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Showing posts with label Sister Adele Brise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sister Adele Brise. Show all posts
The deadliest fire in U.S. history was no match for the Blessed Mother
On October 8, 1871, in or around a place called Peshtigo, Wisconsin, several men were setting small fires in the woods. This was a common practice in clearing land for expanding railroads or for expanding farm land. Except, on this particular day, something unexpected happened. A cold front moved into the area creating winds that were close to hurricane force. The winds fanned the flames and the resulting Peshtigo Firestorm still can claim the ignominious title as the “deadliest wildfire” in American history.continue at Aleteia
To this day, no wildfire in the U.S. has ever caused more deaths. It is estimated close to 2,500 people perished in the raging 2,000-degree inferno. But there is an incredible side-bar to this story. Miraculously, there was a small group of people who were not harmed at all and they were right in the middle of the blaze. They were with Adele Brise.
Adele Brise was 24 years old when she arrived in Wisconsin with her parents from Belgium in 1855. A devout Catholic, Adele had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother and prayed daily. On Sunday, October 2, 1859, Adele was walking home through the woods when she saw a woman clothed in white standing between a hemlock and a maple tree. The woman was encased in a bright light and had a yellow sash around her waist. A crown of stars was above her long, blond hair. Adele, filled with fear, began praying and the vision disappeared. She told her mom and dad about it and they told her that maybe it was a soul in need of prayers.
Mary's Simple Message
continue at Cream City CatholicA small farm town only two hours north of Milwaukee has the remarkable distinction of being the only Church-approved Marian apparition site in the entire nation. The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, in Champion, has the same status as other more famous Marian shrines in Fatima, Lourdes and Guadalupe. Its local bishop recently gave his blessing and approval to the holy tradition that the Virgin Mary visited the young Adele Brise, a Belgian immigrant, in 1859.
Now, you might think that private revelations would contain some novel, earth-shattering message, but the approved ones never do. The messages are always remarkably simple. So what does the Queen of Heaven ask of us again and again? More prayer, more repentance, more sacrifices for sinners. These are simple reminders. But we need to hear them over and over again because we clearly forget and, within a generation or two, we tend to turn the page and move on.
New book on Good Help Shrine: Mary’s Message and Mission for Adele Brise and the World.
Tau Publishing has released my fourth book on the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help. It is titled: Our Lady of Good Help: Mary’s Message and Mission for Adele Brise and the World.Edward Looney
In the first part, the book presents an analysis of the 1859 apparition received by Adele Brise. The analysis looks at Mary’s name, her message and mission given to Sister Adele coupled with the life Sister Adele led. The second part of the book looks at the similarities shared between the Champion, Wisconsin apparition and others like Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, Beauraing, and Banneux.
To order, visit Tau Publishing’s website.
Has anyone read his books? I think I'm going to pick this up.
Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, Robinsonville, WI
One thing that struck me is that both in the crypt chapel and in the main church the statue of Our Lady was done in the fashion of Our Lady of Lourdes... but that is not how she appeared on the site. There is a statue done that is between the church and chapel that is done with "a yellow sash" which would be what she looked like that day in 1859.
What seems clear is that eventually a new church will be built. I would donate only after seeing the plan. It could be the splendor of America or another Crystal Cathedral. I really don't know what to expect.
You will see that the windows in the main church appear identical in design to St. Norbert's Abbey which is too bad. I don't know how many chapels have been on this site but there are a few magnificent stained glass windows in the crypt chapel that appear to be from an older church. If there are pictures of a previous church, I'd love to see them but I think they might be even smaller.
We went on Sunday morning but went to the Institute for Mass(Mass at the Shrine wasn't until 11 and we wanted to get back). Buuuut, as you may know the Fathers of Mercy are now taking care of the Shrine and there were kneelers setup in the front of the church - possibly to receive communion kneeling. That would be fantastic.
It's a peaceful sight, I would have liked to spend the whole day there. Oh, and I think I saw that they will be having a Mass in honor of the anniversary of the apparition in October. I will be going. Enjoy.
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| eek. |
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| "A piece of the Blessed Virgin Mother''s veil" !!!!!! |
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| A second class relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary?! |
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| Original windows before St. Norbert's got their hand on the church? |
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| Crypt Chapel |
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| Seer Sr. Adele Brise ... it's just kind of there, next to the church, by an exhaust vent. |
Good Help Shrine makes USA Today!
