Servant of God Rhoda Wise, A Life Entrusted to the Sacred Heart

Servant of God Rhoda Wise

Rhoda Greer was born on February 22, 1888, in Cadiz, Ohio, the sixth of eight children. Raised in a Protestant family, she eventually made her home in Canton. Her life would include marriage, motherhood, bereavement, poverty, and prolonged illness. Years later, people would travel to her modest house seeking prayer and encouragement. The woman they came to see had learned about suffering through the difficult circumstances of her own family life and failing health.

Her first husband died after only six months of marriage. In 1917, she married George Wise. They adopted a baby girl who died before her first birthday, then welcomed another adopted daughter, Anna Mae, in 1922. George’s alcoholism brought additional hardship into their marriage. Rhoda’s responsibilities as a wife and mother continued amid financial insecurity and grief. These family struggles formed an important part of the life that later became associated with extraordinary spiritual experiences.

During the 1930s, Rhoda underwent surgery to remove a large abdominal tumor. Later operations left her with a wound that would not heal. A serious ankle injury also made walking painful and required repeated casts. During a lengthy stay at Mercy Hospital in Canton, she became interested in the Rosary and asked one of the religious sisters to teach her to pray it. She also learned about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. After receiving instruction, Rhoda entered the Catholic Church on January 1, 1939.

Bishop James McFadden confirmed her in her hospital bed that March. On May 8, she returned home after doctors considered her condition incurable. In her written account, Rhoda described an appearance of Jesus beside her bed on May 28. She reported another encounter with Jesus and Saint Thérèse on June 28, followed by the complete closing of her abdominal wound. In August, she recorded a further experience involving Saint Thérèse, after which she said she could walk without crutches.

These reported experiences became central to Rhoda’s spiritual life and attracted visitors to her home. Beginning in 1942, accounts describe bleeding wounds on her forehead, followed later by wounds on her hands and feet. Those who witnessed them understood them as the stigmata, wounds resembling those of Christ’s Passion. Her writings and the testimony surrounding these events became part of the material gathered for her cause. Their supernatural character remains a matter for the Church’s discernment.

Rhoda’s devotion centered on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Rosary, and Saint Thérèse. She sought to offer her suffering for the salvation of souls, especially for priests and members of religious communities. People gathered at her house, where she accompanied others facing their own difficulties. The Diocese of Youngstown remembers her as a woman whose suffering was joined to enduring hope. Her desire to bring people closer to Christ gave purpose to the years that followed her conversion.

Among those who visited was a young woman from Canton named Rita Rizzo, later known as Mother Angelica. Rita suffered from a debilitating stomach condition and came seeking help. Rhoda encouraged her to pray a novena. Accounts of Rita’s life describe a sudden recovery after she followed that advice, an experience that helped direct her toward religious life. She eventually entered the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration and founded EWTN. Rhoda’s influence thus became part of the story behind a worldwide Catholic apostolate.

Rhoda died on July 7, 1948, at sixty. Her daughter Anna Mae continued welcoming visitors to the family home, preserving it as a place of prayer. Interest in Rhoda’s life endured long after her death. Her cause for beatification formally opened in the Diocese of Youngstown on October 7, 2016. The diocesan investigation concluded in July 2018, and its documents were sent to Rome for further examination.

In July 2026, her postulator announced that the Positio, the detailed presentation of her life, virtues, and reputation for holiness, had been submitted to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Rhoda remains a Servant of God as that examination continues. Her story offers a witness to prayer and perseverance within the burdens of family life and illness. In the modest home where she lived and suffered, visitors continue seeking the consolation and hope that she found in Christ.

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Venerable Nelson Baker, A Father to Those in Need

 

Venerable Nelson Baker

Nelson Henry Baker was born in Buffalo, New York, on February 16, 1842. His father, Lewis, was Lutheran, and his mother, Caroline, was Catholic. The family lived behind the grocery store his father operated, where Nelson eventually worked and learned the practical demands of business. Baptized as a Lutheran, he entered the Catholic Church during childhood. Years later, the boy who had helped in his father’s store would use his business experience to care for people who had nowhere else to turn.

In 1863, during the American Civil War, Nelson served briefly in a New York militia regiment. After returning to Buffalo, he became a partner in a successful business selling feed and grain. He also joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and volunteered at an orphanage, giving both his time and his money. As he considered the priesthood, he studied Latin while continuing to work. In September 1869, at twenty seven, he entered Our Lady of Angels Seminary in Lewiston, New York.

His preparation for the priesthood included a serious illness. A leg infection in 1871 interrupted his studies and required a lengthy recovery. In 1874, he traveled to Europe on a pilgrimage. At the church of Notre Dame des Victoires in Paris, his devotion to Mary under the title Our Lady of Victory deepened. That devotion would shape his future work. On March 19, 1876, the feast of Saint Joseph, Nelson was ordained a priest at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Buffalo.

