Champion, Wisconsin (USA)

The Virgin Mary appeared three times in October 1859 to a 28-year old Belgian immigrant to the United States named Adele Brise in Champion, Wisconsin. These apparitions are the first to be approved by the Catholic Church in the U.S.A.

History

The first apparition of the Virgin Mary took place in early October 1859. Adele described seeing a lady clothed in white with a yellow sash around her waist and a crown of stars on her head. She was surrounded by a bright, dazzling light. Adele was frightened by the vision and prayed until it disappeared.

The following Sunday, which was October 9^th, she saw the apparition of the lady a second time while walking to Mass. At the end of the celebration, the young woman asked the parish priest for advice, and he told her that if she saw the apparition again, she should ask it, “In the name of God, who are you and what do you wish of me?”

On the way home, the lady appeared a third time and Adele asked the question she was given.

The lady replied: "I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same." Adele was also given the mission to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.”

Adele devoted the rest of her life to teaching children. Some other women joined her and they formed a community of sisters according to the rule of the Third Order Franciscans, although Adele never took public vows as a nun. She died on July 5, 1896.

The original chapel was built by Lambert Brise, Adele’s father, at the site of the Marian apparitions. A larger wooden church was built in 1861 that bore the inscription “Our Lady of Good Help, pray for us.”

The current chapel at the shrine was built in 1942. The largest annual gathering at the chapel takes place on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15th), celebrated with an outdoor Mass and a procession around the grounds of the shrine.

Approval

The apparition was approved on December 8, 2010, by Bishop David Ricken, who made the following formal declaration:

“I declare 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.”

Adapted from www.marypages.com