GREEN BAY — We all know about the famous Marian shrines: Fatima in Portugal, Guadalupe in Mexico and Lourdes in France. But did you know there is a church-approved apparition of Mary right here in the United States?
The site is known as the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion. Bishop David Ricken issued the decree of authenticity on the apparitions Dec. 8, 2010.
Oct. 9, 1859, is believed to be the most likely date of the final apparition. Adele Brise, a young Belgian immigrant, was walking home with two companions from Holy Cross Church in Bay Settlement after Sunday Mass. Suddenly Adele experienced a vision of a woman dressed in white, standing between two trees. It was not the first time she had seen this woman; in fact, it was Adele’s third vision of her. But on this day, the woman identified herself to Adele as “the Queen of Heaven.” (The other two did not see the vision.)
“Gather the children. … Teach them their catechism,” the woman told Adele. Her final words were: “Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
Consequently, the 28-year-old Adele gathered the local children and taught them about the faith in a 10-by-12-foot log chapel built by her father, Lambert. Other women soon joined her ministry and a larger chapel was built in 1861. Sister Adele — as she came to be called — founded St. Mary’s Academy, a boarding school, in 1869.
The present chapel, the fourth, was dedicated July 12, 1942. The statue in its apparition oratory stands near the site, perhaps directly under that site, of the reported visions. When the 1885 chapel was taken down, wood from two trees was found under its altar. These are believed to be from branches (or roots) from the hemlock and maple trees between which Adele said Mary appeared. They can be seen in a relic display case in the Apparition Oratory.
While Adele was never a vowed religious, she did gather a lay community of teachers around her; they became known as the “Sisters of Good Help” and wore clothing that resembled a habit.
“La Chapelle,” as locals called it, later became one of a handful of sites spared during the infamous and deadly Peshtigo Fire of Oct. 8, 1871. During the night of the fire, the faithful fled to La Chapelle to pray all night with Adele. In the morning, everything outside the six acres of the chapel’s grounds had burned, but everything inside its fence remained unscathed. The Miracle of the Fire procession is reenacted annually on the evening of Oct. 8.
Adele died July 5, 1896, and is buried in a small cemetery on the grounds.
After her death, the school she had founded faltered. In 1902, Bishop Sebastian Messmer turned its care over to the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross, who were then based in nearby Bay Settlement. Since then, the grounds have been used for a home for children with disabilities, a pre-novitiate high school for the Sisters of St. Francis, a house of prayer, a monastery for Carmelite Sisters and, finally, the present shrine.
The official statue of Our Lady of Good Help was blessed by Bishop Ricken April 27, 2013. It now stands in the Mother of Mercy Hall. The schoolhouse building is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from 12:30 to 4 p.m. The Apparition Chapel, Apparition Oratory, outdoor Stations of the Cross and outdoor Rosary Walk are open 365 days a year, from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
At the request of Bishop Ricken, the Fathers of Mercy staff the shrine to serve as rector and chaplains. The rector is Father John Broussard.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help received status as a national shrine from the U.S. bishops’ conference in 2016. The shrine grounds include the apparition chapel with daily Mass, the apparition oratory, an outdoor Way of the Cross, a gift shop, schoolhouse café and a welcome center with a museum.
Kasten is associate editor of The Compass, newspaper of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wis.
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For more info on the shrine, go to championshrine.org.
