Catching on in Wisconsin.....

This story appeared first in the Sunday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper.  Barry Adams covers regional news for the Wisconsin State Journal.

CHAMPION — The chapel has room for 280 people.
Most prefer the basement, with its low ceiling and humming ventilation fan.
This is where hundreds of candles burn and eight tiny pews face a statue of the Virgin Mary squashing a snake.

The pilgrims come as they are, some wearing Green Bay Packers jackets and shirts, others in hunting pants or work boots.

No one keeps track of the attendance, but it’s estimated that more than 3,000 people a year find their way to the tiny shrine on Highway K where prayer candles are $3.50 and plastic crucifixes are sold for $1.

But 2011 will be unlike any other in the 152-year history of the shrine at Our Lady of Good Help, just off one of the main routes to the Door Peninsula and its collection of wineries, cherry orchards and state parks. 

Pilgrims from around the country are descending on this farming community, in Kewaunee County about 15 miles northeast of Green Bay, to seek peace and healing and to pray. Last month, Bishop David Ricken of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay approved three apparitions of the Virgin Mary that were seen in 1859 by Adele Brise, a 29-year-old Belgium immigrant.

 It is the only church-approved apparition in the United States and joins others around the world such as Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City; Lourdes, France; and Fatima, Portugal.

“We hope it doesn’t change a bit,” said Veronica Schmelzer, 42, of nearby Casco. She has come to the shrine since she was a little girl. “It’s a part of our daily lives, so it’s kind of odd having it so public,” she said last week.

The shrine is no secret to those in the area, and signs along Highway 57 direct motorists to the site. In 1954, an estimated 20,000 people attended the Aug. 15 outdoor Mass for the annual Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Attendance for the Mass in recent years, however, has been around 1,500.

Old site hits the big time

When Ricken made his announcement Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the story was picked up by media around the world. An estimated 200 to 300 people a day have visited the site, and on some days between Christmas and New Year’s there were 1,000 visitors.

The shrine shut down its online prayer candle requests so those visiting in person could have a place for their candle.

“We had candles everywhere. We just couldn’t keep up,” said Karen Tipps, a caretaker on the grounds for 18 years. “We really felt bad shutting that down.”

Tipps has been busy fielding phone calls and answering e-mails from school groups, churches and others from around the state and from bus tour groups around the country. Her big concern is being able to stagger the visits by tour groups, which she likes to divide into smaller groups rotating them between the gift shop, crypt, chapel and, when the weather cooperates, the stations of the cross.

“I’ve bought myself a great big calendar for scheduling all these groups,” Tipps said. “It’s going to be an adjustment.”

A larger parking lot is scheduled to be paved this spring, and diocese officials are considering plans for an addition to the crypt that would offer more bathrooms and make the shrine, built on the spot of the apparitions, handicap accessible.

“As more people are coming, it’s something we’d like to have done soon, but it has to be done right,” said the Rev. John Doerfler, rector of the shrine. “We want to make sure that whatever is done, it fosters the spirit of prayer.”

‘Sign that God is active’

John Kruse, 43, of suburban Detroit, was in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on business last week but made the two-hour-plus drive from Escanaba to visit. Kruse, who has visited other apparition sites around the world, expects thousands to make their way to Champion.

 “This place will explode (with visitors),” said Kruse. “It’s another sign that God is active.”
Juan Valero came to pray with his wife Teresa and 3-year-old son Benjamin who has been sick. The family came from Oshkosh and likely will return, especially when other family members visit from Mexico.
“It’s a very peaceful place. I was excited to come,” Juan Valero said. “I feel like I have to be here.”
Peg Gallagher, a retired school teacher on the Menominee Indian Reservation, last visited the shrine when she was a teenager. She drove from her home in Shawano last week to pray and take in the peace and quiet of the crypt.

“It’s a very simple place,” Gallagher said. “It brought back memories of my Catholic faith as a child.”
A guest registry at the crypt’s entrance showed visitors from Wisconsin, Illinois, Oregon and Virginia. Greg Thome of Pleasanton, Calif., was visiting family in Allouez, a Green Bay suburb. His mother-in-law visits the shrine about once a week during the summer.

“There’s a spirit of grace that seems to be present here,” said Thome, 59, a hospital consultant. “It’s located in such a humble place.”

If you ever make it to Green Bay (which I strongly advise...the Packers the best football team EVER!!!), I would make a stop and venerate the apparition.  His Excellency, Bishop David Ricken has approved it, so you may go without any reservation at all....being so close to Iowa, I plan on making a trip there myself.

