Mother Angelica was crying in excruciating pain because of her fractured bones but refused to take pain relievers, enduring the pain for days before passing away on Easter Sunday.
The revelation was made by Eternal Word Television Network, Inc.(EWTN) Chaplain Fr. Joseph Wolfe who described the final days of Mother Angelica's life during Tuesday's memorial sermon for the founder of the global Catholic TV network at its headquarters in Irondale, Alabama, LifeSite News reported.
Wolfe said in her final moments, Mother Angelica taught the world about the redemptive meaning of suffering by enduring it.
Despite the pain racking her body, Mother Angelica instructed her caregivers not to administer pain-relieving drugs, saying these could unintentionally shorten her life and she did not want that to happen since she wanted to consciously suffer and offer her suffering to God, Wolfe said.
"Most of us would not think that way. We would think, 'Get me out of here...' What's taken out of that picture is the love of God," said Wolfe as reported by AL.com.
Wolfe said Mother Angelica wanted each day to be "one more act of suffering to God." Her act is based on the Catholic belief that suffering is not only something that should patiently be endured but also something that should help redeem the world, just like what Christ did on the cross.
Mother Angelica died at the age of 92 after an extended period of ill health, including two strokes in 2001 which made it difficult for her to speak and forced her to wear an eye patch over her left eye.
Wolfe said Mother Angelica's final suffering started on Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified and died on the cross.
"It was on Good Friday...Mother began to cry out early in the morning from the pain that she was having. She had a fracture in her bones because of the length of time she had been bedridden. They said you could hear it down the hallways, that she was crying out on Good Friday from what she was going through," the priest said.
Wolfe said for Mother Angelica enduring suffering was an act of love to God.
He said suffering was nothing new to Mother Angelica as she was already enduring it in her early life when she figured in an accident involving an industrial waxing machine that forced her to wear leg braces.
"Her whole life really was coloured with suffering," said Wolfe. "We don't think of her as someone who was downcast in her suffering but gave us courage in our own sufferings."
