I first came across the name Cora Evans while in graduate school. An alumna of my graduate program was managing this blog at the time and she was seeking more bloggers to contribute on various Catholic topics. Being a theology graduate student who had always wanted to be a writer it seemed like a good fit. I began writing for the “Cora Evans blog” in December of 2018. At the time, I didn’t know much about Cora. I read what information was available on the website but beyond knowing she had had some mystical experiences and was a Mormon convert, my knowledge ended there. In late 2020, I wound up getting in contact with the dear gentlemen who lead the charge of Cora’s cause for canonization, Mike McDevitt and Michael Huston. They asked me to help in the editing of I Was a Pilgrim in History and Yesso’s Story. At that point, I had little experience with any of Cora’s writings and found myself suddenly plunged into the strange and startling accounts she shared of witnessing the travels of the Magi and some scenes from the early life of Our Lord. 

I was bewildered. The mystical writings I had encountered so far in my life were all from canonized saints. And Cora’s was unlike anything else I had read before. They were intense, descriptive, poetic. They came from a woman who was little educated and certainly had no extensive knowledge of the Palestine of two thousand years ago. I was intrigued and mystified. I was not utterly convinced of all the information communicated. Cora seemed perfectly sincere but there were little notes that prickled my theologian’s understanding. This was not necessarily a problem. We are not obliged to believe mystics. And much of what she shared I could see being perfectly true. I completed editing with a sense of profound wonder and much intrigue. I still had little personal information on Cora but was convinced of her holiness and her earnestness. 

Two more years passed by and the position of blog manager for the Cora Evans blog was available. My young family was in need of a little additional financial support and so I became deeper entrenched in the world of Cora Evans and in the support of her cause for canonization. I began reading more and more of her writings and became better acquainted with her habits of prayer, her devotion to St. Aloysius, her love for Mary, and her many quaint phrases to describe Our Lord’s Mystical Humanity. To be candid, I still struggle with some of the things I have read in her mystical accounts. Some of them make me scratch my head. But I am certain of her earnest desire for everyone to love Our Lord. I am convinced of her desire to spread devotion to Our Lord in His Mystical Humanity, the Divine Indwelling. I am struck by the accounts of others who knew her in life, especially the recently published account from Brother Edward Behan, who befriended her in the last years of her life. 

Cora Evans was a mystic who saw and experienced truly amazing things. Above all, she was a devoted wife and mother who placed Our Lord above all else. Once she pledged herself to Him by becoming a Catholic as an adult she never looked back. She placed everything in His hands. She detached herself from the things of this world and made her desire only for the things of Heaven. I am grateful for her witness to steady devotion even in the face of great suffering. I am grateful for her tender descriptions of Our Lord and Our Lady. I am grateful for her insistent charge of holiness for us all. May the Lord’s will be done in her cause of canonization. Servant of God Cora Evans, pray for us!