The heroic life of Servant of God Sr. Mary Annella Zervas

At their most recent meeting in November, the United States bishops approved proceeding with the beatification cause of an obscure nun from America’s heartland. It is doubtful that even the people in the Diocese of Crookston, Minn., which is putting forth the cause, know much about her. However, her heroic story is one that those promoting this effort hope will be on the tongues of Catholics worldwide.

Born Anna Cordelia Zervas on April 7, 1900, her father Hubert was a German immigrant who operated a butcher’s shop, and her mother Emma came from French Canada and worked in the home raising the couple’s six children.

Anna’s childhood was unremarkable except that she was known for being an exceptionally pious child. For instance, when she was a student at Sacred Heart Academy in Fargo, ND, she would walk a mile every day to attend the cathedral’s lunchtime Mass.

Thus, it was likely not a surprise when, at age 15 she announced her intention to enter the Benedictine convent that had sent teachers to her parochial school. She desired to give all her life to the will of God.

At first, her parents demurred, thinking she was too young. But their pastor, Fr. Alfred Mayer, told them, “Don’t put anything in her way; she is not too young to give herself to God.”

Thus, in August 2015, she entered the Benedictine Sisters at St. Joseph, Minn.

Anna remained a postulant until 1918, when she became a novice on June 17, 1918, receiving the Benedictine habit and her name in religion, Mary Annella. Since religious are typically given a saint’s name, her mother noted that there was no St. Annella. Sister replied, “Then I shall have to be the first one!”

During her time in formation, she drew little attention to herself other than that she frequently read the 14th-century Dutch preacher Geert Groote’s The Following of Christ. In letters home to her parents, she frequently expressed her happiness in her vocation and said that if all young people knew the sublime beauty of religious life, there would be many more vocations to the cloister.

Especially helpful for Sister were the convent’s annual retreats. These would encourage her to write such ejaculations as, “With the grace of God, I am determined to become a saint!” Similar sentiments are strewn throughout her diary. This is key to understanding her endurance of her future afflictions.

It wasn’t as though her vocation was without difficulties. Annella frequently grew so homesick that she considered leaving the Benedictines. Conversely, whenever she went home on holiday, she longed for her return to the convent.

On July 11, 1919, Sister made her simple profession. Shortly thereafter, she began working as an organist at St. Mary Church in Bismarck, N.D., which enabled her to use her musical talents in service to her beloved Lord. She especially loved teaching her choir how to chant the propers for the Mass.

However, in this period prior to her perpetual vows, Sr. Annella began having fierce temptations to abandon her vocation. As the time for perpetual vows got closer, the temptations grew stronger. However, with prayer and spiritual direction, she persevered, and after making her vow perpetual in July 1922, these temptations disappeared. On this day, she remarked, “My next great feast will be when I leave this world.”

Roughly a year following her solemn profession, a skin disease appeared on her body. It was characterized by terrible itching that wouldn’t stop and strips of skin turning dry and discolored. No matter what doctors tried, nothing worked. They even tried giving Sister baths in different solutions that lasted three to five hours. The itching and pain from the skin condition only grew worse.

Soon, every part of her body began to fester and bleed, and her pain grew in intensity. Her situation got so bad, her superiors sent her to then-Mayo Hospital in Rochester, Minn.

Instead of helping her, though, the treatments increased Annella’s pain. What doctors likely didn’t know is that she had acquired a chronic condition known as pityriasis rubra pilaris (PRP), a rare and chronic inflammatory skin disorder characterized by the formation of small, rough, reddish-orange patches or plaques on the skin.

When it was evident there was no medical cure, Sr. Annella’s superiors allowed her to return to home, where her mother became her caregiver. Over six times a day, pain would wrack her weakened body. Her limbs swelled and “puss and a burning watery substance oozed out of her pores.”

Her skin became so sensitive that even tepid water seemed like it was boiling. Her temperature hovered between 100-103 degrees so that at times she felt as though she was burning, and at other times even the hottest pack placed on her could not stop her teeth from chattering. Tumors broke out from head to toe and would frequently rupture. Her body continued to itch without ceasing.

