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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