Monument of Our Lady of the Assumption (Rogersville)

Marian devotion

In Rogersville, New Brunswick, a pilgrimage compound keeps under a mosaic of the Assumption the tomb of the priest that made that the national day of the Acadians.

What exactly is it?

It's not a statue or a column, as sometimes described. It's a Pilgrimage with chapel: a main building that houses a capital where the remains of Monsignor Marcel- François Richard restunder a great mosaic of the Virgin of Asunción. It is completed by an entry arch raised in 1955 for the two-hundredth anniversary of Deportation, an outer crucis track, dos grutas - from Lourdes and Fatima - a statue of Richard receiving a chalice from the hands of Pius X and a small museum.

Documented history

The first monument had it built Marcel-François Richard in 1912to cover the image of the Virgin. That building burned down in 1969.and the current one rose in 1972 by the impulse of Father Alban Albert. It is appropriate to set these dates well, because others circulate: 1885 is the year of Richard's arrival and the foundation of the parish, not of the monument.

Marcel-François Richard (Saint-Louis-de-Kent, April 9, 1847 - Rogersville, June 18, 1915), ordered in 1870, founded the parishes of Acadieville and Rogersville. He was the man who at the National Acadian Convention of Memramcook, in July 1881, defended the August 15, the Assumptionagainst 24 June, the proposal of which was imposed; and in the one of Miscouche, in 1884, it was also part of the adoption of the acadian flag. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography He describes it as "the greatest acadian nationalist of the 19th century." It is buried under the monument it has built, and from the 5 March 2004 is a Canadian National Historical Character.

Two captures on him. The appeal of "father of the Acadia" is popular, not an official title. Y there is no evidence that cause of beatification has been openedHe should not be called the Servant of God.

The town takes its name from Bishop James Rogers of Chatham, around 1881. The parish church of Saint-François-de-Sales, of wood and neo-Gothic, built in 1888, has been a local historical place since November 26, 2007.

The Trapans: a story that just closed

Rogersville was for more than a century a monastic place. The Abbey of Notre-Dame-du-Calvaireof Cistercian monks of strict observance, was founded on 1902, y la abadía de Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomptionof Trapian nuns, in 1904.

They're both closed. The one of the monks closed in May 2024, after a hundred and twenty-two years, when there were three religious; it is no longer in the list of the order. The nuns also announced their final closure, with a Thanksgiving celebration on 1 September 2024. To record this matters: whoever goes to Rogersville today will not find the monastic community that describes the ancient guides.

Additional source: Lieux patrimoniaux du Canada — Monument national Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption.

Qué se venera y quaé significa

Mary is honoured in her Asunción, patron of the Acadian people by decision of the 1881 convention, approved by the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Halifax on 16 September of that year. This monument is the place where that choice was made stone, and where the one who defended it rests.

Es intercession, non-worship: God is worshipped, and Mary is worshipped by asking to intercede, which always leads to Christ. The Assumption is not an award to a creature, but the promise made in it of what is expected for all.

Discernment and limits of this sheet

National monument and pilgrimage place, without a decree of canonical erection as a sanctuary; provincial recognition of 2004 - and not of 1985, as said -. The early monument was 1912 and the current one was 1972, following the 1969 fire. The entry arc He's not standing anymore. since 5 May 2026. There is no cause for the beatification of Monsignor Richard. The local Trapian communities have been closed since 2024. The material and height of the monument are not documented and are not invented here.

This page does not present objects, images or practices as autonomous powers or transform a devotional tradition into historical or scientific certainty.

Location on the map

El marcador señala el monumento nacional de Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, en la ruta 126 de Rogersville, Nuevo Brunswick (Canadá), hoy integrado en el municipio de Nouvelle-Arcadie.

Main source

Historic Sites of Canada y Dictionary of Canadian Biography — Marcel-François Richard. Editorial consultation: 19 September 2026.

Para meditar y orar

Our Lady asunta to heaven, hope of those who have no land of their own: teach us to put the heart where the exile does not reach it. It gives rest to those who spent their lives holding the faith and tongue of their people, and to us, the constancy of continuing what others began. By Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Image and visual documentation