Feel Good Stories of 2005

Good News Stories of 2005

As each year comes to and end most newspapers, magazines and television will report on the significant events of the past year. While a high percentage, if not all of the top events of the year, seem to be of a negative nature, there are good things that have happened that never make the limelight.

Here are some positive things that occurred in 2005:

The U. S. death rates for colon, breast, lung and prostrate cancers are dropping.

Americans are living longer and there are more centenarians than ever.

Americans donated in record amounts for the various disasters; specifically to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

A lost Utah Boy Scout was found alive after being missing for four days.

Many of you have probably read about these, but I wonder how many have heard about Sister Antonia Brenner and her charitable work.

Brenner was born Mary Clarke in Los Angeles, the second of three children. Her well to do family lived in Beverly Hills and had an 11-bedroom, ocean-view summer home in Laguna Beach.

After two failed marriages, Brenner got involved in charity work and was deeply influenced by a Los Angeles priest named Anthony Brouwers. She became a nun in 1977 and took the name of Sister Antonia in his honor.

Just 5 foot 2 inches and a bundle of energy, Brenner acts as a counselor and does an assortment of tasks for the 7,100 inmates of La Mesa State Penitentiary, just across the border from San Diego.

Sister Antonia makes her home in a small cell at the end of a dark hallway in the prison. The only sunlight her cell offers filters through two tiny windows with a view of the guard tower and barbed wire fence. A white sheet serves as the door to the cramped bathroom with a cold-water shower. Her neighbors are no longer Hollywood stars, but murderers, drug runners and human smugglers. She is known as the “angel de la carcel” – the prison angel.

After raising seven children, Mary Clarke at the age of 50 traded her dresses and wonderful home for a homemade habit and a prison where conditions have led to inmate riots – including three that she quelled.

She walks through the prison with a beaming smile waving at inmates and guards and kissing many on the cheek. She calls them “mi hijo” – “my son.” She has earned their respect because of her love for them.

Her work has been recognized in books and this month she has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans which is based in Washington.

The current warden has called Mother Antonia “a ray of sunshine.”