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Wisconsin on the Map to Pray With Mary
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Dec 24, 2010 11:37am |
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| Category | General |
| Author | ERIK ECKHOLM |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Thursday, December 23, 2010 05:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | CHAMPION, Wis. — In France, the shrine at Lourdes is surrounded by hundreds of hotels and has received as many as 45,000 pilgrims in a single day. Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico, draws millions of fervent worshipers a year.
Now, a little chapel among the dairy farms here, called Our Lady of Good Help, has joined that august company in terms of religious status, if not global fame. This month, it became one of only about a dozen sites worldwide, and the first in the United States, where apparitions of the Virgin Mary have been officially validated by the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1859, the year after Mary is said to have appeared in Lourdes, a Belgian immigrant here named Adele Brise said she was visited three times by Mary, who hovered between two trees in a bright light, clothed in dazzling white with a yellow sash around her waist and a crown of stars above her flowing blond locks. As instructed, Ms. Brise devoted her life to teaching Catholic beliefs to children.
On Dec. 8, after a two-year investigation by theologians who found no evidence of fraud or heresy and a long history of shrine-related conversions, cures and other signs of divine intervention, Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay declared “with moral certainty” that Ms. Brise did indeed have encounters “of a supernatural character” that are “worthy of belief.”
Lourdes-like hordes have not yet gathered, but since the weighty decree a growing stream of visitors, some driving several hours, has found its way here to pray and revel in what many say is the palpable presence of Mary. Calls are coming in from as far as New York from church groups that want to visit by the busload, and local church officials are wondering whether they thought too small when they built a new parking lot — planned well before this month — with 75 spaces. |
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