Our Journey to Champion, WI

The Sister Servants had a great surprise recently, as the Blessed Mother herself arranged an unexpected community pilgrimage! Nine Sisters journeyed on behalf of the whole community to the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. The scheduling, weather, timeliness, and many other little miracles clearly indicated that Mary’s hand was at work in this trip!

This shrine marks the site of the only ecclesiastically approved Marian apparition in the country, where the Blessed Mother appeared to Adele Brice in 1859. Adele was a Belgian immigrant, twenty-nine years old, when she saw a Lady in white appear in the woods of Wisconsin. Her parish priest advised her that if she saw the Lady again, she should ask, ‘In God’s name, who are you, and what do you want of me?’

On her way home from Mass, the Lady appeared again, and in answer to Adele’s question, said she was the Queen of Heaven. She asked Adele to make a general confession, pray for the conversion of sinners, and begin to catechize the children of the land. At first, Adele answered this request by traveling to family farms to teach the children, but later she organized a school and brought children there. She professed vows as a Third Order Franciscan, and many women joined her to assist in her mission, also as Tertiaries, rather than as a formal religious community. Adele died at sixty-five, and her cause for sainthood is currently being investigated. Read the full story of Champion here.

Champion, though still a very humble shrine, has become a very active place for reception of the Sacraments and for asking Our Lady’s intercession, receiving many signs of Our Lady’s assistance, sometimes through miracles, sometimes in greater simplicity.

We saw this pilgrimage as a time of much grace for our community, and are very grateful for all who helped make it possible!