Woman will ail, sadly, at church (5)
I believe the answer is:
alice
'woman' is the definition.
'ail sadly at church' is the wordplay.
'sadly' indicates an anagram.
'at' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'church' becomes 'CE' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'ail' anagrammed gives 'ali'.
'ali'+'ce'='ALICE'
'will' is the link.
(Other definitions for alice that I've seen before include "Lewis Carroll's immortal girl" , "Celia changes into a different girl" , "Celia (anag.)" , "Lewis Carroll character" , "Wonderland heroine" .)