- The abbey which previously would receive no more than 20 visitors per day is now seeing about 1,000 visitors on a daily basis
- After May 29, her body will be encased in glass, meaning visitors will no longer be able to touch the body
- The church officials said they are investigating Lancaster’s case, as incorruptibility can be a sign of sainthood
A nun whose exhumed body showed nearly no signs of decomposition four years after she died is drawing thousands of Catholics hoping to witness the alleged “miracle” to the sister’s rural Missouri monastery.
The visitors are coming from all over the country to see and touch the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, who died at age 95 in 2019 and was exhumed in April with her body and clothing still intact.
Between 10,000 to 15,000 worshippers were expected to visit the chapel of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Gower, a small town 40 miles north of Kansas City, each day over Memorial Day weekend, Clinton County Sheriff Larry Fish said in a Facebook video.
At the time of Lancaster’s death, the nun’s body was not embalmed before her burial and her casket was made of simple wood without an exterior layer. Workers expected to uncover boned but instead found a perfectly intact corpse.
After seeing Lancaster’s intact body, the convent’s Abbess, Mother Cecilia, described the actions the nuns had taken, according to Newsweek.
‘You can’t Google, ‘What do you do with an incorrupt body?” she said, ‘so we started with the basics, just cleaning her with hot water, because clinging to her face was basically a mask of thick mold.’
The nun’s body was coated in a protective wax and displayed inside the chapel as travelers touched her face and prayed over her.
Her remains — which were initially exhumed to be put in a new shrine — will be placed in a glass case on Monday.
Local officials said they expect visitors to continue making the pilgrimage from as far as Canada and Mexico for several months.
Fish said the rural area’s gravel roads weren’t designed to serve that level of traffic.
“We are going to put a very large pressure on our infrastructure that is not designed for it,” he said.
Local police created a mobile command center to deal with the size of the crowds in the town of just 1,8000 people, and additional land was cleared for more parking spaces near the monastery, according to FOX4 Kansas City.
Samuel Dawson came with his son from Kansas City to see Lancaster’s body last week.
Pilgrims have descended on a Benedictine monastery after news began to spread that the recently exhumed remains of the contemplative order’s African American foundress appear to be incorrupt, four years after her death and burial in a simple wooden coffin. https://t.co/nd9hzzux4Q pic.twitter.com/4dR7yGo1I1
— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) May 22, 2023
