I was called into my old school to do substitute teaching last Friday, and by Sunday I was down with a bug. For reasons I won’t go into, I am absolutely certain that’s where I got sick. And sick is where I remain. So this is a short post!

The Vatican is supposed to put out a document on Marian Apparitions on May 16, Thursday. It will be interesting to see what they have to say. When I taught Religion to 8th graders I had them do projects, looking into Marian miracles, and apparitions. There are more approved apparitions than just Fatima and Lourdes. There are also many thousands of apparitions or potential miracles or phenomena that have been dismissed.

In the United States there is one approved Marian apparition. It involved a French woman named Adele Brise. In 1859 she saw a vision of a beautiful woman. Her priest told her if she saw it again, to ask the apparition in the name of Jesus to identify itself. Adele obeyed and the apparition said she was the Queen of Heaven. She wished Adele to help convert children. Adele’s father built her a chapel and she went around teaching the local children. She also started a community of women who helped her.

In October, 1871, there were huge fires in many parts of the Midwest, including in the city of Chicago. One of these fires started near Peshtigo, Wisconsin and burned over a million acres, killing at least 1200 people. Adele’s chapel was in the middle of this burned over wasteland, and it was untouched. Anyone who had gotten inside the palisade that surrounded her chapel and about five acres around it, was saved. Accounts of the time discuss scorching and blistering of the paint on the wood facing the fire, while inside the palisade everything was fresh and perfect.
This apparition was only approved in 2010 by Bishop David Ricken.
Here’s a link to the shrine that is built there.

https://championshrine.org/our-story/

There is another story of a Marian apparition in the United States, that deserves some consideration. In 1841 in the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, Our Lady is believed to have appeared to a young Salish Indian boy. He was about 11 years old and had been unable to learn his catechism. Hence, he had been unable to be baptized. This group of Salish had been catechized by Father DeSmet, and his missionaries recorded the story. The young boy, Paul, after being scolded by his mother for being so stupid, went down to see one of the catechists. However, instead he saw a beautiful woman with a star above her head and a smile for him. Suddenly he “felt his mind clear and his heart warm” and he knew his prayers perfectly. He went home to tell his mother, and was able to correct his sister with respect to a few of the words of the prayers. Paul died of tuberculosis several years later, but a there is a chapel in the Bitterroot Mountain Range, Saint Mary’s Mission in Stevensville, Montana. The Salish Indians had processions in this area for years after Paul’s encounter.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/montana-marian-apparition