One month ago, on May 18, a group of Benedictine Sisters exhumed the body of the foundress of their convent, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, who had died four years prior. The sisters decided to move her body from the convent cemetery to a tomb in their chapel. As her body had never been embalmed, the morticians warned the sisters to expect her body to be mostly if not completely decayed, and thus to mostly only find a skeleton.

When they dug up the simply wooden casket they also found the lid had been cracked so water was able to seep in. However, to their shock and surprise they opened the casket to find that Sister Wilhelmina’s body nor the habit that she was wearing was in fact still fully in tact! It appeared that her body had been miraculously preserved!

They placed her incorrupt body displayed in the church and thousands of pilgrims began to come from all over to see this wonder. Many came and prayed in the Church and went to confession.

“Incorruptibility” is a term the Church has used to describe this wondrous phenomenon when the body of a Saint or holy person appears to have been miraculously preserved from the normal decay and decomposition. Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been reports of supposed miraculous preservations of the corpses of the holy deceased. Many of these bodies were discovered by accident and others have been unearthed during the Catholic rite of Recognition in the canonization process. The majority of corpses in question have survived many years, in some cases several centuries, in a perfect state only to inexplicably later decay at a normal rate. Other formerly perfect corpses have browned and dried but still exist in an atypical state.

The body of Sister Wilhelmina seems to have been miraculous preserved as “incorrupt.” The Church has not made a formal declaration on this neither affirming or denying if this is, in fact, a miraculous incorrupt.

However, whether it is or isn’t, it seems God has allowed her body to be preserved – whether through natural conditions or miraculous supernatural conditions – to inspire prayer and hope in many people. Many have also begun to learn more about the life and witness of this holy nun, in a small cloistered convent in quiet rural Missouri.

Sister Wilhelmina was an African American who spent 70 or so years of her life as a nun, and died in her 90s. She was saddened when she saw some nuns abandoning the habit, as she saw the habit as their sign of being brides of Christ. For that was the identity that most deeply defined her life. It seems appropriate that her habit was also wondrously preserved from decay along with her body.

Sr. Wilhelmina was perceived by many as both deeply loving and lovable. She was prayerful, but also described by her fellow nuns as “having spunk.” She wrote poetry and lived a life of deep prayer.

You can learn more about her story here: rb.gy/u3a5l.

Or here: rb.gy/yrtza.

Peace,

– Fr. Kevin