![]() ![]() As they were driving there, knowing that his active children may have a hard time sitting still in the chapel, he instructed them that they were going to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and that they should just say “hello” to Jesus – that they would only be there for a few minutes to pray. Afterwards a young father told me the story of taking his young boy and girl to Eucharist adoration in a chapel in New Orleans, where they stopped to make a visit. ![]() We have Eucharistic Holy Hours for the groups who travel there and on one occasion I led a group from Louisiana in prayers, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. But a large percentage of the visitors are Protestants who visit out of curiosity or who find it to be a place of peace and prayer. A couple of groups have even flown in from Ireland to spend a few days of retreat there. The Shrine continues to be a place of pilgrimage for Catholics who travel there from all over the United States, as well as, from other countries where EWTN is broadcast. Mother Angelica greeted each and every person – standing at door near the end of the tour. Some 30,000 people showed up for the open house in August of 1999, including the Governor of Alabama at the time, who flew in by helicopter. The second site associated with Mother Angelica is located 60 miles (100 km) to the North where is located the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament – which is located on 400 acres in the remote rural area of Hanceville.Īlabama is in the middle of the so-called “Bible Belt” where Catholics are in the minority and the vast majority of people identify themselves as Protestants with little churches of different denominations on practically every street corner – with names such as First Baptist Church and Saint James Methodist Church to newer Christian churches like the Faith Restoration Church and the New Rising Star Missionary Church.Īnd so when Mother Angelica built a 13th century style monastery there with a façade like the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, it got people’s attention. Mother Angelica started a new foundation of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration here in 1962 and from it sprang the Eternal Word Television Network founded in 1981. In Alabama in the United States where I am from are two major sites associated with Mother Angelica (the foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network – a Catholic television network which now reaches more than 250 million homes in 140 countries.) The first site, located in the center of the State, is in Irondale, which is next to Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama having a population of over 200,000.
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