Our Lady of the Cape Shrine

Cap-de-la-Madeleine, on the St. Lawrence

The shrine stands at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, a former town merged into Trois-Rivières in 2002, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, near the mouth of the Saint-Maurice River, roughly halfway between Quebec City and Montreal.^[3] The region belongs to the Diocese of Trois-Rivières. The "cape" that gave the place its name is a slight promontory overlooking the river, on which one of the oldest parishes of New France was established in the 17th century.

A parish born with New France

Cap-de-la-Madeleine is an early colonial settlement: a first wooden chapel was raised there around 1659, and the parish of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine was erected shortly afterwards, in 1661.^[4] It is one of the oldest still-living parishes of French Canada. Like Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, downstream on the St. Lawrence, Our Lady of the Cape is thus no great transplanted medieval pilgrimage, but a settlers' shrine, whose devotion grew at the very pace of colonisation.

Why the Most Holy Rosary?

Devotion to the Rosary is old at the Cape: as early as 1694, the first resident parish priest, Father Paul Vachon, instituted the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary there.^[5] This old root explains all that followed: when, in the 19th century, prayer of the beads was revived by Father Désilets, it found ground prepared for two centuries. The shrine would thus become, in the minds of its promoters, the Canadian home of Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.

The bishop's wish and the stone church (1717-1720)

The wooden chapel having grown too fragile, Msgr de Saint-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec, expressed in 1714 the wish that the parishioners build a true stone church.^[6] The building, raised in fieldstones gathered on the spot, was constructed from 1717 to 1720 and opened for worship on 22 July 1720, feast of Saint Mary Magdalene.^[7] A modest nave some twenty metres long, this second parish church is today called the Old Shrine (or Little Shrine): it is one of the oldest stone churches preserved intact in Canada, and Mass is still celebrated there.^[8]

The 1854 statue

Above the altar of the Old Shrine stands the venerated statue of Our Lady of the Cape: a simply crafted Madonna, given to the church by a parishioner in 1854, the very year Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.^[9] It is this statue — and no apparition — that lies at the heart of the site's supernatural history: it is the one crowned in 1904 and 1954, and before it the prodigy of the eyes took place in 1888.

The man through whom the shrine took flight is Father Luc Désilets (1832-1888), parish priest of Cap-de-la-Madeleine from 1864 to 1888.^[10] Struck, according to tradition, by the sight of a pig chewing an abandoned rosary — an image of the contempt into which Marian prayer had fallen — he set out in 1867 to rekindle devotion to the Rosary in his parish, reactivating the old 1694 Confraternity.^[11] It is this rediscovered fervour of the beads that forms the spiritual backdrop of the two events that made the Cape famous: without Rosary prayer, neither the ice bridge nor Désilets' vow can be understood.

A winter too mild

In the late 1870s, the growing parish decided to build a new, larger church. The project required hauling stone from the south shore of the St. Lawrence, which could only be done in winter, over the river ice. But the winter of 1878-1879 was exceptionally mild: the river refused to freeze, and the works threatened to stall.^[12]

Désilets' vow and the "Bridge of the Rosaries"

Faced with the deadlock, Father Désilets made a vow: if the Virgin granted the needed ice bridge, he would keep the old stone church and consecrate it to her instead of demolishing it.^[13] He asked his parishioners to pray the Rosary. Against all expectation, in mid-March an ice jam formed: drifting floes piled up and froze together into a practicable bridge across the river, from 19 March (feast of Saint Joseph) to 25 March (feast of the Annunciation).^[14] During those few days, the parishioners hauled across the ice the stones needed for the new church. This unlikely bridge was nicknamed the "Bridge of the Rosaries", in memory of the rosaries prayed to obtain it.^[15]

The third church and the vow kept

The third parish church — the great church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine — was built from 18 June 1879 with these stones, and blessed on 3 October 1880.^[16] True to his promise, Désilets did not demolish the old stone shrine: he reserved it for the Virgin. The little 1720 building, saved by the vow, was to become, eight years later, the Cape's first Marian shrine.

The dedication of 22 June 1888

On 22 June 1888, the old stone shrine was solemnly dedicated to the Virgin, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary: this is the official birth certificate of the Marian shrine of Our Lady of the Cape.^[17] The ceremony was presided over by the Franciscan Frédéric Janssoone, a missionary come from the Holy Land, then Commissary of the Holy Land in Canada and a great promoter of pilgrimage.^[18]

The prodigy of the eyes

That very evening of the dedication, three men remained in prayer before the statue: Father Luc Désilets, Father Frédéric Janssoone and an infirm parishioner, Pierre Lacroix. According to their concurring statements, the statue — whose eyes are normally lowered — opened its eyes and fixed its gaze straight ahead for several minutes.^[19] The event, remembered as the "prodigy of the eyes", is not an apparition in the strict sense; the Church has not formally defined it as a miracle, but it was carefully recorded by the witnesses and lastingly founded the site's reputation.^[20]

Father Frédéric left a precise account of it in La Presse of 22 May 1897:

"The statue, whose eyes are entirely lowered, had its eyes wide open; the Virgin's gaze was fixed. Her eyes were dark, well formed and in full harmony with the whole face. The Virgin's gaze was that of a living person; it had an expression of severity, mingled with sadness." — Father Frédéric Janssoone, testimony published in 1897^[21]

"Good Father Frédéric"

Father Frédéric Janssoone (1838-1916), a Franciscan of Flemish birth, was the tireless organiser of the budding pilgrimage: he made the Cape known through his writings, laid out a Way of the Cross and drew the first great crowds.^[22] Popularly called "Good Father Frédéric", he was beatified by John Paul II on 25 September 1988.^[23] His life and holiness belong to a dossier of their own; retained here is only his role as builder of the shrine.

