Rhoda Again

Suzanne Stratford of Fox 8 has done another story on the Rhoda Wise Home in Canton, Ohio.  After her first series of stories more than a year ago, many more people came to the modest home off 25th Street to see what all of the buzz was about.

In her life, Rhoda Wise helped many people by her prayerful and faithful life.  She was healed twice of serious health problems in the very house where she lived with her husband.  She died in 1948 and 14,000 people attended her funeral. 

Rhoda bore the hallmark of many saints -- the stigmata.  That is, she bled from her hands and her forehead without any explanation whatsoever. 

One woman who heard about the Rhoda Wise Home visited because she was having problems.  The next time she saw her cardiologist, she was floored when her doctor said that her condition -- a heart valve problem -- was gone.  Not a little better, but gone.  Other radiologists and doctors looked at the results of her tests and all said it was a miracle because valves just don't spontaneously fix themselves.

She gives all the honor and glory to God, and knows that her visit in the Rhoda Wise Home was the catalyst for her healing.  While she was there, she smelled roses to the point that it was overpowering.  It was St. Theresa, the Little Flower, who promised the rose petals that fell in the house once when a little girl came for a healing and got one.  And so it is the smell of roses that tell some visitors that their visit was blessed.

I believe that Rhoda Wise is a saint, and investigations by the Diocese of Youngstown may herald that acknowledgement at some point in the future. 

When I visited there, there was a combination of awe  because the place definitely touches hearts, and mixed emotions because the place is so ordinary, other than the altar in her bedroom and the large statues. 

But when the woman who runs the home told us that there are no roses anywhere in the home, and people sometimes smell roses -- I knew that something was happening at the Rhoda Wise Home in lowly Canton.  Because I smelled the overpowering scent of roses when I was there!!

Many people leave the Rhoda Wise Home without a cure, but never without hope.  The woman who so patiently endured the pain and suffering of illness and the taunts of people who would not or could not believe has left her mark on this world.

God Bless You.