CHAMPION, Wis. – Philip and Barbara Hesselbein came to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help to pray for a grandson who has an inoperable brain tumor.continue at USA Today
Darlene Searcy prayed for her family and for herself; she has cancer.
Mary Spakowicz, who also has cancer, came "because God will hear me here."
The afflicted and the faithful have long made pilgrimages to the quiet country site where Belgian immigrant Adele Brise said in 1859 that she saw the Virgin Mary three times. For the past few years, maybe 30 or 50 people had trickled in daily to visit the chapel, Brise's grave and the candlelit crypt that marks the site of the apparition.
That changed in December, when Bishop David Ricken of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay certified after investigations by three theologians that Brise had indeed seen a beautiful lady in white who said she was the "queen of heaven."
That made the shrine, which is a mile from the unincorporated town of Champion, the USA's only official site where Mary is said to have appeared.
Now there's a steady flow of traffic into the recently enlarged gravel parking lot. Cars, vans and buses bring 500 people — and often many more — here daily. License plates from Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana were spotted one recent weekday.
A new building houses much-needed restrooms.
A former boarding school on the site is being refurbished to house two priests recently assigned full time to the shrine.
"I knew that there would be some increase in interest" after he certified Brise's vision, Ricken says. "I wasn't sure how wide it would be, how broad it would be."
Our Lady of Good Help attracts far fewer visitors than international Marian shrines such as France's Lourdes, which draws 5 million a year, or Mexico's Our Lady of Guadalupe, which has double that.
Still, Ricken expects the number of visitors to continue to rise and says the diocese is trying to figure out how to accommodate them without losing "the simplicity of that beautiful shrine and the peace of the place."
I'm told USA Today has the second largest newspaper circulation in the U.S.
HT ED
NCRegister: Good news from Our Lady of Good Help Shrine
It was here, in 1859, when the Blessed Mother appeared three times to a young Belgium immigrant, Adele Brise. The message of the Blessed Mother to Adele was to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.”
The new rector of the shrine, Father Peter Stryker, hopes that message will continue to inspire pilgrims. Father Stryker and a fellow priest, both members of the Fathers of Mercy, a religious order of priests based in Kentucky, arrived in early July to take over the shrine’s daily operations at the request of Bishop Ricken.
“Both of us feel very welcomed and appreciated here,” said Father Stryker. “The holy traffic has indeed increased during these summer months. We feel honored to be serving at the first and thus far only site of Church-approved Marian apparitions here in the United States.”
Along with two new priests, the shrine has had to add new restrooms, expand the parking lot, and increase the corps of volunteers tenfold. Buses full of pilgrims from as far as Texas, Louisiana and Florida arrive regularly. This summer the shrine and bishop were featured on an ABC special about Marian apparitions.
Fathers of Mercy arrive at Good Help Shrine
With record crowds descending upon the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, two religious order priests now assigned to the diocesan shrine are tending to the visitors' spiritual needs.continue at The Compass
Fr. Peter Stryker and Fr. Jewel Aytona, members of the Fathers of Mercy religious congregation based in Auburn, Kent., arrived in Champion July 7 at the request of Bishop David Ricken.
Following the Dec. 8, 2010, declaration that the Marian apparitions to Adele Brise in 1859 were worthy of belief, Bishop Ricken began making plans to find a religious community of priests to staff the shrine. Bishop Ricken chose the Fathers of Mercy because their congregation's apostolate matches the shrine's historic mission: to preach and catechize, said Fr. John Doerfler, chancellor and vicar general of the diocese.
Bishop Ricken became acquainted with the Fathers of Mercy several years ago when he led a retreat for members of the congregation, added Fr. Doerfler. The congregation's superior general, Fr. David Wilton, met with Bishop Ricken earlier this year and agreed to send two priests to staff the shrine
Bp Ricken on Nightline feature "I think they did a beautiful job"
WBAY2Less than 24 hours after a Brown County shrine was featured on national television, the man who declared it an official Marian apparition site is sharing his thoughts on the program.
Our Lady of Good Help was featured on a "Primetime Nightline" special. For the little shrine in the little community of Champion, the secret is out.
"I think they did a beautiful job on that," Green Bay Catholic Bishop David Ricken said of the way the shrine was featured.
"I think the solemnity of the shrine, its 150-year history, the simplicity of the message, the life of Adele Brice, how she lived out that mission the Blessed Mother gave to her, I think that came through in a very humble but striking way."
