Champion, Wisconsin, United States · 1859
In the dense woods of northeast Wisconsin, in October 1859, the Mother of God appeared to a young Belgian immigrant woman named Adele Brise. She came three times. She said: “Gather the children of this wild country, and teach them what they should know for salvation.” Adele did. The little chapel that grew at Champion is the only Marian apparition site in the United States to receive formal Church approval — and one of the youngest national shrines in America.
Adele Brise and the Wisconsin Apparitions
Adele Brise was a twenty-eight-year-old Belgian immigrant who had come with her family to Wisconsin some years earlier. She lived with her parents in a small log cabin in a pioneer settlement called Champion, near Green Bay. On her way to the parish mill one October morning in 1859, walking a wooded path between maple trees, she saw a beautiful young woman dressed in white, with a yellow sash and a crown of stars, standing in a haze of light between two trees. The Lady spoke not a word. Adele was frightened.
Some days later, on her way to Sunday Mass with her sister and a friend, she saw the Lady again at the same place. Adele asked, in trembling Flemish, “In God’s name, who are you, and what do you wish of me?” The Lady answered: “I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners. I wish you to do the same. Gather the children in this wild country, and teach them what they should know for salvation.”
Adele lived the rest of her life as a teacher of catechism on the wild Wisconsin frontier. She was not yet a vowed religious — she joined later — and walked from family to family with her catechism in hand, often staying in barns and lean-to sheds, teaching the children of immigrants in their many languages. In 1871, the Great Peshtigo Fire — the deadliest fire in American history — swept through the region. Adele and her schoolchildren took refuge in the chapel, processed around it with the statue of Our Lady, and prayed all night. The fire stopped at the very fence of the chapel grounds. Inside the fence: green grass. Outside: ash. The Bishop of Green Bay formally approved the apparitions in 2010 — the first such approval in the history of the United States.
The Sanctuary Today
The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, formerly known as Our Lady of Good Help, is set among rolling Wisconsin farmland. The little white chapel built by Adele still stands. A great octagonal church has been added beside it. Stations of the Cross wind through the grounds. Pilgrims walk Adele’s path beside the rebuilt fence that the Peshtigo fire could not cross.
Adele Brise’s body lies on the grounds. The shrine is the spiritual home of an immigrant Catholicism that came to America from Belgium, Germany, Bohemia, Ireland, and Poland — and a sign that the Mother of God has been present on this continent in her own way, to her own children, for as long as they have been here.
A Prayer at Champion
Queen of Heaven, Our Lady of Good Help,
you who came to a Belgian immigrant
in a wild American wood —
gather the children of every wild country today.
Where there is no school, teach them.
Where there is no parish, gather them.
Where fire threatens, fence them in your love.
Mother of every immigrant of every age, pray for us. Amen.
Live from Champion
The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion celebrates daily Mass and the Rosary. The annual pilgrimage on October 9, the date of the apparitions, gathers thousands of Catholics from across the Midwest and beyond.
Visit & Learn More
- National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion: championshrine.org
- Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Good_Help
Journey with Mary: A Path to Jesus 