27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes
In this Sunday’s first reading, the Prophet Isaiah sings a song about his friend’s vineyard. That vineyard owner does everything he can for it to yield fruit, but the vines refuse to produce a crop of good grapes, producing “wild grapes” instead. “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done,” he asks. “I will let you know what I mean to do with my vineyard: [I will] take away its hedge… break through its wall… it shall not be pruned or hoed… I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it.” Now notice this detail: the vineyard owner does not directly attack these vines; he takes away the protection and provision he provided them and their ruin results naturally. Isaiah then explains the song and the true reason for his friend’s anger: “The vineyard of the Lord…is the house of Israel…. [The Lord] looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed; for justice, but hark, the outcry!” And the lifetime of Isaiah the Prophet was a tumultuous time for the land of Israel and its people.
On October 9th, 1859, Servant of God Adele Brise, a 28-year-old Belgian immigrant to Door County, Wisconsin, was walking several miles home from Mass, as she did every Sunday. Along the way at a certain spot between a maple tree and a hemlock tree, she saw a “beautiful lady, clothed in dazzling white, with a yellow sash around her waist. Her dress fell to her feet in graceful folds. She had a crown of stars around her head, and her long, golden, wavy hair fell loosely around her shoulders. Such a heavenly light shone around her that Adele could hardly look back at her sweet face.” Adele’s companions could not see the woman, but Adele had seen this silent visitor at this same location twice before. Having discussed those previous sightings with her parents and her priest, this time, from her knees, she asked the question the priest had directed her to ask: “In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?”
The Virgin Mary replied, “I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning, and that is well. But you must do more. Make a general confession, and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners. If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them.” Mary asked, “What are you doing here in idleness… while your companions are working in the vineyard of my Son?” “What more can I do, dear Lady?” asked Adele, weeping. “Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.” Adele replied, “But how shall I teach them who know so little myself?” Mary answered, “Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing. I will help you.” Our Lady then lifted her hands, as though asking for a blessing for those at her feet, and slowly vanished, leaving Adele overwhelmed and prostrate on the ground. Adele went on to catechize the children of the area, walking from homestead to homestead, until she founded a boarding school and a religious community next to the chapel built at the site of the apparition.
Fast forward to the fall of 1871. Northeastern Wisconsin’s Great Peshtigo Fire was the most devastating fire in U.S. history. Several factors had set the stage for it. There had been a long summer drought, heavy logging had left behind piles of pine timbers and brush across the region, farmers were using slash-and-burn methods to clear land for new fields, and two October weather systems converged to produce low humidity and high winds. Once sparked, the resulting firestorm killed between twelve hundred and twenty-four hundred people and burned over 1.2 million acres. People from the surrounding countryside fled to the shrine, where they joined Adele, the sisters, and the children in praying for deliverance. Lifting a statue of Mary, they processed around the sanctuary, turning away from choking smoke, praying the rosary and singing hymns to Jesus and Mary.
Fr. Peter Pernin, who wrote about surviving the fire on the other side of the bay in Peshtigo by standing five and a half hours in a river, later traveled to the shrine, met with Adele, and recorded what happened there that night at the shrine: “After hours of horror and suspense, the heavens sent relief in the form of a downpour. The fervent prayers to the Mother of God were heard. The fire was extinguished, but dawn revealed the ravages wrought by the conflagration. Everything about them was destroyed; miles of desolation everywhere. But the convent, school, and chapel on the holy land consecrated to the Virgin Mary shone like an emerald isle in a sea of ashes. The raging fire licked the outside fencing and left charred scars as mementos. Tongues of fire had reached the chapel fence, and threatened destruction to all within its confines; the fire had not entered the chapel grounds.” The date of their deliverance was October 9th, 1871 — twelve years to the day after Mary spoke to Adele. That apparition of Our Lady at Champion, Wisconsin is the only Church-approved Marian apparition to-date in the United States.
Recall again what Mary said to Adele: “I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning, and that is well. But you must do more.” Mary tells Adele to “Make a general confession and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners.” So she wishes for Adele’s deeper conversion and encourages her to ask God to use her participation in the Holy Eucharist to help convert sinners. Then Mary warns, “If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them.” Another Church-approved Marian apparition occurred in Kibeho, Rwanda from 1981 to 1989 at a Catholic girls’ boarding school. In those visions, Mary also emphasized the great need for conversion and encouraged prayer for sinners’ conversions. At Kibeho on the 1982 feast day of Our Lady’s Assumption, ten to twenty thousand people gathered anticipating a joyful message. But the three visionaries described Mary as weeping or angry and they experienced a long, traumatic vision: a river of blood, people killing one another, severed heads, corpses left unburied, and other disturbing images. In April of 1994, this vision was realized in the Rwandan genocide. As at Champion, God had sent Mary to give twelve years warning of what could come.
I do not share these true past events to make you anxious. Worry is worthless. St. Paul teaches in today’s second reading: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Even if great disaster comes, we need not lose our peace in Christ. But would God allow great disaster to visit us? On one hand, there is much Christian good in our country. On the other hand, we can also plainly see very grave evils. If America suffers another civil or global war, if a cyberattack or solar storm collapses our technology, or if some new plague worse than COVID befalls us, would we have cause to be shocked that God had withdrawn his protecting hand from us? If it is God’s will for us to innocently suffer with and for the wicked like Jesus did for us, then that is for our greater Christian glory.
But as today’s parable and Mary’s apparition messages reflect, God prefers that men would be converted rather than punished. The landowner in Jesus’ parable today who leases out his vineyard manifests extraordinary patience, sending at least seven servants and his son, asking, hoping, that these wicked tenants would do what’s right. Only after many crimes will the vineyard owner (who once again, represents God) “put those wretched men to a wretched death.” What shall we do so that disaster may be avoided? Recall again Mary’s mission for Adele: She wanted her to grow in holiness, to pray and offer her Mass participation for sinners, and to teach the Catholic Faith to the children in this wild country. Do you go to Confession regularly to keep your soul unclogged and turned away from sin? Do you intentionally offer your participation at Mass, asking God to grant graces to others and yourself? Do you help pass on our Faith to the young who will otherwise be lost in this wild country? I believe Heaven would be greatly pleased if you began to do so and you may accomplish far more good than you know.
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