Bishop Approves Marian Apparitions
With some of my posts I probably sound like a grumpy old man. Well, today on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I have some good news to write about. The following is a summary of a news item from the website of the Diocese of Green Bay.
Today Bishop David Ricken of the Green Bay Diocese announced that he officially approves the Marian apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help at Champion, Wisconsin as being worthy of belief.
Bishop Ricken declared “with moral certainty and in accord with the norms of the Church that the events, apparitions and locutions given to Adele Brise in October of 1859 do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful.”
The declaration makes Our Lady of Good Help at Champion the first and only site in the United States of an approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On 8th, October 1859, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared on three occasions to Adele Brise, a young Belgian immigrant. Brise reported that a lady dressed in dazzling white appeared to her and identified herself as the “Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners.”
Our Lady urged Sister Brise to go about instructing the people, but cautioned that if they didn’t listen there would be a chastisement. Unfortunately, many sinners did not convert. Exactly twelve years (to the day) of the apparition, on October 8, 1871, the Midwest suffered several fires.They included Great Chicago fire, the Holland, Michigan fire, the Port Huron Fire of 1871, and the Great Michigan Fire in Manistee, Michigan.
The Great Chicago fire is probably the best known of the fires, but the worst one was the Peshtigo Fire. It remains as the deadliest fire in United States history, killing 1,200 to 2,500 people. The fire consumed the heavily wooded area and was driven by strong winds. It totally consumed Peshtigo along with a dozen other villages. The heat was unimaginable. People fled to lakes, hoping that the water would save them only to suffer horrible deaths when the intense heat caused lakes to boil.
The fire destroyed almost everything in its path. It consumed about 1,875 square miles of forest, an area about twice the size of Rhode Island.
According to Drew Mariani, as the fire approached the village of Champion, Sister Brise and the townspeople fled to the five acre site of the church that had been consecrated to the Blessed Mother. The people walked the perimeter of the church yard praying for the intercession of Mary. When the smoke became too thick or the heat too strong, they just moved and faced a different direction. Though it must have been terrifying, the townspeople placed their trust in Mary and God. They went inside the church and prayed through the night.
When the fire subsided, the people went out to survey the damage. To their shock, the entire five acres of land consecrated to the Blessed Virgin remained unscathed. As they looked beyond the five acres, the entire area was desolate and totally devastated. The people in the church should have succumbed to the smoke and heat. It is believed that the land was spared after Brise organized the prayer vigil that circled the area. It was as if the great fire circled the churchyard and then moved on.
Since 1859, countless faithful have made the pilgrimage to Champion, Wisconsin to offer prayers of thanksgiving and petition to Jesus and to ask for intercession from Our Lady of Good Help. There have been many reports of miraculous healings.
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