She rises each day at 5 A.M. in her tiny prison cell. She spends the
first hour in quiet prayer; then, fueled by countless cups of coffee, she
begins her rounds of the cell blocks, distributing clothing, blankets and
soap to prisoners. She visits the prison hospital, counsels new inmates,
and meets with families. She has diffused tensions between desperate
inmates and nervous guards; she has made the most hardened con accept
responsibility for his crimes and seek forgiveness from his victims.
She is not the warden. She is not a guard. She is a 78-year-old
nun known as Mother Antonia. Her “home” is Tijuana’s La Mesa
prison, just across the border from San Diego. For 28 years, she has
lived among the 6,000 inmates of what was once one of Mexico’s most
dangerous prisons.
The only member of her order allowed to live inside the prison,
Mother Antonia spends ten hours a day among the prisoners. Sisters in
her community work in Tijuana’s neighborhoods providing support for
families of both inmates and guards, counseling mothers separated from
children, even helping arrange funerals for those who die in prison.
Mother Antonia’s own life and upbringing could not have been
more different. Born Mary Clarke, she was the daughter of a wealthy
Los Angeles businessman. A striking beauty, Mary grew up in a
Beverly Hills mansion with Hollywood stars Dinah Shore and Cary
Grant for neighbors. Twice married, she raised seven children who
adore her. Mary’s many hours of charity work became a source of
tension in her second marriage and eventually led to divorce. In 1977,
with her marriage over and her children all grown, Mary felt a powerful
pull to do more.
With the support of her children, she sold her belongings and drove
to Tijuana, where she had been making church-sponsored relief visits,
and began religious life. She convinced the warden to let her stay and
began the dangerous task of winning inmates over with small acts of
kindness.
(Her journey from Beverly Hills to the barrios of Tijuana is
chronicled in the book The Prison Angel, by Mary Jordan and Kevin
Sullivan.)
“I wanted to dedicate my life to the poor,” she says. “I didn’t want
to just pity them. I wanted to become a significant part of their lives…I
guess you might say I’m in love with these people who the rest of the
world finds unlovable.”
The warden believes that Mother Antonia is the most important
person at La Mesa. “Mother Antonia brings hope to men and women
here. And they find hope in themselves. She spreads the love of God.”
Beloved by the guards, her presence has made their jobs safer and more
humane.
What drives her, she says, is her faith. “[My faith] is what makes
my heart beat. That’s who I am.” Of her work among the prisoners of
La Mesa, she says: “Like a mother, I always search for the best in my
children.”
Mother Antonia models the sower of today’s Gospel, who sows
seeds of encouragement, joy and reconciliation regardless of the “ground” on which it is scattered, and who is willing to do the hard work
necessary to realize the harvest that Christ has promised.
I close: The reign of God is like a seed. That seed is the kindness
we do, the worship we share in, the conversation around the dinner table,
the soup to the sick neighbor, the decisions to put the family first. The
seed is being sensitive to minorities. The seed is making your children
bring back the little things they’ve stolen, and apologize. The seed is
having them catch you at prayer. The seed is your being here.
I like the seed symbol, mostly, I guess, because it fits me. I can
handle a seed. We seldom have the opportunity, or even the courage, to
do the big things, the really big, heroic things. But everyday, like
Mother Antonia, we all have the opportunity to do the small ones that
display our values and the values of Jesus; values, perhaps, small as a
seed, but seeds that will bear fruit thirty, forty, fifty years from now.
Remember this: do the little things well and let God do the rest.
Tags: 7-16-2023