Custodians since 1902

In 1902, the shrine was entrusted to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), who have been its custodians ever since.^[24] It is they who, throughout the 20th century, gave the Cape its present face: laying out the grounds, organising the great pilgrimages, building the basilica. Their presence definitively inscribed the site in the great Marian tradition of their congregation, devoted to the Immaculate.

The pontifical coronations (1904, 1954)

Rome's consecration of the shrine came through the pontifical coronation of the statue — the act by which the Church officially recognises the devotion attached to an image. A first coronation took place in 1904, by a delegate of Pope Saint Pius X.^[25] A second coronation followed in 1954, a Marian year and the centenary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.^[26] These two acts sealed the Cape's status as one of the high Marian places of North America.

Adrien Dufresne and "dombellotisme"

With pilgrims flocking in, the 1880 parish church no longer sufficed. A great basilica was built from 1954 to 1964 to the plans of Quebec architect Adrien Dufresne (1904-1983).^[27] Dufresne was the main introducer into Quebec of "dombellotisme", the movement inspired by the monk-architect Dom Paul Bellot (1876-1944) and characterised by geometric ornament, parabolic arches and the expressiveness of raw materials.^[28] The shrine had been raised to the rank of minor basilica as early as 1954, even before the building was completed.^[29]

An octagonal vessel seating over 1,600

The basilica is a vast octagon flanked by four transept arms, crowned with a pyramidal copper roof and pierced by a monumental portal set within a great parabolic arch.^[30] It can hold more than 1,600 faithful.^[31] Its spire rises about 78 metres (258 feet) from the ground to the cross, and the interior vault peaks at some 38 metres (125 feet); a statue of Mary about 7 metres (24 feet) high adorns the façade.^[32]

The stained glass of Jan Tillemans

Inside, light pours through immense stained-glass windows by the Dutch master glazier Jan Tillemans, himself an Oblate. After spending the year 1957 absorbing the Cape's light, he devoted a decade to composing these great stylised paintings in light, which cover the walls of the octagon.^[33]

The Casavant organ and the décor

The basilica houses a great Casavant organ (Opus 2679, 1964), whose façade pipes are arranged in the shape of a maple leaf — a Canadian symbol — and which has over 5,400 pipes.^[34] The décor combines green marble and gilding, in the geometric sobriety Dufresne intended. The whole makes the basilica one of the great witnesses of Quebec's modern religious architecture, now protected within a heritage site.^[35]

Around the two churches, the Oblates laid out a vast devotional park stepping down from the basilica to the river, dotted with monuments.

The Rosary Way and the Way of the Cross

In 1906, the Oblates traced a Rosary Way lined with bronze statues depicting the fifteen traditional mysteries.^[36] The Way of the Cross, for its part, had been established in the late 19th century by Father Frédéric Janssoone, who wanted to offer pilgrims a path of the Passion.^[37]

The Bridge of the Rosaries and Lake Sainte-Marie

At the heart of the gardens, a stone Bridge of the Rosaries was erected in 1924 to commemorate the 1879 ice-bridge miracle; it spans a pool and remains one of the site's emblems.^[38] In the late 1930s, the Oblates dug Lake Sainte-Marie, extending the pilgrims' walk in a setting of recollection.^[39]

A national shrine of Canada

Our Lady of the Cape is one of Canada's great national shrines and one of North America's foremost Marian pilgrimage sites.^[40] The pilgrimage season runs from May to October, with two peaks: the feast of the Assumption, on 15 August, the busiest time of the year, and the feast of the Most Holy Rosary, in early October.^[41]

Attendance

The shrine long drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year: over 480,000 in 1999, and still some 290,000 visitors in 2009.^[42] Though attendance has declined with Quebec's dechristianisation, the Cape remains a living heart of Marian devotion and Rosary prayer.

The visit of John Paul II (1984)

On 10 September 1984, during his journey to Canada, Pope John Paul II came on pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Cape, where he was greeted by a crowd estimated at 75,000 people.^[43] Four years later, the same pope beatified Father Frédéric Janssoone (25 September 1988), thus binding the shrine's memory definitively to that of its great apostle.^[44]

The Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape belongs to the family of Ignispedia's great Marian shrines. For the spirituality of the beads at the heart of this place, see what the saints say about the Rosary and how to grow in the Rosary; for the dogma honoured by the 1854 statue, see the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. For other comparable pilgrimage sites, see in particular the other great Quebec shrine, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, as well as La Vang (Vietnam), Mariazell (Austria) and Kibeho (Rwanda).