Father Baker’s first assignment brought him to Limestone Hill, now part of Lackawanna, where an orphanage and a protectory for boys were already operating. Their debts were substantial. Following a brief assignment in Corning, he returned in 1882 to take charge of the institutions. He used his own savings to help meet their obligations and developed a wider source of support. Through the Association of Our Lady of Victory, he invited Catholics around the country to contribute twenty five cents annually. Those small gifts helped repay debts and expand the work.

Keeping the buildings warm was another pressing concern. Father Baker pursued the drilling of a natural gas well on the property, seeking an affordable supply of fuel for the institutions. In 1891, the well successfully reached gas. Named the Victoria Well in honor of Our Lady of Victory, it supplied fuel for heating and cooking. His care for the children included the ordinary necessities of daily life, and his experience in business helped him find ways to provide them.

His responsibilities continued to grow. In 1908, he opened Our Lady of Victory Infant Home, welcoming babies and mothers who needed assistance. A crib and blanket were placed near an unlocked entrance so that a mother unable to keep her child could leave the baby somewhere safe. Father Baker also made evening rounds among the children, blessing them and attending to their care. A maternity hospital followed in 1919. His institutions offered shelter, education, and opportunities to learn a trade as children grew older.

Father Baker also undertook the construction of a great church dedicated to Our Lady of Victory. Its cornerstone was laid in 1921, when he was seventy nine. The first Mass in the completed church was celebrated on Christmas Day in 1925. Dedicated in May 1926, it received the title of minor basilica that July. Contributions had paid for its construction by the time it was completed. The church gave enduring expression to the Marian devotion that had accompanied his years of service.

During the Great Depression, people came to Father Baker’s institutions seeking food, clothing, and somewhere to sleep. His charitable work continued even as he approached the end of his long life. Homes for unemployed women also became part of his response to the hardship around him. Known as the Padre of the Poor, he had become a familiar source of help for people facing hunger, homelessness, and uncertainty.

Father Nelson Baker died on July 29, 1936, at ninety four. His cause for canonization opened in 1987. On January 14, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI recognized his heroic virtues, giving him the title Venerable. The charitable institutions associated with Our Lady of Victory continue his work through education, health care, and support for children and families. His life joined prayer with practical responsibility, expressed through decades of feeding, sheltering, teaching, and caring for those entrusted to him.

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Saint John Henry Newman, Following the Light

Saint John Henry Newman

In 1833, John Henry Newman was returning to England after a serious illness in Sicily. His ship lay becalmed in the Strait of Bonifacio. During the voyage, he wrote the poem that became known as “Lead, Kindly Light,” a prayer asking God to guide him through uncertainty. Years later, he recalled both his longing for home and his conviction that he had work to do in England.

Born in London on February 21, 1801, Newman had grown up in an Anglican family. He studied at Oxford, became a fellow of Oriel College, and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1825. As vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, he became an influential preacher. Alongside friends such as John Keble and Edward Pusey, he helped lead the Oxford Movement, seeking to renew Anglican life through the teaching and practices of the ancient Church.

Yet his study of the Church Fathers gradually challenged his opposition to Catholicism. At Littlemore, near Oxford, he spent years studying, praying, and discerning. On October 9, 1845, the Passionist priest Dominic Barberi received him into the Catholic Church. The decision cost him friendships and strained family relationships, but Newman later described his conversion as “coming into port after a rough sea.”

Ordained a Catholic priest in Rome in 1847, Newman established an Oratorian community near Birmingham the following year. His life joined scholarship with pastoral service. He ministered to poor immigrants and factory workers and served as the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland.

In 1879, Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal. Newman chose the motto Cor ad cor loquitur, meaning “Heart speaks to heart.” He remained at the Birmingham Oratory until his death on August 11, 1890.

Pope Francis canonized him on October 13, 2019. On November 1, 2025, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church. His feast is celebrated on October 9, the anniversary of the day his long search brought him into Catholic communion.

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Cora Evans, a Search That Led to Christ

Servant of God Cora Evans

On December 9, 1934, Cora Evans lay ill in her home in Ogden, Utah. Across the room, a radio began broadcasting The Catholic Hour. Too sick to get up and change the station, she listened to Monsignor Duane Hunt speak about the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Catholic faith. What she heard challenged the negative accounts of Catholicism she had learned growing up. When she recovered, she went to Saint Joseph Catholic Church with questions.

Cora had been born on July 9, 1904, in Midvale, Utah, and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1924, she married Maclellan, known as Mack, Evans. She later recalled that their temple marriage ceremony had left her troubled about her childhood faith and prompted a long religious search.

