How a message from Mary in rural Wisconsin is bearing fruit today

A Colorado woman's pilgrimage to a small Wisconsin shrine, undertaken in memory of her late husband, traces back to three brief encounters in the woods more than 165 years ago, encounters that produced the only Marian apparition site in the U.S. that the Catholic Church has formally approved.

The Denver Catholic recently featured a beautiful story by Marianne Arling, the wife of the late Deacon David Arling, who followed through on her husband’s wish to visit the shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Champion. Her decision not only led to healing for those who went with her but also inspired two additional pilgrimages with numerous pilgrims reporting graces received. 

Writing for the Denver Catholic Sept. 7, Mrs. Arling said, “Our Lady has helped with the grief of my husband’s passing. At the Shrine, I was drawn to the Pietà, realizing that she lost both her husband, St. Joseph, and her only son, Jesus.” She also experienced the physical healing of severe neuropathy in her hand, which continues to function normally. 

The Shrine of Our Lady of Champion marks the site where Adele Brice, a young Belgian immigrant, reported seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary three times in fall 1859. Brice had been born in Dion-le-Val, Belgium, in 1831 and lost sight in one eye as a child. She and her family immigrated to Wisconsin in 1855, settling among a Belgian Catholic community in what was then known as Robinsonville. According to the shrine, the Diocese of Green Bay's archives and the shrine’s history book recall how Brice first saw a silent figure in white standing between two trees while carrying grain to a mill along a wooded trail. Days later, on Oct. 9, 1859, she saw the same figure again while walking to Sunday Mass, and a third time on her way home.

At her priest’s suggestion, when Brice saw the figure a third time, she asked directly: “In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?” The shrine's history records the radiant figure’s reply: “I am the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners.” 

Mary asked Brice to do the same by making a general confession and offering her Communion for the conversion of sinners. 

The Blessed Mother then posed a question to Brice that would define the rest of her life: “What are you doing here in idleness while your companions are working in the vineyard of my Son?”

When Brice asked what more she could do, Mary's instruction was, “Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation,” specifically their catechism, the sign of the cross, and how to approach the sacraments. Mary’s final words to her, according to the shrine, were simple: “Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”

Brice took the charge literally. She began walking door to door, sometimes as far as 25 miles in a day, offering to help with household chores in exchange for the chance to teach children their catechism. Parents often stayed to listen alongside their children. Within a few years, supporters helped her and a small group of women build a chapel on the site of the apparitions and later a convent and school for Adele and her fellow Third Order Regular Franciscan sisters. Their work continued even through years of food shortages and a croup epidemic among the students.

The shrine’s most famous moment of vindication came 12 years later. On Oct. 8, 1871, the Peshtigo Fire, still the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, tore through the surrounding Wisconsin countryside. As the flames approached the chapel grounds, those sheltering there prayed through the night. According to an eyewitness, Father Peter Perin, after a night of procession with a statue of the Blessed Mother, hymns sung to Jesus and Mary, and praying of the Rosary, rain began falling before dawn, and the fire never crossed onto the consecrated property, though it scorched the fence surrounding it. Brice continued teaching with her fellow religious sisters until her death on July 5, 1896.

It wasn’t until 2010 that the diocese formally declared the apparitions worthy of belief, leading to Champion being the only Vatican-recognized Marian apparition site in the country. Annual pilgrim numbers have grown from roughly 10,000 to more than 200,000 since that declaration, according to Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay. 

In June 2024, the U.S. bishops approved the opening of Brice’s cause for canonization, which Bishop Ricken then did in January 2026, making her a Servant of God.