The experience of Champion was beyond my expectations

The more I strive to solve the mysteries of faith, the more mysterious God becomes and the more intoxicated I become on His wonderful, bewildering insanity.

I had to go to Champion. I just had to.

Most people thought I was mad to travel to Wisconsin in January and there was logic to their protests. If someone had told me- even a year ago- that I'd be sitting in a hotel room in Green Bay in mid-winter, I would have said they had taken leave of their senses. Maybe I have taken leave of mine.

Yet, here is the thing. The experience was so profoundly filled with overwhelming peace and grace that I knew it was as close to perfect as anything I have ever gone through. The swirling snow and the biting wind made my hands burn after only a few seconds with wind chills well below zero. Crazy as it sounds, it added to the experience. It made me feel fully alive and I absorbed the graces like the heat from a fireplace.

I know that feelings are not all that matters to faith, but feelings can surprise us. I was prepared for the visual of a place that the Blessed Mother had been to roughly a century and a half ago, but I was totally unprepared to how deeply I actually felt her there. Deeper than Fatima and Lourdes even. Feelings are certainly not facts, and I am absolutely not suggesting that Mary is less present at Fatima and Lourdes than at this place. Far from it!

It did very deeply affect me, and I began searching for explanations. I think I found them. In finding them, I had to chuckle again almost as if to say

"Aha, Lord. You did it again. You really did not what you were doing!"

Let me explain.

We all know that snow is beautiful but that it hinders people from traveling. There is something else snow does. It absorbs sound. This is a scientific fact and the reason it just seems so quiet after a snowfall. Less people make less sound too. I saw easily 100,000 people at Fatima, probably twice that at Lourdes. At Champion? I saw maybe 100 people at Mass but no more than 1/4 of that for the rest of the day.

For long stretches, I was the only 1 praying in the apparition chapel, in a Shrine that is very, very much understated in comparison to the ones I have been to in Lourdes, Fatima, Paris, Lisieux, Chartres and even Washington DC.

This was more like meeting Mom in church. She came just to talk to me. She knew I was troubled.

Never ever, ever, have I so deeply experienced the reality expressed in that epic song;

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Standing...right in front of me. Indeed.

The statue no longer just marked the spot where Mary appeared back then. It was for me, where She is standing right now. It wasn't that heaven needed to speak louder. It was that heaven needed to remove the noise, so I could hear.

That's why I traveled to this frozen tundra in January. Once again proving that God knows best and I don't.

Touching my cross to yet another sacred location to add to Lisbon, Santarem, Aljustrel, Fatima, Albe De Tormes, Avila, Loyola, Lourdes, Paray Le Monial, Lisieux, Nevers, Rue De Bac and Bethlehem, was a joy.

I also got to touch it to the grave of Adele Brise, the visionary. I also got to touch it to a case holding a relic of the True Cross as well as the following hall of fame of saints:

Saint Cecilia, Saint Helena, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Patrick, Saint Barbara, Saint Joseph Bilczewski, Saint Carlo Acutis, Saint Gerard, Saint John Paul II, Saint Barnabas the Apostle, Saint Paul, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Saint James the great, apostle, Saint Andrew the Apostle, Saint Bartholamew the Apostle, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Saint Peter the Apostle, Saint Thomas the Apostle, Saint John the gospel writer, Saint Phillip the apostle, and Saint Luke the gospel writer.

Of course, no visit for me would be complete without another encounter with Saint Therese of Lisieux. Tomorrow is her day.