"I thought it'd be mostly in Wisconsin and the northern part of the country here, maybe neighboring states. I figured it'd take several years before people really heard about it or understood it, so I didn't dream of all this that's for sure," Bishop Ricken acknowledged.
The reality is, up to one thousand people a day are flocking to the shrine from around the country, praying for peace and healing.
"Some people ridicule it, but that's each person's choice. We're not forcing people to believe, of course; belief is a personal matter, but it needs to be listened to, and if something is there that attracts people, they need to pay attention to it because it may be a little invitation from God to get closer."
"We fill our lives with all kinds of things, much of which is really not that important, so going there to that shrine puts them in touch with God, who lives inside, and that deep longing for peace and unity with God that we were born with, we were created with."
To meet the needs of guests, the diocese has appointed two priests to serve full-time, as well as upgraded sidewalks and restroom facilities. More parking space is next on the agenda.
The bishop also plans to explore the possibility of building a larger church and conference center and expanding the gift shop.
I have it recorded but haven't watched it yet. The very beginning was... well, bad. But they weren't talking about the Good Help Shrine yet at that point.
Marian Eucharistic Conference Letter from Bishop David Ricken
Dear Friends in Christ,Diocese of Green Bay
Recently, there has been an increasing desire among the faithful for a Eucharistic Conference to be established in the Diocese of Green Bay. I am pleased to share with you that the diocese will host its first Marian Eucharistic Conference – Mary, Mother of the Eucharist – on October 7-8, 2011. The conference will be held at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, St. Norbert College, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, coinciding with the 152nd anniversary of the Blessed Mother’s apparition to Sister Adele Joseph Brise.
With the help of Our Lady, Mother of the Eucharist, those who attend the conference will realize with greater visibility the hidden power of the Eucharist and the important role in which Our Lady serves to unite us with Jesus in the Eucharist.
We, as Catholics, recognize the Eucharist as the source and summit of our Catholic faith. Please join me for an event that is sure to enrich and strengthen your faith journey with and toward our Eucharistic Lord.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
The Most Reverend David L. Ricken, DD, JCL
Bishop of Green Bay
Time for a nap
I still have yet to write on my experience at Milwaukee's Men of Christ Conference(it was great). I also got to meet Dad29 who is neither as old or nasty as advertised. In fact I quite enjoyed the conversation. Weird Al Yankovic was involved.
Believe it or not, The Badger Catholic will soon have it's first sponsor. Well, besides the Friars of the Immaculate but their sponsorship is spiritual. Speaking of, Fr. Peter Fehlner, FI is now having his homilies recorded for viewing on AirMaria. What can I say, the man has a gift. I keep trying to make the MIM meetings, and something always comes up. I guess that's what perseverance is for. I still have yet to make a solemn consecration to Our Lady and I want to.
Planning on taking my infirmed grandma to Our Lady of Good Help this summer. She's suffered from Huntington's disease for 15-20 years. There's nothing but a miracle of the most impossible kind to see a turnaround. Praying for Sister Adele's intersession. If so inclined, please pray for us.
I'm thinking of creating a weekly digest of the news on the weekend. Either just posting on the blog with links to the big articles of the week or maybe via email. I usually don't post on the weekends anyway. Of course I think people prefer their anonymity... being associated with a vermin like me could do damage to their career.
"I'm a beast, I am, and a Badger what's more. We don't change. We hold on."- Trufflehunter in Prince Caspian, CS Lewis
I was thinking of writing for CatholicTechTalk.com on techie kinds of stuff. Although, there's just so many hours in the day. I don't think there's too many here that care about Ubuntu or database programming.
I've got a massive project of rebuilding the La Crosse Cathedral website. The Cathedral parish's 150 anniversary is coming up soon... it's going to be a year long thing, I think we might be starting it in January of 2012. Maybe God will grant us a nice restoration of the church interior....
Baby number three coming soon. Maybe having a traditional Baptism.. but I'm reading up on the rite and it doesn't look like there is a litany of the saints? Maybe I'm missing it.
May God bless us all with a with a holy Lenten season.
Did Adele Brise belong to a religious community?
While she was called 'Sister,' Brise was actually member of secular third order
While they were known as the Sisters of Good Help, were addressed as "Sister" and wore a modified habit, these women were not a religious community. They were instead a secular third order: non-vowed lay women who had chosen to live together, following, by most accounts, the Franciscan way of life.
