This year, on the feast day of the Archangel Michael, we prayed novena prayers directed to the saint in front of a powerful, if weather-worn and neglected, statue along River Road in Youngstown, New York.
That is, the mighty (and this time of year, increasingly chilly) Niagara River.
Below a hill and across a meadow, on the river itself, is the tiny Stella Niagara Chapel, often called the “Little Chapel” or Chapel of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
It’s a gorgeous spot with an interesting—and at one point, miraculous—past that becomes relevant as the period between the archangel’s feast and the onset of autumn brings us toward winter.
That history (quickly):
The property known as Stella Niagara was acquired by the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity around 1907. On that land stood (or was adapted from) an older stone or block building, reputed to predate the War of 1812, though the precise early history is obscure. In 1908, the chapel was erected under the name Chapel of the Sacred Heart (or Our Lady of the Sacred Heart), in a Gothic‐inspired style, and underwent a renovation in 1964.
What makes it remarkable is that, in a particularly intense ice jam on the river in 1955, this little riverside chapel was surrounded by massive slabs of ice; while many neighboring structures succumbed to damage or destruction, the chapel was spared from catastrophe.
Here’s an idea of that ice jam’s ferocity.
It wiped out buildings along the shore.
A previous one in 1938 was similarly ferocious.
It tore down an international bridge!
The severity led some authorities to consider drastic remedies; Colonel Wendell P. Trower of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was quoted in contemporary reporting as saying that neither dynamiting nor bombing would likely succeed in breaking the jam.
Anyway, the chapel seemed clearly doomed. It’s right there on the banks.
By March, ice had already surrounded the chapel’s immediate area. The frozen river advanced toward the building, coming very close to its walls.
Despite the encroachment, the ice reportedly stopped just short of touching the chapel, in some retellings leaving only inches to spare.
Locals and the sisters assert that the nuns had invoked the intercession of saints (notably St. Anthony), sprinkled Holy Water along the perimeter, and stood in prayer above the hill, watching and petitioning for protection.
The chapel survived.
After the miracle, it was rededicated as a shrine—Our Lady of the Angels—bringing us back full circle to that statue above.
A true miracle?
When you go there, the feeling tells that story.
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