From over at The Liturgical Pimpernel...

The Liturgical Pimpernel writes:
(with my comments and emphasis)

Father Gaudium et Spes seems to be remarkably short of both in his retirement, which is sad. One wishes that the poor man did not have to suffer the continuing "iconic insults" he complained about so loudly of before Christmas.

Now Father has written another article in which he tells us that "a vast crowd of priests and laity (10, 20, 50, what constitutes vast?) who passionately love the church...are alarmed at having a new and unsatisfactory translation of the liturgy about to be foisted on them due to power politics at the top." (Ummmmm.....no, this is not an unsatisfactory translation, it is slavishly accurate.  That is the real issue.  They want "dynamic equivalence" to remain the norm.  It simply is a flawed outlook.  It isn't accurate and conveys a message that is wrong.)

"This last confrontation" he warns us "may well backfire. Many priests are simply not going to introduce the new translation. They say that if the Anglican newcomers and the Latin Mass groups can keep their liturgy, so can they." (This is open defiance of the wishes of Rome, based mainly on Liturgical norms.....What makes them any different than the SSPX, if they do this?  We are not talking about a new Missale Romanum being promulgated here, we are talking about a new translation of the same Missale Romanum -- I'll talk about that more below.)

He may be on to something here. Priests and people of his generation may be unwilling or unable to change. We should be sensitive to them. Why should they have to suffer an accurate vernacular translation of the Mass of Paul VI after all these years of using the ICEL version from the 1970’s, which has made them what they are, of course? (Because the Church is bigger than any one person or groups of people....The Liturgical Pimpernel is being facetious, I know.)

Why not give elderly priests who would find it difficult to make the change permission to keep using the old ICEL Mass? Only in private, without a congregation, of course. (Because this isn't a new Missale Romanum and the cirucmstances by which the EF was retained was because there was a whole new form of the Mass introduced, which departed from the older form.  That simply isn't the case here, we don't have any rubrical changes, to speak of.)

If there really is a “vast crowd” of laity who want this translation, perhaps they could organise themselves into “The Old-ICEL Mass Society”? They could lobby the hierarchy for an indult to have public celebrations of the old ICEL Mass. After about fifteen years they could be given permission, but only on condition that this never took place in parish churches and didn’t involve any criticism of the new Mass, of course. (I say, don't cave at all...the Church is bigger than these angry liberal clerics who didn't get their way.  They are acting like spoiled brats.  We've seen what liberalism has acheived, not one good thing for Holy Mother Church.  Not one.)

The Old ICEL Missal

Perhaps they could try the outright disobedience warned about by Father? They could even found a “Priestly Society of Paul VI” which could set up rival chapels, clergy, and even bishops, to ensure the continuation of the old ICEL Mass into the future. But they would risk excommunication, of course. (Helllooooo.....I'd call them the Priestly Society of Pope Joan, though.  We would want to be as fabricated as she was.)

They may even hope for a pope who would encourage bishops to be generous with the indult for the use of the old ICEL Mass, or for another one almost twenty years later still who, to promote reconciliation, would permit it to any group of the faithful who really wanted it, only on condition that they recognised it as “extraordinary”, of course. (Mark my words, the day is coming when the OF will become the EF and vice versa.)

Perhaps by then Father Gaudium et Spes may be enjoying its fullness at last (fullness is a good word, but full of what?), but be looked back upon as a prophet who knew that the old-ICEL Mass of Paul VI had never really been abrogated. Or perhaps not. Time will tell, of course.

I have a priest-friend who has told me that he will not celebrate the Mass with the new translation.  He says the reason for the translation in the first place was to make the Mass easier to understand.  If we are going to have this new translation, he says, we might as well go back to the Latin.  They will be just as intelligible to the average Catholic in the pew.  My response....OK!!!!  Let's!!!!  I'm all for it!!!!  That would be more in keeping with the "spirit of Vatican Council II" anyhow.  This whole ongoing problem of translation is really quite ridiculous.  We don't need a translation, we need to have celebrations of the Mass in a language that is intelligible by all.

The only thing that libby dibby's and conservatives agree upon is that a hand missal/missalette is a good thing.  So, if we can get along for almost 50 years with a hand missal then why can't we go back?  Or better yet, why bother at all?  The Mass isn't about understanding every last word, but rather, it is for uniting oneself to the mystery that is the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary.  So, if we don't understand audibly, is that so bad, when we can understand with our soul, that a sacrifice is going on?  Participatio Actuosa v. Participatio Activa  is again the real question.  Which is more intregal to the melding of soul and body to the liturgical action.

