20 Facts About Rhoda Wise

Rhoda Greer Wise was an American Catholic stigmatist and mystic from Canton, Ohio.

Between 1939 and her death in 1948, Wise reported seeing regular visions of Jesus Christ and Saint Therese of Lisieux in her Canton home.

Rhoda Wise has been associated with a number of sudden and unexplained healings, including the healing of Mother Angelica, the founder of the Catholic television network EWTN, from a painful stomach ailment.

Rhoda Wise was born Rhoda Greer on February 22,1888, in Cadiz, Ohio, to bricklayer Eli Greer and his wife Anna, the sixth of their eight children.

Rhoda Wise then married George Wise in 1917, and the couple continued to live in the Canton area and adopted two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

George Rhoda Wise was an alcoholic and changed jobs frequently, resulting in financial hardship and embarrassment for the family.

The Rhoda Wise family lived at seven different addresses; by the early 1930s, they were occupying a three-room "depression shack" house near the Canton city dump.

Rhoda Wise was hospitalized frequently and underwent a number of operations for abdominal and foot problems.

Rhoda Wise spent two separate periods of fourteen days in the mental hospital before being discharged when her condition improved.

Rhoda Wise began to ask for the intercession of Saint Therese, and became devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In December 1938, Rhoda Wise decided to convert to Catholicism, and was received into the Catholic Church in January 1939.

In May 1939, Rhoda Wise was diagnosed with incurable stomach cancer, discharged from the hospital and sent home to die.

Rhoda Wise further reported that in August 1939, Saint Therese miraculously healed her injured foot, causing the heavy cast then on it to split and fall off in the process.

From 1939 to 1948, Rhoda Wise said that she experienced regular apparitions of Jesus and Saint Therese, including a visit by Saint Therese on January 2, the saint's birthday, every year.

Rhoda Wise's reported visions totaled 28 at the time of her death in 1948.

Rhoda Wise was inspired by these visions to offer herself as a victim soul to save the souls of others, particularly priests and members of religious orders.

The stories of Rhoda Wise's experiences spread, causing hundreds of people to write to Rhoda Wise and visit her home seeking physical healing and other spiritual help.

Mother Angelica later recounted how Rhoda Wise led the doubting and ailing Rizzo in a novena to Saint Therese.

In November 2012, the Diocese of Youngstown began to conduct an informal investigation into the life and writings of Rhoda Wise to determine if she might be a candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Rhoda Wise Shrine, including the house, grounds and prayer chapel, is a private association of the faithful that was approved for visitors' devotions by Bishop Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown.