Anna Cordelia Zervas was born in Moorhead, Minnesota, in the United States, on April 7, 1900. Her father, Hubert, who was an immigrant from Immekeppel of the German Empire, was a butcher and ran a local meat market while her mother, Emma, was from Quebec Canada.

She was raised in a large Catholic family and attended the Saint Joseph Catholic School which was run by monks and nuns from the Benedictine Order.

At the age of 15, she approached the Pastor of the Parish and expressed a desire to enter the convent. Her parents were reluctant at first but then “gladly consented to give back the child to Him from Whom they had received her.”

She soon entered and at the age of 18, she received the habit and took the name Mary Annella. She was assigned as a music teacher and organist to the Saint Mary’s Convent in Bismarck, North Dakota.

When she was 23, she noticed a small reddish-brown patch on her arm that itched terribly, and her body began to swell. Several months later her parents were summoned to her bedside, but they didn’t recognize her. Her hair was gone, and her skin was blotchy.

She was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester where she was diagnosed with Pityriasis Rubra Pilaris which had no cure.

She was transferred to Worrell Hospital and the nurses revulsed at having to change her bandages. She suffered violent chills, high temperatures, and painful attacks of itching, scratching, and weeping, but her mental faculties remained intact.

During her worst fits of pain, she would repeat, “Yes, Lord, send me more pain, but give me strength to bear it.”

When it became apparent that her condition was terminal, she was taken home to her parents and the convent visited regularly. There was hope with a remission of her condition, but she was not convinced it was gone. She told her mother, “When this disease leaves me, God will have taken it away and He will not want me to have it anymore. I do not want anything but what God Wills. All He does is well, so there is no need to worry… I wonder what great harm of body or of soul I may have suffered had not God given me this ‘blessing in disguise’.”

She recognized that struggles matter, and when offered to God, they can become a sacrifice of love that draws you closer to Jesus, sharing in his suffering. God revealed that her sacrifice was for the Church and the world.

In the summer of 1926, she was attacked by a fit of pain immediately after leaving the confessional. The disease returned in full force and a Novena was offered. She died at 3:15 am on the Vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 14th at the age of 26.

Within 7 months, Bishop Joseph Busch began collecting information about cures and favors granted because of her intercession. By 1929, the St Paul Daily News reported that there were hundreds of cures at her grave.

She is recognized as a Servant of God and entered the beatification cause on October 9, 2025, followed by an official canonical investigation.

For God’s Glory.