This is an important issue and one that merits discussion amongst the faithful.  If our priests are going to revolt, we should be faithful to Rome.  Rome is the final answer for matters of discipline, not aging priests who are upset at the fact that they didn't get their way.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

My favorite rendition of the Ave Maria....Schubert....

My most favorite version of the Ave Maria...there really isn't any version, including Mozart's which moves the heart more....this rendition sung by Deanna Durbin, portraying St. Anne at the end of the movie, It's a Date.  Listen and enjoy...

Some important blogs...

Orbis Catholicus Secundus
What Does the Prayer Really Say?
The New Liturgical Movement
Spirit Daily
Te Deum Laudamus
The Liturgical Pimpernel
The Hermeneutic of Continuity
Shrine of the Holy Whapping
Jimmy Akin

I am sure there are more, but here is what I look at religiously every day....

A Wonderful Idea....from over at Fr. Z's Blog....

Henry Edwards writes:

Why not First Vespers of Sunday on Saturday afternoon/evening instead of the anticipated Sunday Masses that have (I think) turned out to detract from the Sunday observation of the Day of the Lord? Think how First Vespers, along with priests hearing confessions, would prepare for Sunday Mass.

This was in response to a statement that Fr. Z made....

Pastors should give emphasis to such public celebrations, particularly the First Vespers of Sundays and solemnities.

I think that Henry is on to something.  Perhaps this could become a viable option to having an anticipated Mass.  There is something inherently incorrect about celebrating Holy Mass for a Sunday of Holy Day of Obligation the day before....it seems like it is a concession for society, rather than society conforming to the life of the Church.

I think that since the Liturgy of the Hours is part of the Official Liturgical acion of the Church.  It is amazing that with all the libby dibby actions, that this has fallen through the cracks.  As it is, praying the Liturgy of the Hours can be done in a very orthodox manner because they have not been corrupted by the libby's....

Finally, I would love to see it tried and see what would happen if we followed Henry's advice.  I wonder if parish life would be enhanced?  One thing it would do is take pressure off of the pastors of parishes.  They could celebrate Solemn Vespers with laymen as ministers and really make a very beautiful service out of it...I know that St. Agnes does this for 2nd Vespers....

It really wouldn't be that hard to put together....definitely doable....groundswell....

From Catholic News Agency...

Vatican not collaborating with Discovery Channel’s exorcism series, says spokesman

 

Vatican City, Jan 8, 2011 / 11:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican's Press Office director Fr. Federico Lombardi has denied claims that there is any official collaboration between the Holy See and the Discovery Channel for a series called “The Exorcist Files.” Publicity for the show was “misleading.”
The network was reputed to be "teaming up with the Vatican" to recreate documented cases of haunting and possession, Inside TV said on Jan. 5. The report included several statements from Discovery Channel president W. Clark Bunting on the difficulty and nature of an apparent agreement with the Vatican.
Bunting claimed that producers were given "access into the Vatican’s case files" and that "the organization’s top exorcists — religious experts who are rarely seen on television" sat for interviews with them.
“The Vatican is an extraordinarily hard place to get access to, but we explained we’re not going to try to tell people what to think," said Bunting.
Fr. Lombardi's comments, however, suggest the publicity for the show has distorted the reality.
In statements to international media on Jan. 8, he stated that no Vatican bodies are working with Discovery.

"I deny that supposed collaboration," he flatly told the Spanish EFE agency on Jan. 8. He called the claimed relationship "totally out of place."
Such news is "misleading," said Fr. Lombardi in a report from Italy's Il Giornale. He denied any involvement with both the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Vatican Television Center, of which he is also director.
"Neither are the Vatican nor the Catholic Church involved in this project," he stated.
Fr. Lombardi said that while the network could have been in contact with individual experts, "every attribution of this kind to the Vatican must be considered inexact."

Caskets handcrafted and blessed by the Trappist Monks of New Melleray Abbey

From the New Melleray Trappists in New Melleray, IA.  Please consider for your needs, but also know that it is a way to support Catholicism in Iowa.

In 1849, Trappist monks from Ireland set out on a journey to America's heartland and embraced the rolling prairie of Iowa, where we founded and built our monastery, New Melleray Abbey.
Today, we bring old world craftsmanship and a sense of sanctity to fine wooden caskets and coffins, available to families in their time of need all over the country.