(Adele called the Chapel, La Chapelle. The words Notre Dame de bon Secours, priez pour nous — "Our Lady of Good Help, pray for us" — were inscribed above the door of the 1861 chapel. Some translated secours as "health" and called the women the "Sisters of Good Health.)
In 1867, the women opened a school alongside the chapel. Two years later, they were advertising their boarding school, "St. Mary's Academy." They soon had many students, some of whom were orphans.
"Sister" Adele never took vows in a religious community, though some of her companions later did. The final two members of her group — Celina Londo and Cecilia Frisque — joined the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross at Bay Settlement in 1903.
The Bay Settlement Sisters took responsibility for the chapel and its school in 1902. They did so six years after Adele's death, at the request of Bishop Sebastian Messmer. They served there until 1992.
"Sr." Adele and her companions lived as a third order community. Third orders, sometimes called tertiaries, are lay people linked to a specific religious order, such as the Franciscans or Dominicans. When discussing religious communities, those in the "first order" are priests; "second order" are those who are cloistered; and "third order" members live "in the world."
More details at The Compass
She's still Sister Adele to me.
SpiritDaily: Wisconsin shrine director cites 'endless' healings
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| Crutches on the wall are a sample of the hundreds that have been left at the shrine after healing miracles. |
Bishop Ricken said the moral fiber Brise demonstrated throughout her life was the leading factor in his decision. "There is nothing in the person and character of Adele Brise that would question the veracity of the substance of her account," he said in the decree.LATimes
The shrine has built a reputation as a sacred place, attracting the sick and the troubled with prayers. Doefler said there were seemingly endless stories of terminal ailments disappearing and longstanding feuds and family struggles evaporating.
Its healing powers are what Michael Lee and his family believe cured his brother of a brain tumor more than 50 years ago. The boy couldn't walk because the tumor had taken away his balance.
Lee's parents drove to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help and, for nine days, walked on their knees around the altar of the shrine, petitioning for their son's tumor to heal.
A few days after their return, Lee said, his brother's balance returned. He could walk again.
His doctor was dumbfounded by what medical tests revealed: The tumor was gone. Lee said the doctor wrote to the bishop at the time, calling the recovery "medically unexplainable."
Lee, 58, who works as a lay minister at a parish in Green Bay, said the simple shrine held significance to his family.
"It was always there in the back of our mind, that if anything serious or important came up, that was a resource," Lee said. "It gives you this deep sense of hope. Even if the physical thing you came there wanting healed isn't. There is this feeling that there is something greater than us that gives, cares and loves."
HT Spirit Daily
Robinsonville Shrine Mass, press conference approving apparitions airs Feb. 5 on EWTN
The CompassIRONDALE, Ala. — EWTN Global Catholic Network will broadcast a special presentation of the historic December Mass and press conference in which Green Bay Bishop David Ricken announced that he had officially approved the Marian apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help at Champion.
Bishop David Ricken is pictured at a Dec. 8 news
conference at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.
(Sam Lucero | The Compass)
The Mass and press conference at the shrine, the first and only U.S. site with an approved Marian apparition, are scheduled to air on EWTN at 2:30 p.m. CT, Sat., Feb. 5. (Locally, EWTN is available on Time Warner Cable Channel 11, AT&T U-verse TV Channel 562 and CenturyLink, Casco, Channel 2.)
One of Bishop Ricken's first official acts after going to Diocese of Green Bay was to open a formal church investigation into the apparitions that occurred on this site. A commission of three Marian experts began their work in January 2009.
At the Dec. 8 press conference, Bishop Ricken stated, "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."
More information about the apparitions can be found on the shrine's Web site at www.shrineofourladyofgoodhelp.com.
