Another
American woman has been put forth for canonization. Although she was
not born in the United States, she spent the majority of her
life here.
Upon receiving her first Holy Communion, Adele and a few close friends promised the Blessed Virgin Mary that they would devote their lives to becoming religious teaching sisters in Belgium. However, this promise grew difficult to keep when her parents decided to move to America alongside other Belgium settlers. After seeking advice from her confessor, she was told to be obedient to her parents. He assured her that if the Lord willed her to become a teacher and a sister, she would serve in that vocation in America.
After
the six-week voyage to America, the Brice family joined the largest Belgian
settlement – near present-day Champion, Wisconsin. Belgian pioneers’ and
settlers’ lives were difficult, and many died in the harsh Wisconsin winters.
Adele served her family’s needs by often taking grain to the grist mill.
In early October 1859, Adele reported seeing a woman clothed in dazzling white, a yellow sash around her waist, and a crown of stars on her flowing blonde locks. The lady was surrounded by a bright light, and stood between two trees, a hemlock and a maple. Adele was frightened by the vision and prayed until it disappeared. When she told her parents what she had seen, they suggested that a poor soul might be in need of prayers.
Adele, who was aged 28 at the time of the apparitions, devoted the rest of her life to teaching children. She began going door-to-door, up to 25 miles a day, offering to teach the children about the faith. She would even offer to do household chores during the daytime so the children could have time to learn in the evening. By extension, the parents of these children would often listen to Adele’s lessons and grow in their love of the Lord as well.
Their presence and influence had a lasting effect on the
people of Northeast Wisconsin, especially within the Belgian community of the
Door County Penninsula.
This
influence even was helpful when the town where Adele lived and did her ministry
work decided to change its name. It is recalled that when the community asked
Adele what the new town’s name should be, she requested “Champion.” A nod to
her promise given to the Blessed Mother to serve in Champion, Belgium. Although
Adele was no longer in Belgium, she was able to fufill her promise in Champion,
Wisconsin. The name of the town to this day is Champion.
Adele Brice died on July 5th, 1896, and is buried in the cemetery located near the Apparition Chapel of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. On her headstone is inscribed the disposition of her life: “Sacred Cross Under thy Shadow I Rest and Hope.”
The original chapel built on the site of the apparitions was a 10x12 foot wooden structure built by Lambert Brise, Adele's father, at the site of the Marian apparition.
Isabella
Doyen donated the 5 acres around the spot, and a larger (24x40 foot) wooden
church was built in 1861. This chapel bore the inscription "Notre Dame de bon Secours, priez pour nous"
The site became a popular pilgrimage site, and the chapel was soon too small to accommodate the growing number of devotees. A larger brick chapel was built in 1880 and dedicated by Francis Xavier Krautbauer, the second Bishop of Green Bay. A school and convent were also built on the site in the 1880s.
On October 8th, 1871, almost twelve years to the date of Mary’s last appearance to Adele, the Great Peshtigo Fire broke out. Lumber companies and sawmills had been harvesting the woods of northeastern Wisconsin for decades, leaving immense piles of sawdust and branches as they produced lumber and other wood products.
Unable to outrun the flames, nearly 2,000 people in the area died in the inferno. Some people assume that, driven by strong winds the conflagration leaped across Green Bay of Lake Michigan and began burning huge sections of the Door Peninsula.
When the firestorm threatened
the chapel, Adele refused to leave and instead organized a procession to petition the Virgin Mary for her protection. The surrounding land
was destroyed by the fire, but the chapel and its grounds, together with all
who had taken refuge there, remained unharmed. The conflagration engulfed about 1,200,000 acres and is
the deadliest wildfire in recorded history.
The current shrine was constructed with support from Bishop Paul Peter Rhode, who dedicated the new building in July 1942. The Apparition Oratory contains a collection of crutches left behind in thanksgiving by those who came to pray at the shrine.
The largest annual gatherings at the chapel are on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, where Mass is celebrated with an outdoors and a procession is held around the shrine precincts, and the Walk to Mary pilgrimage, which takes place on the first Saturday of May, where pilgrims walk 7, 14, or 22 miles to the Shrine from other locations. Both events attract thousands of people.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Champion gained national recognition when the apparitions were approved after a two-year investigation by Bishop David Ricken on December 8, 2010. This makes it the first and only apparition approved by the Catholic Church in the United States. Bishop Ricken noted his predecessors had implicitly endorsed the shrine in holding services there over the years.
On August 15, 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the church as a national shrine. To reflect this, the shrine's name was changed to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.
On
April 20, 2023, the shrine was again renamed to The National Shrine of
Our Lady of Champion.