A Work of Prayer

In the cool silence of the morning, the darkness slowly gives way to the soft light of the morning sun, casting its warmth onto the stone walls and floors. The clang of the bell tower reverberates throughout the grounds, the organ sings its praises as we lift our voices to God, and our prayer life flows into our work life.

A simple casket prayerfully made by monks

The Trappist philosophy calls for us to labor quietly with our hands in support of our life of simplicity, as we strive to observe the call to "pray without ceasing." We've found that many people seem to connect with the simple and honest way we deal with death and burial. Working intimately with the wood, crafting these vessels for each unique child of God who will be buried in them, we feel that casket-making is a natural extension of our sacred work. We are able to live by the work of our own hands–rather than living on donations–while still being able to serve others through what we believe is a work of mercy.

As Cistercians, we follow the ancient monastic Rule of St. Benedict. Our life is one of contemplative prayer, community liturgy, and manual labor.

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Each casket we make is personally blessed by one of our monk-craftsmen, and the name of the deceased is inscribed in our Memorial Book. We then pray for each person buried in a Trappist Casket at a special mass in our church.
Experience New Melleray Abbey and the work of Trappist Caskets firsthand in the video at the top of the page, or call us for a free catalog at 888-652-1032.

Immediate delivery available 1-888-652-1032
All of our caskets are available for immediate shipment and can be delivered in 1-2 business days, depending on your destination. Overnight shipment is also an option.

A Reverence for Wood

Environmental Stewardship

Trappist monks have tenderly worked the earth for centuries, and in it we have beheld God's power and majesty. And while there has been much talk of late about "going green" and being "eco-friendly", our commitment to sustainable practices has always been guided by a spiritual mandate to practice responsible stewardship.

Handcrafted at our monastery

We get to know the personality of each species of tree, the smell of sawdust in the air, and the feel of the wood as its coarseness gently gives way to the work of our hands, and becomes smooth and strong. Crafting all of the caskets in our shop at the monastery of New Melleray Abbey, we use wood mainly from our own award-winning 1200-acre forest, and supplement from other local forests that are managed with similar values. Interestingly, some of our monks are now making caskets with wood from trees they planted when they were younger.

In memory of each person buried in a Trappist Casket, a tree is planted in our award-winning, sustainable forest. This living memorial is our way to honor your loved one and to give back to the earth.

Natural wood and materials

We work with several different types of wood, from oak, cherry, and black walnut, to simple, understated pine. Our caskets and coffins emphasize the natural beauty of the wood, are made from organic materials. A classically upholstered interior, pillow, mattress and adjustable bed is included in each casket, with additional options available for premium models.

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Options for all types of funerals

We make a range of dignified and expertly crafted caskets and coffins, appropriate for a wide range of family and individual needs, such as:

• Traditional European-style old-world coffins
• Premium rectangular caskets
• Simple pine and oak caskets
• Caskets for clergy and deacons
• Child caskets

Call us for a free catalog or to learn more about how we make our caskets at 888-652-1032.

Personalization and Custom Options

From its small beginnings as an acorn to its majesty as a grown tree, from the cool breezes of the forest to the warmth of our workshop, each tree's journey is a different one. It is a privilege to be able to prayerfully spend our time crafting something so pure into something that will honor an individual's unique life on earth.

Custom Engraving

Many people who buy from Trappist Caskets choose to personalize caskets with a loved one's name and significant dates. We can engrave a casket with a religious symbol or image, a prayer, special blessing, poem, or quotation in order to pay further tribute to his or her memory. A casket can even be engraved with your loved one's image.

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Personally blessed by a monk

All caskets are constructed in the prayerful environment of New Melleray Abbey. Each casket is personally blessed by one of the monks, and those who are mourning the loss of a loved one often tell us this blessing is a source of comfort and consolation.

Funeral homes are required by law to accept third-party caskets. We can work directly with your funeral home to ensure smooth and timely delivery for your loved one's funeral service.

Keepsake crosses

A keepsake cross comes with each casket and is intended to be kept by the family of the deceased. The keepsake cross can be personalized to include the name and dates of the deceased, and additional quantities can be ordered upon request. Simple models include an optional raised wooden cross.

Additional premium and custom options

The premium caskets include upholstery upgrades of the pillow and veil and an inside lid panel. Call us for a free catalog or to discuss how your loved one can be honored through your unique customization wishes at 888-652-1032.
We at Trappist Caskets feel very blessed to be able to so humbly provide these caskets, made with the work of our hands and with prayer in our hearts, to bring some small measure of comfort and solace to families in their times of need.