Allocutio (January, 2011)
by
Br. David Marten, President of SF Senatus
(Fr. Goode, the Senatus Spiritual Director, is on retreat)

Our Lady of Good Help in Green Bay, in Wisconsin, is the first Marian apparition approved as worthy of belief by a diocese in the United States.  In 1859, a year after the apparitions in Lourdes and just before the Civil War, Adele Brise, a young lady originally from Belgium, saw a lady in a tree on the way to Church, two weeks in a row.  Her friends did not see the apparition. She told her priest, who said to ask the Lady who she was.  The lady, who was very beautiful, with a crown and wrapped in heavenly light, said “I am the Queen of heaven, pray for the conversion of sinners".  "You should also make a general confession and do penance." " Why are you idle when others are working in the vineyard? -- teach children what they should do to be saved:  the catechism, the Sign of the Cross, and to approach the sacraments.”  When Adele told the Bishop about this, he excommunicated her for a time.  But she was faithful, and there are miracles connected with the place, especially the healing of children.  Adele, who became a Third Order Franciscan, died in 1896.  In 1900 a polish priest led a pilgrimage to the site.  A man who had diphtheria couldn’t eat and thought he would die.  He went to the site and was healed.  In 1871 there was a great fire in Northern Wisconsin, which consumed 25% of the state, but, the area of the apparition was spared, and people brought their livestock there to save them.  [The story of Adele Brise has been reported in the National News]