Amen
Posted on 10/18/2013 12:24:05 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Sister Antonia Brenner, a Beverly Hills-raised mother of seven who became a Roman Catholic nun and moved into a notorious Tijuana prison where she spent more than three decades mending broken lives, easing tensions and dispensing everything from toothbrushes to bail money, has died. She was 86.
Brenner, who had been in declining health, died Thursday of natural causes at the home of her religious order in Tijuana.
She was born Mary Clarke in Los Angeles on Dec. 1, 1926, to Irish immigrant parents. Her father grew wealthy running an office supply business, and the family counted Hollywood stars such as Cary Grant among their neighbors. She married and raised four daughters and three sons, all the while becoming deeply involved in charity work.
In 1977, Brenner gave away her expensive clothes and belongings, left her Ventura apartment and moved to La Mesa penitentiary. She had delivered donations in the past to the prison, each visit filling her with compassion.
-snip-"
Small of stature, with blue eyes peeking out from under her traditional black–and-white habit, Brenner cut a strikingly serene presence in the overcrowded prison of 8,000. She lived as any other inmate, sleeping in a 10-by-10-foot cell, eating the same food and lining up for morning roll call.
She would walk freely among thieves and drug traffickers and murderers, smiling, touching cheeks and offering prayers. Many were violent men with desperate needs. She kept extra toilet paper in her cell, arranged for medical treatment, attended funerals.
In the cellblocks she was known simply as "Mama." "There isn't anyone who hasn't heard my lecture on victims," she said in a 2002 Times story. "They have to accept that they're wrong. They have to see the consequences. They have to feel the agony. ... But I do love them dearly."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Thank you for posting in this digital Cul De Sac, otherwise I would have missed it. Just like most of us, Sister Antonia needed to be needed. Unlike most of us, she took a calculated risk, based on love and devotion, walking away from the physical comforts and the predictable security of her own family.
Actually, I did not realize this was allowed anywhere today; to purposely reside in a prison setting. I may have overlooked what happened to the husband. I presume she was a widow.
How divinely heroic she was! That, my friends is what real beauty is.
Oh my. 3 replies so far. And no one picked up on the obvious clues? (al baby; TJ)
Guess I’ll have to say I am STUNED.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1162751/posts
I'm remembering how Our Lord said, "I am the Vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me, you will bear much fruit."
I've done some thinking about how "fruitfulness" differs from "efficiency". Fruitfulness has to do with the inner, organic nature of a thing: Jesus talks also about how only the good tree bears good fruit.
So it seems we have a guarantee that Sr. Antonia's life will have been fruitful, since she was acting within her relationship with Our Lord, who is the source of all that is is truly good and truly lasting.
Good, lasting results with these "lost souls"? I'd bet my right arm up to the shoulder on that. I'd bet my life.
Well, blarg. I should have caught that. If you’d written “Tiajunna,” that would have helped!
Hence my answer.
Some of my typos, I don't know how they happen. They are bigger and more complicated than the ordinary typos!
She gave a talk in my hometown about three years ago and my little boy asked her for a blessing. When this happened I told myself, my son is being blessed by a future saint!
A truly amazing lady.
RIP, Sister Antonia Brenner....
You were very lucky to get that assistance.
That’s what I told my kids the last time Father Ho Lung was at our parish! Father Ho looked embarrassed.
Dearest Mrs.Don-o, I’ve been absent from FR for weeks, just a few days ago popped in.
This story is so beautiful, it is medicine.
I will go cry now.
I hope you have been in good health and that you have been able to pray every day.
"Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful,
And enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.
Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created,
And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth."
That is someone who ‘walked the walk’!
3 decades VOLUNTARILY living in a TJ prison?
I’m uhh.. I, I’m...
(darn it. what’s the word I’m looking for here?)
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I know what to say. There are those who talk of what to do and then there are those who just do it. God Bless you Sister Antonia Brenner.
Amen
Another picture of "La Mama"
sad thing is, she was prolly safer in there than on the streets...
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