Four years after death, nun's body shows no signs of decay
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Published May 25, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
Sister Wilhelmina’s remarkably well-preserved body in the tiny town of Gower, Mo.
Sister Wilhelmina’s remarkably well-preserved body in the tiny town of Gower, Mo. PHOTO BY STEPHANIE LYNN/FACEBOOK /TORONTO SUN
This was, apparently, no sister act.
A nun’s exhumed body showed no visible signs of decomposition a whopping four years after being buried — and it’s bringing people out in droves to the tiny rural Missouri town of Gower, some 64 kilometres north of Kansas City.
People are making the pilgrimage to see to well-preserved body of Sister Wilhemina Lancaster and it’s being called the “miracle in Missouri,” according to The New York Post.
Lancaster was 70 when she founded Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles.
She died in May 2019 at age 95, according to the Catholic News Agency.
Benedictine nuns dug up Lancaster’s coffin last Thursday to move it to beneath the altar in the convent’s chapel, a customary exercise.
“We were told by cemetery personnel to expect just bones in the conditions, as Sister Wilhelmina was buried without embalming and in a simple wood coffin,” one nun told Newsweek, according to the Post.
However, Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell looked through a crack in the coffin and saw “a totally infact foot with the sock on, looking just like it did when we buried her.”
She told the Eternal World Television Network her first reaction was disbelief: “I didn’t just see that.”
Flashlight in hand, she then took a closer look and confirmed her initial observation, prompting cheers from the other nuns.
When they eventually opened the coffin, the sisters were astonished to find Lancaster’s body with almost no signs of decay.
“The dirt that fell in early on had pushed down on her facial features, especially the right eye, so we did place a wax mask over it,” a nun told Newsweek. “But her eyelashes, hair, eyebrows, nose and lips were all present, her mouth just about to smile.”
The nuns then reportedly lifted Lancaster’s’ body, which they estimated weighed as much as 90 pounds.
After the nuns washed some mold and mildew off Lancaster’s body, her habit and the crown and bouquet of flowers with which she was buried all appeared in perfect condition.
“I mean, there was just this sense that the Lord was doing this,” Snell said. “Right now we need hope. We need it. Our Lord knows that. And she was such a testament to hope. And faith. And trust.”
Catholics have been flocking to Gower, Missouri, to view the incorrupt body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, who died in 2019.
nypost.com
A nun's exhumed body showed no visible signs of decomposition a whopping four years after being burial.
torontosun.com