Lipa Comes to Necedah

Abstract

In the late summer and fall of 1950, Juliet Hughes, a self-appointed promoter of a Marian apparition at Lipa in the Philippines, joined the crowds assembling for apparitions of the Virgin in Necedah, Wisconsin. The story of Hughes’ visits to Necedah—including a miraculous rose petal she brought from Lipa as well as her meetings with visionary Mary Ann Van Hoof and a number of Necedah pilgrims—highlights the importance of person-to-person encounters at an active apparition site. Indeed, the events described here suggest that when miraculous objects and miracle stories are shared among various sites, these encounters can trigger powerful experiences of signs that enable devotees to perceive these apparitions as testifying to the same transcendent reality. These experiences function as building blocks for a global apparition network.