Pilgrimage Holy Door and Sunday Mass

Pilgrims are greeted by Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) students from all over Canada. A young woman from Calgary made us welcome. Check out Catholic Christian Outreach.

Following a walk through the meditation garden which focusses prayer on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we ascended the specially-built Holy Door entrance platform.  This platform will be removed at the end of 2014 and the holy door sealed.  Msgr Bélanger, the Cathedral Pastor, told us that the holy door would not likely be opened again until the Holy Year of 2025 when it is hoped there will be further progress in Christians unity especially with the Orthodox churches.

Msgr. Belanger has entered a copy of STM Mass Book used at the first ever Ordinariate Mass in the cathedral chapel of St. Louis into the Notre-Dame Cathedral official archive of the 350the Jubilee.  It is a symbol of unity and a sign of hope for Christian and Canadian unity. The "two solitudes" meet in Christ.

Judy Anderson and Jane Hodgins after Sunday Mass at the high altar of Notre-Dame.  Masses are well attended by young people and pilgrims from around the world. We met people from the USA, Western Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa. 

There is pilgrimage information in French and Spanish as well as English and I was told there are quite a number of pilgrims from Mexico, Central and South America as well.

The sanctuary of Notre-Dame is theology in art.  The altar is surrounded by the apostles and patrons of the cathedral including St. Louis (King of France) along with the angels and our risen, Jesus Christ, at the apex.  It is perhaps my favourite baroque sanctuary.

Fellow pilgrims Sarah and Jacquot from Madonna House joined us for Sunday lunch and then to the shrine of Blessed Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin one of the nine co-founders of the Church in Canada and of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, the first hospital in North American. 

               Blessed Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustine, O.S.A.

(3 May 1632 – 8 May 1668)