Our Lady will have a place at the National Eucharistic Congress (NEC) — including under the title Our Lady of Champion. A new painting showing Our Lady appearing to Belgian immigrant Adele Brise — the Church-approved apparitions involved three appearances of Mary in the Wisconsin woods in 1859 — will be unveiled at the NEC before it is enshrined Aug. 15 at the namesake Marian shrine.

NEW FRANKEN, Wis. — The bells of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion rang out shortly before 2 p.m., on Sunday to welcome and announce the arrival of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Approximately 2,000 pilgrims participated in the shrine’s leg of the pilgrimage. Pilgrims, from babies in strollers to wheelchair-bound elderly, came together to walk with Our Lord and proclaim by their presence his true presence. Volunteers passed out holy cards with the newly painted image of Mary’s visits to Adele Brise. In 1859, Brise saw three apparitions of the Blessed Mother in the woods of Champion. The original image will be on display during the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis before coming to remain at the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, to be enjoyed and meditated on by the many
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The site of the first and only approved US Marian apparition in Champion, Wisconsin, saw so many come to worship that they filled up a tent along with the church.

CHAMPION, Wis. (WFRV) – The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is trekking through northeast Wisconsin, and the halfway mark of the Marian Route that passes through four states on its way to Indianapolis is intentionally the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion.

The U.S. Catholic bishops voted on Friday to begin the process of officially declaring Adele Brise a saint. Brise, an immigrant from Belgium living in northern Wisconsin, witnessed the first and only approved Marian apparition in the United States in 1859. In a unanimous voice vote at their spring general assembly held in Louisville, Kentucky, the bishops gave their approval to advancing on the local level the cause of beatification and canonization of Brise.