During those years, Cora and Mack had three children. Their son Bobby died at ten months old, deepening her search for consolation. Her eventual inquiries at Saint Joseph’s led to instruction and discussions about Catholic teaching. On March 30, 1935, she was baptized into the Catholic Church. The following day, she received her first Holy Communion. Mack and their daughters, LaVonne and Dorothy, became Catholics a few months later. Cora subsequently invited others from her former faith to learn about Catholicism.

The family moved to Southern California in 1941. Under the guidance of her Jesuit spiritual director, Father Frank Parrish, Cora wrote extensively about experiences she understood as encounters with Christ. She reported a mission to promote the “Mystical Humanity of Christ,” encouraging awareness of Christ’s presence in ordinary daily life. Accounts associated with her cause also describe visions and the stigmata. These remain reported mystical experiences subject to the Church’s discernment.

Cora moved to Boulder Creek in 1956 and died there on March 30, 1957, exactly twenty-two years after her Catholic baptism. Recognized as a Servant of God, she remains a candidate for canonization. Her story joins the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood with a persistent search for God and a desire to help others know Christ.

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Saint Bartolo Longo A Life Reclaimed Through the Rosary

St. Bartolo Longo

Bartolo Longo was born on February 10, 1841, in Latiano, Italy, and grew up in a Catholic family. While studying law in Naples, he abandoned the faith of his childhood and became involved in spiritualism and occult ceremonies. Accounts of his life describe his initiation as a “priest of Satan” within that circle. These experiences brought increasing distress and confusion. The future apostle of the Rosary first needed help finding his own way back to Christ.

That help came through friendship and spiritual guidance. Professor Vincenzo Pepe encouraged Bartolo to speak with Father Alberto Radente, a Dominican priest. Through their influence, he returned to the Catholic faith and began devoting himself to prayer and charity. His conversion changed the direction of his life. The lawyer who had turned away from the Church now sought to repair the harm of his past and place his abilities at the service of God and others.

Bartolo entered the Dominican Third Order, taking the name Rosario in honor of the Rosary. As a lay Dominican, he pursued holiness through prayer and service while continuing his life in the world. Yet memories of his former involvement in the occult troubled him. He feared that his past had placed salvation beyond his reach. Dominican accounts describe how remembering Father Radente’s encouragement to spread the Rosary helped him move from despair toward renewed confidence in God’s mercy.

In 1872, Bartolo traveled to the Valley of Pompeii to manage property belonging to Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco, a widow with five children. There, his spiritual struggle became connected with a particular mission. He understood an interior inspiration as a call to spread devotion to the Rosary. He began teaching the faith to local farmers and helping restore the deteriorating parish church. His renewed trust in God took practical form among the people of the valley.

On November 13, 1875, an image of Our Lady of the Rosary arrived in Pompeii. With encouragement from the bishop of Nola, Bartolo and the countess undertook the construction of a new church. Its first stone was laid on May 8, 1876, and the church was consecrated in 1891. Donations supported the growing undertaking. What began with catechism lessons and work on a small parish developed into a Marian shrine known far beyond the valley.

Bartolo and Marianna married on April 1, 1885. Her resources and active participation helped sustain their shared work. Around the shrine, religious devotion grew alongside efforts to improve people’s lives. Bartolo founded an orphanage for girls in 1887, and in 1897 the couple sought the establishment of the Dominican Sisters, Daughters of the Holy Rosary of Pompeii. Prayer, education, and care for vulnerable children became enduring parts of the foundation they built together.

He gave particular attention to children whose parents were imprisoned. In 1892, he established an institute for prisoners’ sons, and another for their daughters followed in 1922. These works offered care and education to children facing hardship and exclusion. His devotion to Mary continually brought him into contact with people who needed help. The shrine became a place where pilgrimage and prayer stood beside concrete works of mercy, expressing the connection between love for Christ and responsibility for the poor.

Bartolo also spread the Rosary through his writings and the practice of the Fifteen Saturdays. Saint John Paul II later praised his promotion of its contemplative character, centered upon Christ. Through meditation on the mysteries, Bartolo encouraged people to become familiar with the lives of Jesus and Mary and to imitate their virtues. The prayer that had helped restore his own confidence became a means through which he invited others to grow in faith, patience, and love.

Bartolo died in Pompeii on October 5, 1926, aged eighty five. Saint John Paul II beatified him on October 26, 1980, and Pope Leo XIV canonized him on October 19, 2025. His liturgical memorial is October 5. His life offers hope to those burdened by their past. Through repentance, faithful prayer, and decades of service, the man who had once abandoned Christianity became a saint whose work joined devotion to the Rosary with care for children and families in need.

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