Marguerite Bourgeoys: the woman who dreamed of a chapel

In the summer of 1653, Marguerite Bourgeoys arrived in Ville- Marie - the small fort that would eventually become Montreal - on board one of the ships carrying settlers to New France. He was 33 years old, originally from Troyes, in the French Champagne, and had been summoned by Governor Paul de Chomedey of Maisonneuve to take over the education of the children of the colony.

What he found when he landed was far from a city. Ville-Marie was a handful of wooden constructions surrounded by a steep, constantly threatened by the Irocheese incursions, and inhabited by just over two hundred people living in a permanent tension between danger and hope. The provisional chapel of the fort was just a shed. There was nothing that could be called a church itself.

Marguerite Bourgeoys dreamed of something different. From its early years in the colony, it designed to build a pilgrimage chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which was a meeting place for all the inhabitants of Ville- Marie and, over time, for the settlers scattered throughout the territory. Not a chapel of the fort, but a chapel on the living rock on the shore of San Lorenzo, open to the river and to the sky.

Twenty years of patience and perseverance

The path between Marguerite's dream and its realization was long and accidental. In 1655, just two years after he arrived, he began gathering materials and mobilizing settlers to the project. But in 1657, changes in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the colony paralyzed the work. Marguerite returned to France to seek support and, on his return in 1659, found that the materials gathered had disappeared. The project was in a dead end.

During the following years, Marguerite dedicated himself to his educational mission - he founded the first schools of the colony - while not abandoning the dream of the chapel. It was not until 1675 that the circumstances allowed the construction to be finally resumed. And in 1678, when Marguerite was 58 years old, the little pilgrimage chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours was finished and blessed.

It had been twenty years since the first attempt. The patience of Marguerite Bourgeoys, his refusal to surrender to the obstacles, is interpreted by those who venerate her as one of the most eloquent expressions of her spiritual character: a woman who stood firm in what she thought was necessary without exhibitionism or precipitation.

"Our Lady of Good Help: help me to do what I have to do every day, no more or less. Show me the patience to wait for your hour without giving up." - Prayer attributed to Marguerite Bourgeoys.

The patron of the sailors of San Lorenzo

The location of the chapel, on the very shore of San Lorenzo in the heart of the harbour district of Ville- Marie, determined from the beginning its vocation as a maritime sanctuary. The sailors who sailed the great river - the vital artery of colonial Canada - began to venerate their patron and protector in Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. Before they left, they asked for their intercession; after they returned well, they put in the chapel the vows of gratitude.

This tradition of the sailor exvotes is one of the most characteristic elements of the chapel. Over the centuries, the walls and ceilings were filled with small miniature ships, models of ships and bergants, hung as an offering of gratitude for a journey over, a storm avoided, a life saved in the waters of the San Lorenzo or the Atlantic. Some of these exvotes are four centuries old and constitute a unique visual documentation of the maritime history of Montreal.

The statue of the Virgin who crowns the tower of the chapel, visible from the river, reinforces this character as a spiritual lighthouse for the navigators: it is a Virgin with arms extended to the water, like welcoming those who come from the sea and blessing those who leave for it.

The fire, the reconstruction and the archaeological crypt

• 1655Marguerite Bourgeoys begins the first project of the chapel.
• 1657The work is interrupted by changes in ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
• 1675The works are finally resumed.
• 1678The chapel is finished and blessed. It is the first stone church in Montreal.
• 1754A fire destroys the chapel. The relicary and the venerated image of the Virgin are rescued from the flames.
• 1771A new chapel is built on the ruins. The relic rescued from the fire is placed on the entrance.
• 1885The chapel is expanded and reformed, giving it substantially the form it has today.
• 1982Pope John Paul II canonizes Marguerite Bourgeoys during his visit to Canada.
• 1997–1998Archaeological excavations under the chapel reveal remains of the original structures of the 17th century, as well as objects and graves of the colonial period.
• 2005The remains of Marguerite Bourgeoys are transferred to the chapel, where they rest on the main altar.

The archaeological excavations of the late 20th century revealed under the current chapel the complete stratigraphy of its history: the foundations of the Marguerite Bourgeoys chapel, destroyed in 1754, and under them remains of even older structures corresponding to the early years of the colony. The archaeological crypt, now visitable, is a literal journey to the depths of Montreal's history.

Among the most significant findings are objects of devotion from the 17th century, ceramic fragments and, above all, the tombs of settlers from the early days of Ville- Marie. These graves, whose occupants lived in the most difficult and dangerous years of the colony, offer a silent and moving witness of the faith that encouraged those men and women who chose to risk their lives in an unknown land.

The venerable imagen of the siglo XVII

The devotional heart of the chapel is the image of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, a polychrome wood sculpture dating from the 17th century and which, according to tradition, was brought from France by Marguerite Bourgeoys. The image represents the Virgin with the Child in her arms, with an expression of serenity that has accompanied generations of faithful in their moments of prayer.

The story of this image is also the history of the dangers that he was able to overcome: it was rescued from the fire of 1754 and placed on the entrance of the reconstructed chapel of 1771, where it remained exposed to the weather for decades. Today it is preserved in proper conditions within the chapel, but the faithful can continue to contemplate their serene face that has presided over almost four centuries of devotion in the heart of Montreal.

The chapel today: three centuries of living memory

Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours is today one of the most visited monuments of the Vieux-Montréal and one of the most significant Marian devotion places in French-speaking Canada. The tourists and pilgrims are mixed in their ships: some come to contemplate the architecture, the exvotes and the archaeological crypt; others come to pray before the image of the Virgin or to visit the altar where the remains of Marguerite Bourgeoys rest.

The chapel museum, installed in the old adjacent convent, allows to follow the history of the place from its origins to the present: the life of Marguerite Bourgeoys, the first years of the colony, the tradition of the marine exvotes, the archaeological findings. It is, together, one of the most complete and emotional introductions to the spiritual history of Canada that can be found in the country.

Every year, in May, the chapel celebrates the Pilgrimage of the Mariners, which perpetuates the tradition of asking for the protection of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours for those who embark on the great rivers and on the ocean. It is an act that, in the Montreal of the twenty-first century, has some anachronistic and eternally true at the same time.