Through it all she remained cheerful and would say, “Yes, Lord, send me more pain, but give me the strength to bear it.” The serenity she had made many compare her to Job.

“It is a blessing that can suffer this,” she remarked. “I could not do it if God did not give me strength.”

Another time, she remarked, “I am happy even now in spite of my intense pains.”

There was even a time in the fall of 1924 when she seemed to be getting better, almost healed. She could go to church. Healthy skin grew over the scabs and pustules. By winter, she was able to get about freely. She even began to hope that she could return to her former position as choir mistress in Bismarck.

But could she unite her sufferings more with the cross of Christ? That question troubled her. So she got on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament “and declared to the Lord my willingness to accept my ailment anew, if this were His Holy Will, and the affliction returned with redoubled force.”

It was summer 1925. Annella had gone to confession. Following the absolution, a wave of pain overcame her to such an extent that she ran out of the church sobbing because of how much it hurt. However, her biggest concern wasn’t the pain but the scandal she might have caused the penitents waiting in line. She was forced back into bed.

During this time, and when Sister had the energy, she did needlework and read and prayed her Rosary. When she could not pray because of the agony, she simply said, “I offer my sufferings as prayer; if God desired that I should pray, He would give me the ability to do so.”

The suffering was intense. She once told companions, “I feel as if steel needles were darting through my head and down to the shoulders; some of them even seem to pierce through my whole body. I can see them coming; they are terrible.” Indeed, she would try to ward them off with her hands.

Although voraciously hungry to the point of dreaming about eating, she could only consume very little.

Not surprisingly, there were times when Sr. Annella would be like Our Lord during His Passion, wondering why this was happening to her, saying, “God Himself has forgotten that there is on earth such a poor creature like myself.” But then she would recall the words of her favorite poem, which read in part, “How glad I shall be that anguish of spirit full often was mine since anguish of spirit so often was Thine!”

She is also quoted as saying, “What He has in store for me, I do not know, but all He does is well, so there is no need to worry. God has given me the grace to be resigned, and I thank Him heartily for this, but also for all else He has given me with my illness…. I often wonder what great harm of body or of soul I may have suffered had not God given me this ‘blessing in disguise.’”

Toward the end of Sister’s agony, Satan was said to have afflicted her, tormenting her so that her face contorted and became unrecognizable. In spite of this, she was her normal, cheerful self.

When the end did come, Annella was completely serene. The tension on her face and in her body vanished. She appeared as though she was in a state of exultation. She passed away on Saturday, August 14, 1926. According to a July 1928 article in the Benedictine periodical The Grail, “It had been her fervent wish and prayer to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady in heaven. The penetrating, nauseating odor of corrupt flesh that had followed in the wake of her ailment disappeared altogether from the moment of her passing.” She weighed just 40 pounds.

Less than a year after her death, several cures had been attributed to her intercession. News of this began to reach the diocesan chancery, and Bishop Joseph Busch asked Fr. Alexius Hoffman, O.S.B., to start collecting information on these phenomena.

News spread about Sr. Annella’s heroism, and articles were published in various periodicals. This contributed to pilgrimages that continued into the 1960s. Interest waned until 2008, when pilgrimages began anew.

In 2023, Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston—the diocese in which she died—announced that he was taking steps to put forward her cause for canonization. She is now considered a Servant of God.

Some people find her willingness to suffer so abominably difficult to understand. However, consider it from her perspective. As an online biography of her states, “She saw her suffering as a loving cooperation with God in consummating His redemptive love.” She also saw it as God’s will, and that if suffering was His will for her, then she would endure it no matter the cost because the reward would be so great.

As The Grail article put it, “Sister Annella’s example will serve to stimulate and encourage others to the cheerful performance of their duty in health, and to strengthen them, if sickness and affliction overtake them, by humbly submitting to God’s holy will. In the world, sorrows multiply, whilst resignation and the science of suffering daily decrease; there is no longer endurance and consolation. Sister Annella has left behind a precious heritage imparted by the practical lessons which her life and suffering teach us.”