or in reruns of her old shows. On Monday (April 21), EWTN will devote a day of programming to Mother Angelica, celebrating her birthday and replaying her classic shows. Jesuit priest Mitch Pacwa now fills her chair on the live call-in show.

Sister Mary Catherine seems relieved that the nuns no longer have such a vital part in the network, which has its own board and runs itself. Mother Angelica had stepped down as board chairwoman even before her strokes.

“We gave it all up,” Sister Mary Catherine says. “We’re trying to live more of our monastic life. We pray for the network.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

On most days, pilgrims arrive from all over the world to visit the grounds of the shrine that Mother Angelica built at an estimated cost of more than $30 million, paid for by donations. It has a stone castle with 40-foot-tall turrets for a visitor center, with nine suits of armor, 600-year-old wood plank tables, medieval manuscripts and a gift shop.

Sometimes the woman born Rita Rizzo on April 20, 1923, in Canton, Ohio, greets her fans through the iron bars. A few months ago, Filipino pilgrims brought in guitars and sang to her, tears in their eyes. Mother Angelica grips the hands of visitors firmly and lifts her gaze to meet their eyes. Asked about greeting her longtime viewers, Mother Angelica tries to answer.

“We watch them,” she says. “And as loyal as … ”

The words fail her. Her eyes shift down and her expression conveys a quiet gratitude.

DEA END GARRISON