Four years after burying their foundress in a simple wood coffin on the grounds of their Missouri abbey, the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles decided last year it was time to move the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster inside their church, a common practice for founders of religious orders.
That’s when the sisters found her incorrupt body with her habit intact, while the coffin lining had completely deteriorated. After four years underground and without embalming care, Sister Wilhelmina’s body was still well preserved. The sister, known for her tenacity and love of tradition, is believed to be the first American and African American Catholic to join the ranks of the faithful whose bodies remained intact after burial.
The discovery was a beautiful moment for the community of sisters who felt a sense of gratitude. “She is a tangible sign of Christ’s promise” and a gift to the whole church said Benedictine Sister Pauline. Sister Pauline, formerly Gwyneth Owen, is one of nine young women from the Arlington diocese called to the ancient life of prayer and work espoused by the order.
After 50 years with the Oblates of Providence in Baltimore, Sister Wilhelmina founded the Benedictine order in Pennsylvania in 1995 when she was 70 years old. In 2006, the sisters moved to Kansas City, by which time they numbered approximately a dozen. There are more than 70 sisters in the order today.
As the discovery of Sister Wilhelmina’s incorrupt body spread far and wide, tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked to the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus in Gower, Mo., less than an hour north of Kansas City, hoping to view what some saw as a miracle and to invoke the nun’s intercession.
The crowds have thinned somewhat and country life in Gower is back to a more normal pace of well-ordered days revolving around the ancient prayers of the church, daily chores, and service to the priesthood. In addition to the 43 sisters in Gower, 19 reside in the newly built Monastery of St. Joseph in Ava, Mo.; 10 in another new location in Evansville, Ind.; and eight overseas, in the newly acquired St. Mary Abbey at Colwich, in Staffordshire, England.
Nine of the sisters come from the Arlington diocese, the most from a single diocese. Seven of them helped establish the daughter house in Ava. These sisters did not know each other before joining, except for a pair of biological sisters at the Gower abbey. They said the diocese’s traditional liturgy helped pave the way for their love of the Benedictines of Mary’s deeply rooted spirituality and monastic life.
They are contemplatives, the “stay-at-home mothers” within the church, according to Mother Mary Josefa, formerly Kathleen Holcomb. They seek a deeper union with God, she said, which progresses through prayers and silence.
“Once you find God in the silence, the desire to remain in the silence intensifies,” said Sister Giovanna, another sister from Virginia. It’s not so much about giving up speaking as it is “communing with God. It’s beautiful,” she said.
Mother Mary Josefa knew early on that she wanted to be a bride of Christ, and eventually discerned a contemplative vocation. She spent her teenage years in Stafford and credited both the youth group and community of St. William of York Church with nurturing her faith and calling, and the diocese for strengthening families and liturgy, two important factors in fostering religious vocations. What drew her to the Benedictines of Mary, she said, is their love of the traditional liturgy, their simple life, their hidden apostolate of prayer. The sisters pray the Lectio Divina, the meditative reading of sacred Scripture in silence. Mother Mary Josefa attended Thomas Aquinas College in California and spent another two years studying theology. Afterward, she knew she wanted an authentic religious life, and a friend recommended that she talk to Father Paul D. Scalia, pastor of St. James Church in Falls Church and diocesan episcopal vicar for clergy, who was familiar with the order and its foundress.
“It’s not a new formula. It’s fidelity and reverence,” said Father Scalia. “I think fidelity to the church’s teaching and a profound sense of the sacred, those are the two things that will always draw people.”
The Benedictines have been around since the 600s, he noted, and the sisters live their Benedictine rules faithfully.
The sisters model their lives on that of Mary at Ephesus, joined by St. John the Evangelist, after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, in caring for the young church and its priests. They pray for priests and patiently handcraft priestly vestments, sacred linens and altar clothes.
“It’s very much a supernatural, a spiritual relationship,” Father Scalia said. The Benedictines of Mary “are a great blessing to the church: the witness of their way of life, the praying for priests, the sense of the sacred, these are all gifts to the church, and whether or not a person goes and experiences that directly, these benefit everybody.”
The sisters are also famous for producing best-selling recordings of Gregorian chant and hymns. Sister Giovanna, formerly Vayla Lamarra, previously ran the traditional Schola at St. Rita Church in Alexandria. “St. Benedict really understood the human person,” she said, all the dimensions of the person, the spiritual and the natural life, and his rule reflects that deep understanding. She joined the order in the fall of 2023 and became a novice Sept. 26.
Remembering her own path, Sister Giovanna had a few words of advice for all discerning a vocation and intimidated by the prospect of leaving the world behind: “Do not be afraid to do something that people around you are not doing; don’t be afraid to give your life to the one who gave his life for you.”
Sister Pauline’s father, Hugh Owen, introduced her to the Benedictines of Mary. Owen, founder and director of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation in Mount Jackson, Va., had given talks to them. On retreat to Gower, she found the order’s “simple commitment to the hidden, interior life is the pearl of great price.” She joined from another Benedictine monastery after discerning that her vocation was closer to Sister Wilhelmina’s order. The change was difficult, if only because the average age of the sisters in Ava is 27. At 38, the adjustment was a struggle and a healthy reminder that humility is the foundation of all virtues, she said. “At times it can seem like an extra challenge but it’s an opportunity to be more deeply formed.”
She especially loves the practice of monthly consecration to Mary on first Saturdays. “We are seeking ways to be in God’s presence and the Blessed Mother is the best teacher,” she said. “She shows us the easy way to him.”
The local bishop, Bishop James V. Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, recently confirmed that “the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster does not appear to have experienced the decomposition that would have normally been expected under such previous burial conditions.” However, the Catholic Church does not rule that an incorrupt body is a sign of sainthood and, in the case of Sister Wilhelmina, Bishop Johnston said there is no current plan to initiate a cause for sainthood.
Today there are more than 250 incorrupt bodies of Catholic saints although the church does not keep an official record. Some of the better known include St. Cecilia, a martyr of the early church; St. Bernadette, whose body is exposed in Nevers, France; and St. Rita of Cascia who died in 1457 and whose body raised itself up during her beatification ceremony.
Chapman is a freelancer in Alexandria.
Benedictines of Mary sisters from the Arlington diocese
Mother Mary Josefa (Kathleen Holcomb) Solemn professed, Ava
Sr. Scholastica (Anne Radel) Solemn professed, Gower
Sr. Misericordia (Greta Radel) Solemn professed, Gower
Sr. Bernadette (Mary McClay) Solemn professed, Gower
Sr. Miriam Esther (Lorraine Podlinsek) Solemn professed, Ava
Sr. Gemma Rose (Veronica Hoffmann) Simple professed, Ava
Sr. Pauline (Gwyneth Owen) Simple professed, Ava
Sr. Oriana (Elizabeth Ciresi) Novice, Ava
Sr. Giovanna (Vayla Lamarra) Novice, Ava
