Servant of God Cora Evans

Born: July 9, 1904
Death: March 30, 1957
Cause for Canonization Opened: 2012
Declared Servant of God: November 16, 2022

Servant of God Cora Evans, born in Utah in 1904, grew up in the Church of the Latter-day Saints (Mormon) yet she had visions of the Blessed Mother and Jesus as early as age 3. Her marriage at 19 to Maclellan in the Salt Lake City Mormon Temple was a turning point in her life — she felt disillusioned with her childhood faith and felt “resolved to help find a God” for her husband, as she felt the Mormon religion placed “man-made gods above the God of Abraham.” During her search for the “One True God,” Cora gave birth to three children, losing one at age 10 months. Bedridden with recurring heart problems in 1934, Cora listened to The Catholic Hour, specifically a talk by Monsignor Duane Hunt on the Blessed Mother and teachings of the Catholic faith. Having been anti-Catholic since her upbringing, Cora was surprised as it was nothing like what she had heard about the Catholic Church. Once recovered, she sought out a local Catholic Church for answers about the faith. She went on to be baptized in March 1935 and received her First Communion one day later — her husband and daughters followed a few months later. She encouraged other Mormons to visit her parish and is credited with hundreds of conversions of Mormons to Catholicism. July 1938, Cora had a profound mystic experience and vowed to “live [her] chosen vocation with [God] as [her] companion. In 1941, Cora and her family moved to Southern California due to work issues her husband was experiencing as a result of his conversion. Cora met with her spiritual advisor Fr. Parrish at Loyola High School in Los Angeles as her mystical experiences became more frequent with God revealing his mission for her in 1946: to promulgate the Mystical Humanity of Christ. She was called to encourage faithful to live with a heightened awareness of the indwelling presence of Jesus in their daily lives. One of the gifts of Cora’s mysticism is the stigmata, which she began to experience on July 30, 1947 with pain in the palm of her hands, head, feet, and over her heart. In 1956 her family moved to Boulder Creek in Northern California where Cora passed a year later from stomach cancer, on the 22nd anniversary of her baptism into the Catholic Church.

Read her story of faith, discernment, and quiet mysticism here.

Prayer for the Intercession of Cora Evans