Christmas pilgrimage to Robinsonville Shrine
Here's a special supplement to our most recent edition of Among Women 83, with theology prof, Dr. Maura Hearden, on the subject of Our Lady of Good Help Shrine in Robinsonville, WI, a recently approved Marian apparition in the Diocese of Green Bay. If you've heard the episode, you know that Maura and I discussed some theological teachings about the Blessed Mother, and then we came around to talking about this Shrine, most recently in the news.Among Women
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| Crutches on the wall are a sample of the hundreds that have been left at the shrine after healing miracles. |
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| This is where Adele now rests. |
Sister Adele reminded bishop he was responsible for souls
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| Bp Joseph Melcher |
As one discovers when studying the stories of those canonized and beatified by the Church, lives blessed by an extraordinary amount of holy intercession are often lives bearing much suffering, tests and trials…circumstances which not only strengthen those receiving such intercession emotionally, but also spiritually. Sister Adele’s life proved to follow that course of courage and struggle.Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help
Once the story of the apparition was out, and pilgrimages and religious celebrations began to take place, avaricious and pleasure-seeking individuals took the opportunity to exploit the crowds who came to the Chapel. A variety of vendors set up business outside the Chapel grounds, over which Adele had no control, serving only to sully the solemnity of the feast of the Assumption and the Church. Such dealings threw a bad light on Adele and fueled the opposition of some of the clergy who believed her story a myth. Those who noted these irregularities pointed them out to the first Bishop of Green Bay, Joseph Melcher. Despite the lack of clear information and a complete understanding of the matter, Bishop Melcher placed an interdict on the Chapel. Sister Adele was refused the Sacraments and threatened with excommunication should she continue to tell her story of the apparition.
On one occasion, when Adele attended Sunday Mass with the children at a church a mile west of the Chapel, Adele found the pews closed against her. Adele heard Mass kneeling in the aisle.
Later, Bishop Melcher reconsidered and decided to visit the Chapel, accompanied by two physicians to test Sister Adele’s sanity. However, after protests by the vendors around the Chapel, the Bishop changed his mind on the visit, and commanded Sister Adele to close the school and the Chapel, and bring him the keys to both. After accomplishing the safe return home of her students, and after buying an acre of land near the Chapel to build a home to continue her commissioned duty to Our Lady, Sister Adele obeyed the Bishop’s command, reminding him that he would be responsible for the souls lost due to the lack of proper religious instruction. Impressed by her sincerity and zeal[to say the least!], the Bishop returned the keys to Sister Adele in order to continue her mission.
Last words of Sister Adele Brise
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| Sister Adele (seated at right) and two companions wearing habits as described by Eliza Allen Starr. |
“We went into the Chapel and prayed. I can still see the calm, serene and happy look on the face of the good Sister as if a light from heaven shone upon her."
On July 5, 1896, Sister Adele Brise uttered her last words: “I rejoiced in what was said to me. We shall go into the house of the Lord”.
She died that day, and was laid to rest near the Chapel. A simple tombstone bears the following in French: "Sacred Cross, under thy shadow I rest and hope. Sister Marie Adele Joseph Brise Died July the 5th, 1896 At the age of 66 years.”
Sometimes apparitions do *not* get approved
Huffington PostThus far, the church has only approved about 12 Marian apparitions worldwide, said Roten, with Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal among the most famous. Others -- including some in the U.S. -- are under investigation, Roten said, but declined to name them. [Our Lady, Queen of America for one. Anyone know of others?]
"You don't want to start publicizing things because you are not sure they will go anywhere," said Roten.
Alleged apparitions in Bayside, N.Y., Emmitsburg, Md., and Marlboro Township, N.J. were investigated and declared false by the church.
In the 1950s, a farmwife's visions of Mary in Necedah, Wis., about 150 miles southeast of Champion, attracted one of the largest religious gatherings in the state's history, said Sandra Zimdars-Swartz, a scholar at the University of Kansas. The church, however, dismissed the Necedah apparitions. [Then-Bishop Raymond Burke in 1998 affirming the interdict placed by Bishop Freking in 1975. Some background. I was going to do a post a while back on this and it seems timely that I start putting it together.]
In general, the Catholic Church approaches stories of supernatural visions with a mixture of excitement and caution, scholars say.
On the one hand, mystical experiences can inspire believers and spark vast spiritual movements, such as in Mexico after the Virgin of Guadalupe reportedly appeared to peasant Juan Diego in 1531. Millions of pilgrims -- particularly Catholics -- trek to Lourdes and Fatima each year.
But Catholic leaders are also wary of hoaxes, ridicule and diviners who boast of a hotline to God. Hundreds of visions -- from spotting Jesus in a grilled cheese, to weeping statues, to more sustained spiritual experiences -- have been reported and dismissed over the centuries.
"I think the church quite properly plays a waiting game," said Brian Britt, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Tech University. He compared the long lag time in approving apparitions to the church's lengthy process for canonizing saints. Better late than wrong, is the prevailing ethos.
"Once the visionary is dead and gone, if the pilgrimage site continues to have meaning and value for the church it becomes less risky," Britt said, "and even sometimes desirable for the church to offer its endorsement."
This makes the visions of Sister Adele Brise all the more astounding because they did pass the test.
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