Our Lady of the Green Scapular is the title of a new book about the origins of the Green Scapular devotion, the spread of Marian devotion around the world, and a unique shrine established in America in the 1950s.

This little book is full of fresh research, sensational stories and fascinating personalities. It is a unique blend of local Catholic Americana and global Catholic devotional history.

Our Lady of the Green Scapular. Photo courtesy of Taylor Posey, Publisher, and Irving Book Company.

It traces the origins of the Green Scapular at the Daughters of Charity Motherhouse in Paris, and tells the story of a Wisconsin parish that started out as a dilapidated chicken coop and became the world’s first and only international shrine to Our Lady of the Green Scapular, home to a Marian statue created under the personal direction of Lucia Santos of Fatima.

A collage of photos of the first “Chicken Coop Church” of 1950 (left) and the final shrine church of 1961 (right) built by Father Jerome Mersberger in Monona, Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish archives.

This story also recounts the life and times of Father Jerome Mersbeger, the founding pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Monona, Wisconsin. It reveals how and why the shrine ended up forgotten and defunct after receiving the earnest visits of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, and how the miraculous statue was ultimately lost to history.

Father Jerome Mersberger and the famous shrine statue of Our Lady in Monona, Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish archives (1962).

It is also a tale of revival and restoration, and the development of a new era of Marian devotion and lay piety. The book also documents how the parish commissioned a new statue and has been re-designated a shrine by Bishop Donald Hying of the Diocese of Madison.

The book includes unique archival material from the archives of the Daughters of Charity in Paris, including original hand-written French documents from the 1870s and material that has never before been translated into English.

Book information:

• Paperback, sewn. 5 x 8 in.  xv, 116 pp. Illustrated with color frontispiece, and several black & white photographic reproductions. Original cover illustration by N. Quinn Kelsch.  $24.
• Each new copy of this First Edition is accompanied by an original, deadstock green scapular from the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Monona, Wisconsin.
• Published by Louvain Exiles, an Imprint of Taylor Posey, Publisher. Available for purchase now via Irving Book Company: www.irvingbookcompany.com/pages/books/1435/nico-fassino/

More information at: https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/discovering-the-tale-of-the-world-shrine-of-the-green-scapular/

By Nico Fassino