Dominican Sister Imelda Marie Shaw grew up believing, without a doubt, that Our Lady had appeared in Wisconsin in 1859. She also believes one of her ancestors was healed of a deadly childhood disease at the apparition site and that the little girl’s crutches are part of a permanent display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion (OLC).

“In 2006, I undertook to study the story of Our Lady of Champion again, knowing that it was a significant grace of my spiritual upbringing which should not be lost. I knew it might also contribute some extra meaning with which to propel me into my vocation,” said Sister Imelda, a second-grade teacher with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

Across the country, a growing number of Catholic educators and parents are drawing inspiration from the message of OLC and the life of the apparition visionary, Adele Brise.

Our Lady commissioned Adele to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.” She specified teaching the catechism, how to make the Sign of the Cross and how to approach the sacraments.

Adele lived in a densely wooded region that lacked priests and churches, and the people were losing their faith. She could barely read or write, but she began hiking to homes in the area and teaching the catechism from memory. At age 11, Adele had taken catechism classes in Belgium during preparations for her first Holy Communion and confirmation. Later, she opened St. Mary’s Academy, where religion was taught by a priest using French catechism books.

“In that day and age, teaching the catechism meant committing it to memory,” said Laura Clark, founder of a Catholic hybrid school in Front Royal, Virginia, called Our Lady of Champion Academy. “Committing catechism answers to memory creates a storehouse of reference truths that will serve [children] for a lifetime.”

Though, no matter how “gloriously true” the facts of the faith are, Clark said, they are not inspiring enough to help people through “profound suffering.” For this reason, her school uses a story-based classical curriculum to form children’s moral imaginations so they can recognize the good, true and beautiful and “find repellent the bad, false and ugly.”

Like Clark, Sister Imelda also believes in the power of storytelling, relying heavily on the Gospel story.

“When I simply proclaim the Gospel message with certainty, God speaks to the children and they are summoned to a response,” she said of her second-grade students. “When they are prompted to ask deeper questions, we can go deeper.”

Through the apparition, Colleen Hutt, director of literary evangelization for Well-Read Mom, a Catholic nonprofit for women, realized that good catechesis requires a “credible witness” and the formation of the educator.

For seven years, Hutt co-hosted a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion for members of Well-Read Mom. They hiked 40 miles, praying for their children and families; and at the end, they laid their intentions at Our Lady’s feet.

“I still feel like we live in a wild country. Even though we are not clearing our own fields ... there are wild places in our heart that have not been cultivated for God,” said Hutt.

Ava Camara, a mom of five in Houston, believes homeschooling is the best way to instill the faith in her children.

“Our Lady’s message to teach the children is something [my husband and I] take very seriously in our role as parents and even godparents,” said Camara.

Camara’s shelves are so full of books that she loans them out like a library, but her tools of catechesis also include daily Mass, visiting the elderly, caring for the sick, transcribing Scripture verses, and praying together throughout the day.

Perhaps the unspoken lesson behind the words of Our Lady is just as important as the words themselves.

“Adele heard loud and clear from Our Lord, speaking through Our Lady, that we are cared for in our individual circumstances,” said Sister Imelda.

Adele knew this and was always an example of abandonment to God’s will. In her boarding school, she knelt and prayed beside each student’s bed at night. She led processions to petition Our Lady for the school’s needs. During the Great Peshtigo Fire, she led an all-night procession until a downpour put out the blaze, making her school one of only a handful of properties that survived.

Said Sister Imelda, “I hope that others learning of Adele will be inspired to give themselves to God even in hardship and to trust in the goodness of what he does despite our weaknesses.”