Home Sweet (Shrine) Home

Growing in Faith by Holy Places

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Some people move because of job transfers. Others relocate to be close to relatives or to find a climate they like. Still others want to live close to a Catholic shrine.

Three married couples told the Register their edifying relocation reasons: growing in faith through Mary in Wisconsin, partaking in daily adoration close to EWTN in Alabama and beginning a devotion to Divine Mercy in Massachusetts.

 

‘Mary’s Doing’

Steve and Barbara Redmer are among those who have found their ideal location — by a Marian shrine.

Two and a half years ago, they moved clear across Wisconsin, from north of Milwaukee, to their new home in La Crosse, near the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe (GuadalupeShrine.org).

“Our interest in shrines started with Mother Angelica in 1980,” Steve Redmer explained, adding that the family would always make a point to visit shrines while on vacation.

“We found this shrine while we were utilizing the recreational area here, which we love from a scenic point,” said wife Barbara. While in the area, they would get a bite to eat and “would always make an effort to come to the shrine for Mass.”

The Redmers began stopping by more frequently and talked about relocating near the shrine.

“We talked many times about where to locate,” Barbara added, “and we found a lot of communality here, both with our faith and practicing our faith and also in the area itself, as far as recreational possibilities and still being able to keep in contact with our children and their families.”

“We realized it was an important part of our life,” Steve said.

The couple experienced how being near the shrine anchors them to their faith in a place where there are beautiful liturgies and music.

“For us, it was the right decision,” Barbara said. “It’s quite a change, and we love it.”

“It’s almost as if we’ve been led here over much exploration over the past 25 years,” Steve noted.

Steve works at the shrine’s reception desk, greeting visitors, and Barbara puts in volunteer hours doing administrative clerical work and also interacting with visitors, which she finds most important.

In addition to their volunteering at the shrine, Barbara is a registered public health nurse and lactation consultant, and Steve is a teaching adjunct at a small college.

When at the shrine, Barbara loves to keep in touch with visitors at the votive chapel dedicated to apparitions and titles of the Virgin Mary, where she explains to visitors the “apparitions and the blessings that Mary has given us through them.”

“This is Mary’s doing. I have to give the credit to her and to her Son, Jesus,” Barbara said of their relocation. “Being in this environment, you learn so much and see how the Holy Spirit, with Mary’s prompting, works with so many people. They tell us, ‘I don’t know why I’m here, but I saw the sign on the road.’”

That’s when Steve answers, “Mary brought you.”

“We both found our niche here,” Barbara explained. “It’s a great place to be close to Mary and to all the people who live and work here, the priests and brothers who provide the spiritual direction. It’s a blessing to have so many good friends associated with the shrine.”

Living and volunteering here “offers that freedom to really give back to Mary for all those blessings that she always intercedes for our family.”

 

‘Stepping Into Heaven’

John and Olga Byars used to live in Texas, where he worked in Houston for 30 years. In 2009, they moved to Hanceville, Ala., to be near the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament (OLAMShrine.org), the home of Mother Angelica.

John shared their initial motivation. “We’ve been devotees of EWTN since back in the mid-80s,” he said. “We followed EWTN for a long time with no intention of coming here to live. We planned to move to Colorado, literally.”

But when Olga went to a retreat at Casa Maria with the Sister Servants in Irondale, Ala., someone told her she must see the shrine in nearby Hanceville. Back home, she told John he also had to see the magnificent shrine. On the next retreat, he went with her — and they saw the shrine once, then twice.

“This, in my mind’s eye, was what I was always looking for, right next to the shrine, which epitomizes our faith,” he said. Additionally, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament had become a part of the Byars’ devotions, so the Hanceville shrine’s daily adoration has proved to be a blessing.

“Here was EWTN and the Catholic shrine,” John said. “What did we need Colorado for? This seemed a better fit for what we wanted to do. Why not spend the rest of my career and the rest of our lives here?”

It was easily settled, as John’s career was amenable to the move, given modern technology.

Today, the Byars attend daily Mass at the shrine — and they can see it anytime they wish from the window of their home.

“We are devotees of EWTN but parishioners of Sacred Heart Church [in Cullman, Ala]. No matter what shrine you go to, you’re going to be in a parish,” he emphasized.

All in all, the Byars have found their ideal place living by the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

John concluded: “It’s like stepping into heaven and touching God.”

 

‘A Pretty Place, a Holy Place’

Frank and Angie Rizzo grew up in Queens, N.Y., attended Catholic schools and raised six children in the house in which he had always lived.

“We were both quite involved in the church. We loved the church,” Frank Rizzo said. He was a lector, and Angie was an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist. Both were involved parents at the parish school. They now have 11 grandchildren.

When Frank retired after more than 40 years of working in Manhattan, the Rizzos moved to their “dream home” in upstate New York.

“When we retired, we spent more and more time in our faith,” Frank said. Eventually, someone told them about the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Mass. (Marian.org/shrine).

Frank had no clue about the shrine or even what Divine Mercy was about, but the Rizzos decided to visit.

“This was unbelievable,” he recalled with great enthusiasm nine years after that first visit.

“This shrine is a pretty place, a holy place,” he added, noting that, in addition to Mass, the shrine has daily adoration, confession and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy devotion, which Jesus imparted to St. Faustina.

After that first visit, in March 2005, the Rizzos went on a pilgrimage, finding themselves in St. John Paul II’s hometown the day the Holy Father died. Back home, they became regulars at the national shrine devoted to the Divine Mercy, which John Paul II promulgated: He canonized St. Faustina in 2000.

“We were on cloud nine, and we started volunteering there,” Frank said. That soon led to a major step: moving.

“We moved once in our life to our dream house,” he explained. “But we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to go.’ We felt called to whatever God wanted us to do.”

The decision was easy because “the whole opportunity to know the faith was being taught,” he said. “At the shrine, there’s daily confession, orthodox teaching and special devotion to Divine Mercy. Being near a shrine guarantees that. The shrine provides a base of operation for your faith.”

Husband and wife have done extensive volunteering in many ways, and they are also active in two prayer groups.

“What a great feeling to greet pilgrims,” Frank said. “People open their hearts to you because they’re on holy ground.”

“The people it attracts are people who have a unity with you, in terms of love of the Church and love of the faith,” Frank added.

He has much advice for fellow retirees: “There are beautiful shrines all over the country. Why don’t they go there [to live] if they love the Church? They might make a contribution.”

Doing so, they would find that “not only will the Church be helped, but they would be, too, with the joy they would get from giving of themselves. We opened our minds and hearts to God, so we can reinforce people, and they can go home to their families and make a difference.”

Joseph Pronechen is the

Register’s staff writer.