NOTE: Enjoy this excerpt from The American Daily Reader, by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman. To order the complete volume, visit the CatholicVote store today!
Legend says the first European to visit Holy Hill was Father Jacques Marquette. It’s believed (but not verified) that the famous French missionary climbed the miniature Wisconsin mountain in 1673 on his way home from exploring the Mississippi River Valley.
Nearly two centuries later, a man haunted by some past misdeed heard of the hill and Marquette’s alleged climb. As penance, the man—Francois Soubrio—traveled from Quebec to southeast Wisconsin, hiked up the 1,350-foot hill, and decided to stay.
Eventually, local farmers befriended Soubrio, who had been living on the hill as a hermit. The farmers helped him build a home and chapel there in 1863. Twelve years later, in 1875, the men erected the Stations of the Cross along the hillside. Around the same time, the hill began acquiring a reputation for mysterious healings: The sick and the lame who climbed it in faith became well and walked. Not surprisingly, the number of pilgrims to the chapel grew.
In 1880, to accommodate those pilgrims, the Diocese of Milwaukee began constructing a large new shrine on the now officially named Holy Hill. Twenty-six years later, in 1906, they recruited the Discalced Carmelites to run the shrine. The Carmelites built an inn and retreat center on the mountain, then tore down the old shrine to make way for a new one. They laid the cornerstone for the current Holy Hill National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians on August 22, 1926.
Today, nearly a century later, the Shrine welcomes 500,000 pilgrims annually. Some come for the view and the glimpses it affords of Milwaukee’s skyline. Others come to make a retreat or marvel at the Romanesque-Revival basilica. Others still come for healing, hoping that a climb up Marquette’s mountain will reward them as it has so many others, with some miraculous cure or spiritual grace. It’s because of those last pilgrims that Holy Hill is sometimes called by another name: Miracle Hill.
