With approval from Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a
chapel in the town of Champion is now the first approved Marian
apparition site in the United States.
On Dec. 8, 2010 –the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception– the
bishop decreed with “moral certainty” that the Virgin Mary had indeed
appeared to a young Belgian immigrant woman, Adele Brise, on three
occasions in October of 1859.
Since 1861, the site of those apparitions has been home to a chapel
dedicated to the Virgin Mary under her title “Our Lady of Good Help.”
Following a two-year investigation of the alleged apparitions, Bishop
Ricken proclaimed them “worthy of belief,” and confirmed his diocese's
official recognition of the popular shrine.
During each of those three apparitions, a lady in shining white
clothes appeared to Adele. The third time, she identified herself as
“the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners.”
“I wish you to do the same,” she told the 28-year-old woman, who had
intended to become a nun before coming to America. Adele and her family
lived on a small homestead in Wisconsin, which had become a U.S. state
only 11 years earlier.
The Virgin Mary also gave her a mission of evangelism and catechesis:
“Gather the children in this wild country, and teach them what they
should know for salvation … Go and fear nothing. I will help you.”
Adele Brise went on to become a Third Order Franciscan. She traveled
throughout the frontier state giving religious instruction to children
and adults, striving to fulfill the heavenly mandate. Her work was
especially important at a time when Wisconsin severely lacked priests,
and simply attending church could involve a strenuous journey.
Near the chapel, her community of Franciscan women also established a
school. When a fire ravaged the area near the apparition site in 1871,
the chapel and school were the only buildings left standing, along with
their convent and a surrounding area of land consecrated to the Virgin
Mary.
In 1890, six years before she died, Sister Adele's adopted hometown
of Robinsonville renamed itself after the Belgian town of Champion. The
Franciscan sister had asked for the change, in honor of a childhood
promise she had made to the Virgin Mary to enter a Belgian religious
order in that region.
Bishop Ricken told CNA that Sister Adele's own life was among the
most convincing testimonies to the validity of the apparition. Rather
than calling attention to herself or the apparitions, she had humbly
devoted the rest of her life to fulfilling the instructions she had
received.
“She went all over this area, and visited the homes that were
scattered far and wide,” Bishop Ricken said, recounting the sister's
Franciscan spirit of humble simplicity. “She walked most of the time,
and she'd spend several days with the children teaching them the
catechism and talking with the parents about their faith.”
“She really had an evangelistic spirit … and lived that out, not just immediately after the message, but her whole life long.”
Bishop Ricken said the simplicity and clarity of Mary's message also
testified to the truth of the apparitions. Her instructions to Sister
Adele were “simple, but very much loaded with the main message of the
Gospel and with the teachings of the Church.”
The bishop also recalled discovering “countless stories of answered
prayers,” including reports of “what many call miracles,” among those
who had visited the shrine to seeking intercession from Our Lady of Good
Help.
Although the bishop's approval of the apparitions is new, his
recognition of the chapel's status as a diocesan shrine simply confirms
what pilgrims have implicitly understood about the sacred place for over
150 years.
Bishop Ricken explained that he has heard “story after story” of
“incredible” cures and conversions – and understands that the events of
October 9, 1859 are still having life-changing effects among the
faithful.
Like the famous French apparition site at Lourdes, the shrine
in Champion has a collection of crutches that pilgrims have discarded as
unnecessary after receiving healing there.
Fr. John Doefler, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help,
indicated there could be an even more profound connection between the
Blessed Virgin's appearance in Lourdes, and the apparition to Adele
Brise.
He pointed out that she had appeared to Adele Brise one year
after her appearances to St. Bernadette Soubirous, and announced herself
in a way that connected both events.
“In Lourdes, Mary identifies herself as the Immaculate Conception,”
Fr. Doefler explained.
“Here, she identifies herself as the Queen of
Heaven … Between the two of them, it encompasses all of the Marian
mysteries” – from the very beginning of her life, to its culmination in
“the Assumption and the Coronation.”
SIC: CNA/USA