Twenty-eight years ago Mary Clarke, a well-to-do Beverly
Hills divorcee, made a decision about how she wanted to spend
the rest of her life. After intense deliberation and soul
searching—and without the official support of the Catholic
Church—she sewed herself a nun's habit, left home, and set
off for a life of compassionate service in, of all places, La
Mesa State Penitentiary, a notorious prison in Tijuana, Mexico.
She lives there still, and her work with the prison population
has earned her the blessings of the church (she founded her own
order, The Servants of the Eleventh Hour), accolades from human
rights groups around the world, and the eternal gratitude of the
countless individuals she has counseled, comforted, and cared
for in prison, after prison, and in their final hours on
earth.
Now called Mother Antonia, she is the subject of a recent
book about her life and work, The Prison Angel: Mother
Antonia's Journey From Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a
Mexican Jail by Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Mary Jordan
and Kevin Sullivan, and has been a featured guest on NPR's
Fresh Air.
In this interview with WIE's Maura O'Connor, Mother
Antonia demonstrates that, at the age of seventy-nine and
despite being in fragile health, she is still ablaze with a
remarkable passion for compassionate action and an unswerving will to serve God that is truly an inspiration to us all.
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Recorded on: 9/24/2005
Christianity
Spiritual and Social Activism