Deep in the Wisconsin wilderness, between a hemlock and a maple, stands a woman in radiant white. She’s silent, still and waiting — and invisible to all but the eyes of one young woman, a Belgian immigrant named Adele. The year is 1859.
Adele passes the woman in the woods and wonders at the curious sight. She hurries on. Her family believes the specter to be a soul trapped in purgatory, but Adele is not so sure. She sees the woman a second time, now on her 10 mile walk to Mass.
“In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?” — those are the words the priest suggests Adele speak to the mysterious woman. And so, upon her third encounter, Adele does.
“I am the Queen of Heaven,” replies the woman in white. “Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation. Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
Having been given her mission, young Adele Brice sets out to teach about God. She gathers to herself others who desire to embrace this holy task set out by the woman in white. And that mysterious woman? She is better known today as Our Lady of Champion, who in 2016 was designated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as an approved Marian Apparition and the first in the United States.
I have forgotten all of this, if I’ve ever known it at all, as I drive along Route 57 north of Green Bay. A sign along the road declares boldly something to the effect of, “The Blessed Mother appeared here! Visit the shrine!” I roll my eyes.
“I bet she did,” I mutter. My wife misses the sign all together yet chuckles all the same. But then I get to thinking, I get to remembering. I’ve recently co-authored a children’s book on Marian apparitions; it involved a fair amount of research, a virtual pilgrimage of sorts following in Mary’s footsteps all across the globe. The name “Champion” comes suddenly to mind.
“Wait,” I say aloud. “I think this is a Marian apparition. I think this is the real deal.” But we’ve missed the turn and have a timetable to keep, and so we travel on.
All the same, I say, “Look it up. Look up Our Lady of Champion.” And my wife does, scrolling through the story and the lore and cross-referencing maps. “Yeah — it is,” she says. “The real thing. Champion — that’s what it’s called. And not too far out of our way.”
We decide to hit the shrine on our return trip. Much to my surprise, our girls are pretty pumped about the idea. They stumble out of the rental car, scamper into the quiet church, fall to their knees in some mumbled prayer. They sit and stare and wonder in the chapel beneath the church, the one with rows of flickering candles lining every wall and relics adorning the back. They ask about the relics, why they’re important. They light candles and say aloud people who they’d like to pray for. They scribble names on the scrap paper for prayer intentions.
We wander the grounds. We pause at the gravesite of Adele — “She’s the one who first saw Mary,” I explain — and we stop at the grotto to Our Lady of Fatima — “I was there, too. Another place where Mary appeared. Cool right?” The girls nod and ask about the gift shop and rush to use the bathroom.
And then we set off again. We’ve a flight to catch, after all.
I find the image of Our Lady of Champion — this woman in radiant white — standing and waiting in the Wisconsin wilds enchanting. She doesn’t move to intercept Adele; she doesn’t call out. She’s just there. And it takes the young immigrant woman’s own curiosity and the encouragement of those she trusts to go before Our Lady. It takes curiosity and not a small amount of wonder for her to be given a mission, a mission to instill in others that same disposition of curiosity toward the awesome mystery that is God.
I think about myself driving by that sign, cynical and focused solely on my task. I think about my sudden spark of wonder and excitement, my wife’s quick-fingered, phone-based research, my girls’ unknowing enthusiasm. I think how those ingredients put us on the path to stand before Our Lady of Champion nearly 170 years after Adele. I think about the importance of religious experience, of encounters that pierce the veil and bridge the spiritual and the temporal.
And I wonder: Am I following in that same mission, bringing our little girls to have their own mystical experience of the Divine, an education at God’s own feet? I think so.
The Society of Jesus today emphasizes our shared mission to show the way to God. I think this is but one small piece, a trajectory-setting moment. We quite literally allow ourselves to be surprised by God appearing on the horizons of our days, nestled between hemlocks and maples, emblazoned on kitschy signs on the side of the road.
And then, turning with that disposition of curiosity and wonder and awe, we go together to God’s own self, still readily appearing, readily available, in the wilderness of our world and the quiet of our hearts. Once there, we let God speak to our souls; we let the Great Teacher show us something new and wonderful of our world and our part therein.
