Eric Scheske views his diocese with a modest degree of disapproval. He isn't favorably impressed with its intellectual, spiritual, material, or administrative rigor. He has, with good reason, occasionally mentioned that he lives in an "arid" Catholic region of the world. At the same time, he is painfully aware that the problem might rest in his own soul more than anywhere. It's hard to say.
But all that may have changed a bit this morning.
A flier sent from his children's school said the Our Lady of the Millennium statue would be at St. Anne's Chapel in the small village of Lawton, Michigan. The statue is the largest mobile statue of Mary in the world. The flier also said there would be Latin Masses. Eric, who converted in 1991, had never been to a Latin Mass, so he decided to take the trip, even though he had never heard of "St. Anne's Chapel" and it didn't show up at Mass Times Dot Com.
After getting lost, he finally found the spot on an isolated county road. A man in a golf shirt told him to park across the street. Eric got out and saw an ordinary farm house along the road and the chapel about 300 yards behind it, in a field. Typical farm country, the type Eric grew up around (cornfields bordered two sides of the house where he grew up).
But no statue. "It didn't arrive yet," the golf-shirted man told him. "Wasn't it supposed to get here a week ago?" Eric asked, his boys visibly disappointed. "Yup, it's been a source of frustration."
Eric and his boys started to walk to the chapel anyway. After walking about twenty yards, a brother in a golf cart pulled up and gave them a ride. As they rode to the chapel, they passed various "holy spots" (Eric's term) with statues and other holy paraphernalia. They also passed the Stations of the Cross, a make-shift outdoor altar, and a handful of cassocked men. No one else was out there. They got to the chapel: an open-air log structure with an elaborate altar inside and a bell tower and bronze 15-foot crucifix outside.
Eric was visibly, though favorably, confused. When a man who introduced himself as Fr. Dennis asked if he had any questions, Eric said, "Yeah, well." He paused for a second while searching for the right words and then gave up, simply asking, "What is this place?"
Fr. Dennis smiled and explained:
The place is owned by the Society of St. John Cantius, an order founded in 1998. In 1999, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago approved their statutes, and in 2003 George approved the Society's Spiritual Directory and Book of Customs. The Society is dedicated to the restoration of the sacred.
The 96-acre lot in Lawton that houses St. Anne's Chapel was donated to them 2001. The Society's members cleared the land themselves and have been building a retreat center. They completed St. Anne's Chapel in 2003. The public is welcome to attend their Masses and to pray there. The Chapel isn't opened all the time, since no one from the Society permanently resides there, but they hope that changes shortly.
It's hard to explain the experience of attending Mass at St. Anne's Chapel. It would be sentimental to say it was a "moving" or "holy" experience. It wasn't. But it was a solid experience, though it's difficult to articulate the reasons.
The retreat is still mostly a field: grass and weeds. The gift shop is a big tent. The land isn't terribly attractive; in fact, it's less attractive than the vineyards found near it (Lawton is in Michigan's wine country).
But the place already seems to rustle with something: an "aura," the New Agers might call it; the "supernatural," in the words of X-Filers. We tend to think it's sanctity, and it's in the air. It was present on that golf cart; it was present in the Latin Mass (which was said for the benefit of three members of the Order and fewer than twenty lay worshippers).
It's now present in Eric's diocese, and he's a little excited.
