The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, also dedicated as the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, is a

Marian shrine A shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destinatio ...

, located within the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay The Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay ( la, Diocesis Sinus Viridis) was established on March 3, 1868, by Pope Pius IX. It covers the city of Green Bay, as well as Brown, Calumet, Door, Florence, Forest, Kewaunee, Langlade, Manitowoc, Marine ...

in the United States. The

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

is in the

Champion A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, a ...

section of Green Bay, about 16 miles (26 km) northeast of downtown Green Bay proper. It stands on the site of the reported Marian apparition to a Belgian-born woman, Adele Brise, in the year 1859. The apparition was formally approved on December 8, 2010, by Bishop David L. Ricken, becoming the first

Marian apparition A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by Mary, the mother of Jesus, or a series of related such appearances during a period of time. In the Catholic Church, in order for a reported appearance to be classified as a Marian a ...

approved by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in the United States. Bishop Ricken also approved the chapel as a diocesan shrine, recognizing its long history as a place of

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

and prayer.

Apparitions of 1859

Adele Brise was born in Belgium in 1831. Together with her parents, she immigrated to Wisconsin in 1855. In early October 1859, Adele reported seeing a woman clothed in white and standing between two trees, a hemlock and a maple. Adele described the woman as surrounded by a bright light, clothed in dazzling white with a yellow sash around her waist and a crown of stars above her flowing blond locks. She 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. The following Sunday, which was October 8, 1859, she saw the apparition a second time while walking to Mass in the community of Bay Settlement. Her sister and another woman (Marie Therese Frisson, 1821–1898) were with her at the time but neither of them saw anything. She asked the parish priest for advice, and he told her that if she saw the apparition again, she should ask it, "In the Name of God, who are you and what do you wish of me?" Returning from Mass that same day, she saw the apparition a third time, and this time asked the question she was given. The lady replied, "''I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.''" Adele Brise was also given a mission to "''gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.''" Brise, who was 28 years old at the time of the apparition, devoted the rest of her life to teaching children. She initially traveled on foot from house to house, but later opened a small school. Other women joined her in her work and they formed a community of sisters according to the rule of the Third Order Franciscans, although Brise never took public vows as a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

. She died on July 5, 1896.

Chapel

Early history

The original chapel was a 10 foot by 12 foot wooden structure built by Lambert Brise, the father of Adele Brice, at the site of the Marian apparition. Mrs. Isabella Doyen donated the surrounding the spot, and a larger (24 foot by 40 foot) wooden church was built in 1861. This chapel bore the inscription "Notre Dame de bon Secours, priez pour nous", giving the shrine its present name. The site became a popular place of

and the chapel was soon too small to accommodate the pilgrims who were coming. A larger brick chapel was built in 1880 and dedicated by Bishop Francis Xavier Krautbauer, the second bishop of the

. A school and a convent were also built on the site in the 1880s.

Peshtigo Fire

Lumber companies and sawmills had been harvesting the woods of Wisconsin, leaving piles of sawdust and branches as they produced lumber and wood products. The night of October 8, 1871, a

firestorm A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the term has been used ...

began near

Peshtigo, Wisconsin Peshtigo ( ) is a city in Marinette County, Wisconsin, Marinette County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 3,420 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census The city is surrounded by the Peshtigo (town), Wisconsin, Town of Peshtigo ...

, that spread through the woods and towns, consuming everything in its path. Unable to outrun the flames, nearly 2,000 people died in the inferno. Some people assume that, driven by strong winds, the

conflagration A conflagration is a large fire. Conflagrations often damage human life, animal life, health, and/or property. A conflagration can begin accidentally, be naturally caused (wildfire), or intentionally created (arson). A very large fire can produc ...

leaped across Green Bay of Lake Michigan and began burning huge sections of the

Door Peninsula The Door Peninsula is a peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, separating the southern part of the Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The peninsula includes northern Kewaunee County, northeastern Brown County, and the mainland portion of Door Co ...

. When the firestorm – of whatever origin – threatened the chapel, Adele Brise refused to leave and instead organized a

procession A procession is an organized body of people walking in a formal or ceremonial manner. History Processions have in all peoples and at all times been a natural form of public celebration, as forming an orderly and impressive ceremony. Religious ...

to beg the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

for her protection.Wisconsin Historical Society. Wisconsin Local History & Biography Articles. The surrounding land was destroyed by the fire but the chapel and its grounds, together with all the people who had taken refuge there, survived the fire unharmed. The conflagration engulfed about and is the deadliest recorded fire disaster in US history.

Present day

The current building at the shrine was built in 1942, with support from Bishop Paul Peter Rhode, who dedicated the new building in July 1942. It is a Tudor Gothic style building which accommodates approximately 300 people in an upper Apparition Chapel with a small Apparition Oratory for prayer on the lower level. The Apparition Oratory also contains a collection of crutches left behind in thanksgiving by people who came to pray at the shrine. The grounds of the shrine have an outdoor area for a Rosary walk and Stations of the Cross. The largest annual gathering at the chapel happens on the feast of the

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

, on August 15, celebrated with an outdoor

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

and a procession around the grounds of the shrine. The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help gained national recognition when the apparitions were approved, after a two-year investigation, by Bishop David Ricken on December 8, 2010, making it the first and only apparition approved by the

in the United States. Bishop Ricken noted that his predecessors had implicitly endorsed the shrine by holding services there over the years. On August 15, 2016, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops designated the shrine as a National Shrine. In recognition of this, the shrine's name was changed to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.

Images

File:OurLadyOfGoodHelpSign.jpg, Sign File:OurLadyOfGoodHelpStationsOfTheCross.jpg, Stations of the Cross

References

External links

Our Lady of Good HelpCatholic Diocese of Green BayAdele Brise-Wisconsin Historical Society
{{Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, state=collapsed Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay Belgian-American culture in Wisconsin Churches in Brown County, Wisconsin Good Help Good Help Tourist attractions in Brown County, Wisconsin Roman Catholic churches completed in 1942 1861 establishments in Wisconsin 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States