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Oratoire St-Joseph Review

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Oratoire St-Joseph

Address: 3800 chemin Queen Mary, Côte-des-Neiges, Montréal, QC | Map It
Phone: 514/733-8211
www.saint-joseph.org

St. Joseph's Oratory

Category: Religious Sites
Location: Mont-Royal

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Fodor's Review:

Two million people from all over North America and beyond visit St. Joseph's Oratory yearly. The most devout Catholics climb the 99 steps to its front door on their knees. It is the world's largest and most popular shrine dedicated to the earthly father of Jesus (Canada's patron saint), and it's all the work of a man named Brother André Besette (1845-1937). The oratory and its extensive gardens dominate Mont-Royal's northwestern slope. Its octagonal copper dome—one of the largest in the world—can be seen from miles away in all directions. Under that dome, the interior of the main church is equally grand, but its austerity is almost frigid. The best time to visit it is on Sunday for the 11 AM solemn mass, when the sanctuary is brightly lighted and the sweet voices of Les Petits Chanteurs de Mont-Royal—the city's best boys' choir—fill the nave with music.

The crypt is shabbier than its big brother upstairs but more welcoming. In a long, narrow room behind the crypt, 10,000 votive candles glitter before a dozen carved murals extolling the virtues of St. Joseph; the walls are hung with crutches discarded by those said to have been cured. Just beyond is the simple tomb of Brother André, who was beatified in 1982. His preserved heart is displayed in a glass case upstairs in one of the several layers of galleries sandwiched between the crypt and the main church.

High on the mountain, east of the main church, is a beautiful garden commemorating the Passion of Christ, with life-size representations of the 14 traditional stations of the cross. On the west side of the church is Brother André's original chapel, with pressed-tin ceilings and plaster saints that is, in many ways, more moving than the church that overshadows it.

Cost: Free
Open: Mid-Sept.-mid-May, daily 7 AM-8:30 PM; mid-May-mid-Sept., daily 7 AM-9 PM
Metro: Côte-des-Neiges

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