Former Baltimore pathologist professes perpetual vows with Children of Mary

Dr. Emily Wilding spent her career as an anatomic pathologist diagnosing disease through the close study of the body’s tissues. Through prayer and eucharistic devotion, she discerned a different calling – and left medicine for religious life as Sister Imelda Joy.

After practicing as a physician and pathology professor at University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Sister Imelda Joy professed her perpetual vows with the Children of Mary May 3 at Emmanuel Convent in Newark, Ohio. She was one of three women to make their final profession during the Mass.

Originally from Sidney, Ohio, she had become a central presence at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore – attending daily Mass, supporting parish ministries and helping launch Source of All Hope, a Catholic missionary program serving people experiencing homelessness in the surrounding neighborhoods. Two former basilica rectors, Monsignor Arthur Valenzano and Father James Boric, played formative roles in her spiritual journey.

“She was a very joyful, holy young woman – very devout, very filled with joy and just exceedingly kind,” said Father Boric, who met her in 2017. “She has an absolute joy about her that was just something you don’t see very much in young people.”

Ana Farias, the basilica’s director of marketing and communications, has known Sister Imelda Joy for about a decade through Baltimore’s Catholic young adult community.

“She’s the most sincerely joyful person I’ve ever met,” Farias said. “Every time she prayed – if I would see her in adoration or at the basilica – I just knew she was 100 percent in that prayer and committed. It was so beautiful to witness.”

Father Boric, now pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Hagerstown, described Sister Imelda Joy as a “prayer warrior,” recalling that she would often spend hours in the pews praying for those coming to confession. He said her faith shaped both her medical career and her eventual vocation to religious life. In time, he introduced her to the Children of Mary, a community whose spirituality closely reflected her own devotion to the Eucharist and prayer for priests. 

“She loved praying for priests; they pray for priests,” he said. “She loved the Eucharist; they’re all about the Eucharist and adoring Jesus in the Eucharist. Her favorite saints were the saints that they venerate as their biggest intercessors.”

Her path, he said, grew from hours before the Blessed Sacrament.

“It didn’t come from me. It didn’t come from anyone else. It came from Jesus and the Eucharist and spending a lot of time with him,” Father Boric said. “She was in front of that Blessed Sacrament every day and that’s where everything happened. God spoke to her soul in the quiet of adoration, and that’s where her vocation came from.”

Sister Imelda Joy entered the Children of Mary in 2020 after encountering the community at a Christmas Mass at St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus. She could not be reached for comment by the Catholic Review following her perpetual consecration. In an interview with The Catholic Times, however, she reflected on the witness of Monsignor Valenzano, who endured repeated battles with cancer with faith and peace.

“This struck my heart profoundly, particularly being in the medical field,” she told the online news outlet for the Diocese of Columbus. “I later learned one of his intentions offered with his intense final suffering was for religious vocations.”

Founded in Newark in 2002 and formally established in 2016 as a public association of the faithful in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, the Children of Mary transferred to the Diocese of Columbus in 2022. In addition to the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the sisters profess two additional vows: to pray for the holiness of priests and to spread love of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Those who know Sister Imelda Joy said they were not surprised by her journey. 

“I’ve always said, if I had to put my money on anyone becoming a saint, it would be Sister Imelda Joy,” Farias said. “This pure joy that connects everyone with Sister Imelda Joy is just so God-given and so beautiful. To know Sister Imelda Joy, is to know the Lord.”

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