The Cross in the Woods

In northern Michigan there is a shrine called "Cross in the Woods." I invite you to visit the web site (www.crossinthewoods.com) for this shrine as we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I have an interesting connection to that shrine that comes to mind for me today. 

Back in the summer of 1962 after I had completed my freshman year at St. Joseph Seminary, my family undertook a camping trip that was supposed to find us pitching our tent and parking our trailer at Luddington, Michigan. My father's vacation always coincided with the week following Independence Day as the company he worked for shut down its operation during that week. We left early on a Saturday morning and arrived in Luddington after having skirted the southern boundaries of Lake Michigan. The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday found us enjoying this campsite. However, my parents were not all that enthralled with the surroundings. If memory serves, it was a little too noisy and a little too commercialized for their tastes. So they decided that we would continue to circle Lake Michigan. We continued driving north toward Burt Lake and its campgrounds. As we drew closer, highway billboards proclaimed news of the shrine of the Cross in the Woods, billed as the largest crucifix in the world. My brothers and sisters and I prevailed upon our parents to visit this shrine. The day is recorded in our home movies.

Fast forward to the 1980's. By this time I have completed my education and have been ordained a Franciscan priest. I was serving at the time as the Secretary of Sacred Heart Province. Imagine my surprise when we received a request from the bishop of the Gaylord, Michigan diocese to serve as the staff of the Shrine of the Cross in the Woods. We already staffed several parishes in the diocese and completed the necessary working agreement with the bishop. Franciscans of my province would now serve as the pastoral staff of the shrine and the parish which accompanied it. 

In the 1990's, I was assigned to serve on our Mission Band, a group of friars that engaged in preaching retreats and parish missions throughout the United States. The pastor of Cross in the Woods invited me to preach the parish mission, a task that I willingly undertook. As I preached the mission sermons that week, I could not help but think of the more than thirty years that had passed since I first visited the shrine. Of course, I never dreamed that such a coincidence would happen. 

Franciscans still serve as the pastoral staff for this shrine which celebrates its "Titular Feast" today. If this year is like others, this day will mark one of the busiest days of the Shrine as well as the end of the tourist season. The members of the Chaldean rite will visit today as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is their special feast day.

The cross stands as a powerful symbol of the nature of redemptive suffering, something close to the hearts of all CUSANS. Let us always strive to embrace the cross of Jesus by which we were saved from our sins and guaranteed life eternal.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator