Upstart Protestants may claim America as their turf, but a visit to The Cross in the Woods Shrine shows that Catholicism isn't ready to give up the Holy Ghost just yet. Followers of all religions are invited to visit this striking interdenominational landmark in northern Michigan.
The focal point of the shrine is "The Cross in the Woods,"
really The Crucifix in the Woods since it has Jesus nailed to it. It's a hard thing to miss. The crucifix stands 55 feet tall and weighs 21 tons (a rival crucifix in Bardstown, KY, towers five feet higher -- but it's not as pretty) and is carved from a single redwood tree. Jesus is 7-tons of bronze and stretches 28 feet from spiky thorns to holy toes. The Cross in the Woods was created by American sculptor Marshall Fredericks.
Since our visit, it's reported that organ and bell music is no longer piped over the Shrine grounds. Perhaps the quiet lends an even more reverential air at the cancer saint monument (the Shrine has tidied up St. Peregrine's bloody bandage), the Our Lady of The Highway Shrine, and the All Faiths Gift Shoppe.
The Shrine includes a Nun Doll Museum -- the world's largest. Donators to the Museum have received official blessings from the Pope: "His holiness Pope John Paul II Vicar of Jesus Christ imparts his Apostolic Benediction upon Sally and Wallace Rogalski for their undertaking in promoting vocations to the Priesthood and Religious life through the world famous Catholic Shrine Doll Museum, 1988." Walk through this place and you can't help grinning when you see many of your sister's old dolls dressed up as nuns. The summer camp group on our tour couldn't help it either. "Hey, it's Father Ken!" "Settle down." "Where's the flying nun at?" "I told you -- settle down now or you go outside."
July 2004: There is a museum about the life and work of Marshall Fredericks on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University, Saginaw, Michigan. According to Geoffery Haney, a docent there, "We have the plaster original [for the Christ figure] on display in our museum -- all 28 feet of it --plus hundred of Mr. Fredericks sculptures. Mr. Fredericks was commissioned by that church in Indian River to the sum of 38,000
dollars. The church was not expecting such a huge piece, but Mr. Fredericks contributed an additional 125,000 dollars to make it the largest in the world at that time in 1954."
On St. Patricks Day 2004, the Cross in the Woods celebrated its 50th anniversary.
