c. 1996 Religion News Service

INDIAN RIVER, Mich. (RNS)-Wielding a tiny shovel, Bill Brillinger carefully chipped snow off steps at the head of the pathway to the Cross in the Woods.

The Manitoba resident was heading home after visiting relatives when he stopped for a look at the five-story wood-and-bronze crucifix billed as the largest in the world.

“It’s big,” Brillinger confirmed as he went about his work. “The sign at the bottom of the steps says they rely on the good will of visitors. I thought I could do better than leaving money.”

Actually, Brillinger and his wife were lucky to see the shrine at all on this brilliantly sunny January morning. On most winter days, the pathway is chained and visitors are discouraged from trekking to the shrine where 200,000 tourists and worshipers come each year during warmer weather.

“Way before I came here, a guy went up there and fell down and sued us, so we don’t try to keep it open,” said the Rev. Donard Paulus, pastor of the Cross in the Woods Catholic parish since 1988.

“There are people all the time who plow through the snow”to stand near the cross.

The shrine is an imposing sight in winter. Snow shrouds nearby trees; the sun, low in the sky, shines its light fully on the face of the bronze figure of the crucified Jesus.

It’s a scene that soon may become more accessible. Paulus hopes to begin work on a $2.4 million church this spring _ the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Indian River shrine. A wall of windows in the 800-seat building will open to the huge crucifix, giving visitors a clear view on the rainiest summer and coldest winter days.

The project will continue the fund-raising that has been a way of life since the parish was founded in 1946.

About half the money is already in hand. The rest must come through donations and memorial offerings for everything from a single brick ($50 donation) to a walk-through baptismal font ($50,000 donation).

It was half a century ago that the bishop of Grand Rapids sent a young priest named Charles Brophy to establish a Catholic parish at Indian River, 20 miles below the Straits of Mackinac.

Brophy was told to name the new parish after St. Augustine, the 4th century European philosopher. But on his way north through the Michigan forests he hatched another idea: He would honor Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian woman known for erecting crosses in the woodlands in the late 1600s to serve as outdoor chapels.

“When I was driving up there I saw the woods and the trees and lakes and I thought, `St. Augustine wouldn’t have too great an appreciation for this,’ ” Brophy recalled recently from Grand Rapids, where he is semi-retired.

Unfortunately, in 1946 Kateri Tekakwitha had not been beatified by the Vatican, a necessary step before a Catholic church could be named for her. But when he reached Indian River, Brophy already was making plans to honor her by placing a new cross in the woods.

The priest arrived with no land, no buildings and only about 15 Catholic families he could call parishioners. His first Masses were celebrated in the township hall.

He set his eye on a 13-acre piece of Burt Lake State Park. Brophy and others persuaded the state to deed the land to Cheboygan County, which then sold it to the new parish for $1.

It’s a transfer that could never happen today, but 50 years ago it went off without a hitch.

“I give Kateri Tekakwitha a lot of credit for it,” Brophy said. “We stole the property from the Indians in the first place and she got it back.”

Non-Catholics provided a good share of the work needed to develop the property that would be home to the crucifix designed by sculptor Marshall Fredericks.

“Volunteers would come up and do anything I asked them to do,” Brophy said. “It was a wonderful feeling. Everybody just seemed to be so excited about it.”

The cross-55 feet high and 22 feet across, fashioned from a single redwood tree-went up in 1954. Fredericks completed the seven-ton bronze figure of Jesus and supervised its placement in 1959.

Wooden benches provide 650 seats for outdoor Masses celebrated at the foot of the cross each summer Sunday, weather permitting. Grottoes along the path honor St. Francis, St. Peregrine, “Madonna of the Highway,” and Kateri Tekakwitha, who was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II.

Summer outdoor Masses will continue, Paulus said. The new church will allow him to conduct the service in sight of the cross in any weather.

The shrine can seem an odd blend of religious site and tourist attraction. The summer gift shop has crucifixes, prayer books, rosaries and medals, but also souvenir rings and sweatshirts.

There is apparently no way to be sure the shrine really has the world’s largest crucifix _ that is, the largest cross bearing the image of Christ.

“It’s the biggest crucifix we know of,” Paulus said. “There are a lot of bigger crosses without the body of Christ on them.”

He acknowledged that some visitors are awed more by the size than the religious significance.

“Some see it, certainly, as only a monument,” Paulus said. “ … But we get a lot of people who are carrying pretty darn big crosses themselves. They come for peace, consolation, hope.”

TJB END HOOGTERP