Mother Angelica Museum adds new artifact

Charita M. Goshay, The Repository
This undated photo provided by Eternal Word Television Network shows Mother Mary Angelica, who founded the EWTN channel in 1981. She died on Easter Sunday 2016 at age 92.
This undated photo provided by Eternal Word Television Network shows Mother Mary Angelica, who founded the EWTN channel in 1981. She died on Easter Sunday 2016 at age 92.
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JACKSON TWP. – The Mother Angelica Museum housed at the St. Raphael Center at 4365 Fulton Drive NW has added a newly recovered artifact to its collection.

After several years of research, the museum rescued two pieces of the original Communion rail (circa 1927) from St. Anthony Catholic Church in Canton, the home parish of Rita Rizzo, the future Mother Angelica.

The rail had been dismantled in the 1980s and became a part of a local restaurant.

At the Communion rail, Rizzo received her first Holy Communion, her confirmation, and at age 20, knelt as she received her call from God to enter the convent.

In 1944, Rizzo became one of the original Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at the new Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton. She left Sancta Clara in 1961 to form an integrated convent in Alabama.

In the 1970s, she began videotaping some of her talks, which were broadcast on CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. She founded EWTN, the world's largest Catholic network, in 1981.

Mother Angelica died in 2016 at 92.

Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free, but donations are accepted.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Mother Angelica Museum recover 1927 Communion artifact