Thousands of pilgrims have travelled to see the “incorrupt” remains of the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, which were yesterday placed inside a glass case inside the monastery she founded in Missouri.
Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster died aged 95 four years ago but when exhumed by the Benedictine Sisters of Mary on April 28 in Gower, her body and habit, which lay in a simple wooden coffin, were surprisingly intact.
The sisters said that their original intention was to keep the discovery quiet, but after a private email mentioning the news mistakenly went public, it “began to spread like wildfire”.
This has since prompted worldwide media coverage, attracting a vast number of pilgrims to the abbey in Gower, a city about an hour’s drive from Kansas City, Missouri.
Volunteers and local law enforcement have been thanked by the sisters for their help in managing the large crowds in the town as people have been visiting from all over the country to see and touch Lancaster’s body.
Jack Klein, owner of Hixson-Klein Funeral Home in Gower and issuer of her death certificate, attended Sister Wilhelmina’s funeral and confirmed to the Catholic News Agency that the religious sister’s body was not embalmed and that the wood coffin was not placed into any outer burial container.
Klein expressed his own surprise at the discovery and said he “can’t understand” how Sister Wilhelmina’s un-embalmed body is in the condition it’s presently in, four years after her burial.
“The condition of the remains of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster has understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions,” the diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph said in a statement.
“At the same time, it is important to protect the integrity of the mortal remains of Sister Wilhelmina to allow for a thorough investigation.”
“Incorruptibility has been verified in the past, but it is very rare. There is a well-established process to pursue the cause for sainthood, but that has not been initiated in this case yet,” the diocese added.
Sister Wilhelmina was born in St. Louis as Mary Elizabeth Lancaster on April 13, 1924, the second of five children of Oscar and Ella Lancaster.
According to her autobiography, she took her First Communion when she was nine, later writing that she experienced a vision in which “Our Lord asked me if I would be His”.
It was this early-life experience that led her down the path of to becoming a nun. On March 9, 1944 she took her vows with the Oblate Sisters of Providence and selected the new name “Wilhelmina”.
After 50 years, in 1995, Sister Wilhelmina left the Oblate Sisters of Providence to found the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles.
A traditionalist and devotee of Gregorian Chant and the Latin Mass, Sister Wilhelmina disapproved of a number of changes to religious life brought about after the Second Vatican Council. She made particular efforts to preserve the religious habit, even making her own when unable to attain one elsewhere.
In the 1990s, Sister Wilhelmina was in contact with the traditionalist Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) in order to help establish a traditional community of nuns. Subsequently, her new convent in Scranton, PA undertook to worship according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum; the Divine Office in Latin.
In 2006, the sisters relocated to Gower, Missouri. Today, the sisters follow the Rule of St Benedict wth its strict emphasis on contemplation and silence. They participate in the “Extraordinary Form” of the Mass and follow the Monastic Office dated to before Vatican II, singing Gregorian Chant and worshipping in Latin.
Lancaster died on May 29, 2019, and was buried by hand on the ground of the convent.
Expecting to find only bones, her fellow sisters exhumed her remains in April intending to reinter them in a newly completed St. Joseph’s Shrine, only to discover her body bewilderingly well-preserved.
On Monday, the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was placed inside a glass display case after a ceremonial procession led by members of the community.
Many of religious sisters of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, carried her on a platform around the property of the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus with some of the thousands of pilgrims who visited the abbey over the three-day Memorial Day weekend following behind.
The procession culminated with the nun’s body being placed into a specially made glass case where it will remain open to viewing for pilgrims.
(Photo: A pilgrim venerates the apparently incorrupt body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, OSB, on May 20, 2023. Lancaster was recently exhumed in Gower, Missouri. Credit: Kelsey Wicks/CNA)
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