“Canadian Pilgrimage Honors Martyrs” (Fall 2004)

From Issue No. 95: Catholic Counter-Revolution (Fall 2004)

“Canadian Pilgrimage Honors Martyrs”

This past September, shortly after arriving back at the Seminary to commence the new academic year, nearly 40 priests, brothers and seminarians embarked on a journey to assist at the Society’s Annual Canadian Martyrs’ Shrine Pilgrimage in Midland, Ontario. Overnight bags, hymnals and surplices in tow, the pilgrims loaded up on Thursday night the 23rd, and after 20 hours on the road, arrived at the Society’s Church of the Transfiguration in Toronto for evening Mass and supper. From there, the road-weary travellers went to their respective lodgings, some to a local hotel and others to the homes of generous parishioners.

On Saturday morning, the seminarians, priests and brothers, along with the faithful from the surrounding missions, headed out to Midland for the day’s events. Upon arriving at the pilgrimage site, the seminarians immediately began preparing for a Solemn High Mass in honor of the eight martyrs.

The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Stephen Somerville (see VERBUM #89), the movie set chaplain of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and a friend of the Societ. He was recently suspended by His Eminence Aloysius Cardinal Ambroziac, the Archbishop of Toronto, for “saying Latin Masses for a traditional Catholic splinter group [the SSPX],” a charge which Father is currently appealing. As a result of the national attention in the Canadian media which the suspension drew, the local rector of the Shrine felt compelled to react. He did not allow the Society to use the customary altar over the place where St. Jean de Brebeuf was martyred, so this year, the pilgrims were forced to erect a makeshift altar on the Shrine’s campground.

A picnic lunch followed Mass, during which clerics and faithful mingled and shared stories. The pilgrimage itself was cut short due to time constraints, though the seminarians had enough time to visit the church where relics of the Martyrs are reposed and to take a brief tour of Our Lady Among the Hurons, a re-creation of the colony founded by the Jesuits for the natives.

That Sunday, the Seminary’s pilgrims went to the Society’s Church of the Holy Face in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, where another Solemn High Mass was celebrated, after which the local faithful hosted a buffet lunch in the church basement. The pilgrims then visited nearby Niagara Falls, and afterwards drove back to Toronto for a barbeque hosted by the Toronto faithful before retiring for the night.

On Monday, the travellers heard Mass, took breakfast and made their way back to Winona to recover from the whirlwind weekend and resume the busy schedule of the Seminary.

The Pilgrimage illustrated for the seminarians how effectively a public profession of the Faith can instruct and foster Catholic piety. The faithful, shown the example of so many young men consecrating their lives to the service of the Church, were encouraged to pray more earnestly for vocations in the home, to foster them in their lives and, for some, to emulate the seminarians’ example by testing a vocation themselves.

For the Society, the Pilgrimage manifested the continuing life and vibrancy of Tradition in the face of unmerited persecutions, unjust suspensions and spurious excommunications which the Newchurch hurls at those whose only desire is fidelity to Eternal Rome. Ultimately, the Pilgrimage was an act of Faith, the adoration of Our Lord through His Martyrs, whose blood baptized the land and prepared North America for the subsequent growth of the Catholic Faith in the New World.