Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The Virgin of Champion and the fire: the rosary on the night of fire"

Champion, Wisconsin (United States) (1859)

In October 1859, in a forest near the then Robinsonville (now Champion), in Wisconsin, a young Belgian immigrant named Adele Brise, illiterate and very pious, said she had seen the Virgin. The main apparition took place on 9 October. The message contained in the diocesan documentation is clear and bewildering: "Teach the Catechism to the children of this wild country." The Lady called her to be a catechist of immigrant children, to teach them what is necessary for salvation.

Adele took that mission seriously and dedicated his life to going through farms teaching faith. The neighbors raised a small chapel in the place, and over the years a pilgrimage sanctuary was born. Following a formal investigation started in 2008, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay published on December 8, 2010 a decree recognizing the apparition as worthy of faith: the first and, to date, the only Marian apparition officially approved on United States territory. In 2016 it was declared National Sanctuary.

On October 8, 1871, the same day as the famous Chicago fire, a devastating forest fire, Peshtigo, destroyed vast areas of Wisconsin. The fire came all the way around the sanctuary. It is documented that the consecrated area was saved while large areas near were reduced to ashes. At dawn, witnesses reported that all around was devastation, except the chapel, the land and the people who had taken refuge there.

It is true to distinguish. It is documented the year and place of the apparitions, the identity and catechetical mission of Adele, the episcopal approval of 2010, the declaration as National Sanctuary and the preservation of the sanctuary in the midst of the fire. Some specific details of the Virgin's dress, including the rosary that according to the catechesis of the sanctuary, and the strict qualification of protection from fire as a miracle belong to the devotional tradition: the Church has not issued a specific decree on that point. There is no long list of miracles examined in formal processes such as Lourdes or Fatima.