The Pilgrims Page: The “Grasshopper” Shrine and the Cathedral Shrine of St. Paul

This month we head west to St. Paul, Minn. but first a stop off at the “Grasshopper” chapel, officially called Assumption Chapel. Just outside of Cold Spring, Minn. sits a tiny chapel upon a hill. The chapel was built in 1877 as a plea to the Blessed Virgin Mary for relief from the swarms of the Rocky Mountain locusts, a giant grasshopper that was destroying crops. They could decimate a farmer’s whole field in three days.

The grasshoppers ate almost anything; crops, fruit trees, wooden handles on tools, and even cloth. One priest related the story of the altar servers having to sweep them off the altar before Mass and then had to swat the bugs away from the priest’s vestment throughout Mass. Laura Ingalls Wilder gave an eyewitness of how she couldn’t even keep them out of the milk pail while milking a cow. The critters got so bad that the priests proposed the idea of vowing to make a biannual procession and pilgrimages on two specific days attributed to German saints who helped the people during the Middle Ages with a similar problem. Other parishes agreed.

Once the solemn proposal was made and plans to start the processions began, a strong northwest wind blew the locusts out of the region. However, they came back in 1870 with a vengeance. This time, the people prayed to Our Lady and vowed to build her a chapel to get rid the grasshoppers completely. Construction on the chapel began July 16, 1877. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that the grasshoppers left suddenly that same month.

The next stop is the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul Minn. Father Galtier first built a chapel on the bluffs of the Mississippi in 1841, naming it after the apostle. Later, it was determined a better spot was needed. The cornerstone for the current church was laid in 1907. The interior of the cathedral is a beautiful catechesis of the faith in stone, paint, and glass. Take a walk behind the sanctuary to see the “Shrine of all Nations.”

A patron saint is represented for each of the immigrant groups who helped build this church. The marble behind each saint came from the respective countries as well. The French shrine contains a sculpture of St. Therese of Lisieux. As you stand in front of it, look left at the wall and you’ll see a plaque mounted to a stone. This large stone was taken from the prison that held St. Joan of Arc in Rouen, France. The chapel with the sculpture of Our Lady of Victory is an exact replica of the original in Paris. It was that sculpture that an early missionary priest prayed in front of before being sent to the United States. He commissioned a copy of it when he became the Bishop of St. Paul.

Finally, one of the most recognizable sculptures in the church is an exact replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta. This piece was made with the cast mold of the original. You can’t get very close to the original in Rome, but you can go right up to this one. Visiting this cathedral places you among other notable visitors to this church; Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) came in 1936, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) came in 1982. 

If you have time, visit the James Hill house across the street. He made his fortune on railroads and built a splendid mansion. His wife, Mary Hill, was a devout Irish Catholic who supported the building of the Cathedral and other Catholic institutions, so much so, that the archdiocese named a school after her in 1954. The Cathedral was designated a shrine in 2009, which denotes it as a place of pilgrimage. For you armchair pilgrims and for anyone who plans on visiting in person, there is a wonderful virtual tour series on the St. Paul Cathedral available at www.stpaulcathedraltour.com.