From Fr. David: This continues my Friday reprint series from my original site. Mary Elizabeth Lancaster was born on the 13th of April 1924 in St. Louis, MO. She entered Benedictine religious life as a teenager. Later in life, Sister Mary Wilhelmina founded the traditional congregation Queen of Apostles. There, she died on 29 May 2019. Four years later, on 18 May 2023, she was exhumed and found incorrupt. (Incorrupt means minimal corruption to a deceased body, and this is normally seen as a sign of God affirming great sanctity in the life of the deceased.) The following guest post was written a couple years ago by Mother of Wildlings, @ravenousreader.>Who was Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster? Most Catholics know her as the “Incorrupt Missouri Nun,” but what was she like? She was an amazing woman who came from a pious family. She was born in St. Louis in 1934. She endured segregation and the Great Depression, but these tragedies didn’t define her. In fact, the thing that she allowed to define her was her Catholic faith. This became a cross she would bear with inspiring hope and perseverance.>

In a time when many Catholics began to find social justice causes to fight for—causes outside the faith—Sr. Wilhelmina saw that the only cause worth fighting for is the faith, and she fought like a warrior. She said that “It is not the color of one’s skin that matters, but the purity of one’s soul.” She saw that the Church was beginning to divide in the social and liturgical aftermath of the 1970s and wanted it to remain unified. She wanted Catholics to identify as Catholic first, live out the faith and save their souls. She also wanted the Church to lead them in this endeavor. She never lost hope that this might happen.

Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article