Mother Antonia Brenner
Nun who lived in a cell to be closer to the inmates she looked after in a notorious Mexican prison
Mother antonia brenner, nun. born: 1 december, 1926, in Los angeles. died: 17 October, 2013, in Tijuana, Mexico, aged 86.
Mother Antonia Brenner, who left a comfortable life in Beverly hills to minister to inmates in a notorious Mexican prison, eventually becoming a nun and spending more than 30 years living in a cell to be closer to those she served, died last thursday in tijuana, Mexico. She was 86.
She had a neuromuscular disorder, myasthenia gravis, said Sister Anne Marie, a member of the eudist Servants of the 11th hour, the order Mother Antonia founded in tijuana for older single, divorced or widowed women who want to serve the poor.
Mary Brenner was a twice-divorced mother of eight children when she began doing volunteer work for the poor in Mexico in the 1960s. She had been active in charity work in California when she was married, but her devotion intensified after a priest led her to La Mesa state penitentiary, which housed convicted murderers, gang leaders, rapists and other serious felons.
Brenner began providing for inmates’ basic needs, giving them aspirin, blankets, toiletries and prescription glasses. She sang in worship services. She received a prison contract to sell soft drinks to prisoners and used the proceeds to bail out low-level offenders. If a prisoner died, of illness or in a gang fight, she prepared him for burial.
Inmates told how Mother Antonia once walked into the middle of a prison riot while bullets flew and tear gas filled the air. When the inmates saw her, fearless in her habit, the fighting stopped. She never seemed to stop smiling.
She had taken private vows and sewn her own habit in her early years volunteering in Mexico. When the bishops of tijuana and San Diego heard of her work, they officially accepted her work as part of church ministry.
“At age 50,” according to a biography on the order’s website, “she had become a sister.” Around the same time, she moved into the women’s section of the prison in a cell that was about 10 feet by 10 feet. She could come and go freely, but she devoted herself to the lives inside. her mission constantly expanded, from the inmates and guards to their families.
“It’s different to live among people than it is to visit them,” she said in 2002. “I have to be here with them in the middle of the night in case someone is stabbed, in case someone has an appendix (attack), in case someone dies.”
Mary Clarke was born in 1926 in Los Angeles, and grew up in Beverly hills, the second of three children. her mother, Kathleen, died while pregnant with her fourth child.
her father, Joseph, was a successful sales executive in the office supplies industry, and the family had a second home overlooking the sea.
She married at 18, but it did not last long. A second marriage, to Carl Brenner, lasted 25 years, but it also ended in divorce.
As she struggled in her second marriage, she became increasingly involved with serving the poor in Southern California and Mexico. She worked early on with a Los Angeles priest, Monsignor Anthony Brouwers. he died of cancer in 1964.
More than a decade later, when she became a nun, she renamed herself in his memory. She had moved to San Diego by the 1970s, which made it easier to travel into Mexico while sharing custody of her children. Most of her children were grown but not all of them. When her youngest, Anthony, was a teenager, she gave custody of him to Brenner.
She was a “basket case” at the time, she said in an interview for a 2005 book about her, The Prison Angel, by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan. But she believed the decision was right. “When you know in your heart that something is right, that it’s who you are, that God is calling you to do something,” she said, “you make the sacrifices you have to make.”
She remained in regular contact with her children, and many of them visited her at La Mesa. her survivors include seven of her eight children and many grandchildren.
Mother Antonia’s work drew praise around the world, including from President Vicente Fox of Mexico and President ronald reagan.
In 1991, she met Mother teresa when she visited tijuana.
Sister Anne Marie, who is one of about two dozen nuns in the eudist Servants of the 11th hour, said that Mother Antonia started the order a little more than a decade ago at the urging of diocesan leaders in tijuana and that it was sanctioned by Archbishop rafael romo Muñoz.
“Pleasure depends on where you are, who you are with, what you are eating,” said Mother Antonia.
“happiness is different. happiness does not depend on where you are. I live in prison. And I have not had a day of depression in 25 years. I have been upset, angry. I have been sad. But never depressed. I have a reason for my being.” l Copyright New York Times 2013. Distributed by NYT syndication service.