Nestled in the centre of Quebec City, Je Te Salue Notre-Dame is a new exhibit of old rosaries which is a visual display of the spiritual devotion that lies at the heart of the founding of the province.

Translated from French, curators say the rosaries, “like the believers … shine by their diversity and their uniqueness, while being united by the same devotion.”

Walking the exhibit is like rifling through the drawer many Catholic families have in some corner of their house. A drawer filled with an odd assortment of rosaries. Beads given as gifts on special sacramental celebration days, picked up on trips to shrines such as Lourdes or Fatima, and rosaries inherited and treasured for their connection to a beloved family member.

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Glass cabinets filled with dozens of rosaries line the two sides of the Augustinian Monastery chapel. 

There is one from Pope Francis, given as a gift on his 2022 visit to Canada, a First Nation babiche rosary worked in deer hide, like the snowshoes and fishing lines of 17th-century Quebec, a clunky metal rosary said to be in the Jesuit-style, and a rose petal rosary handmade in 1920 by an Augustinian sister in the last days of her life.

Named for Blessed Mother Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustine, the Centre Catherine de Saint-Augustin created the exhibit as a contribution to the 350th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Quebec City celebrated this year. The centre is housed in the former monastery of a community of Augustinian sisters that established themselves in New France in 1639.

Cloistered until 1965, the community was central to the creation of the Quebec medical system. They built the first hospital in North America north of Mexico and the 12 Quebec hospitals they instituted are still in operation today.

The Marian exhibit is housed in a lovely 1800 rebuild, an interior of white plaster accented by gold details, of a church that burned in 1755. In addition to the rosary exhibit, visitors can view and venerate relics of both Blessed Catherine and St. Jean de Brébeuf, the Jesuit missionary Blessed Catherine claimed as her “celestial spiritual director.”

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Blessed Catherine was both a nurse and a mystic who had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother. 

In an excerpt from her writings used in the promotional material for the exhibit, the passion behind each set of beads displayed in cases is revealed.

“I spent the rest of the night … saying my Rosary and offering myself to Jesus and Mary. At each Pater and Ave, it seemed to me that my heart penetrated the meaning of each word I uttered with an inner feeling.”

A statue of Our Lady of Protection, said to have been brought by Blessed Catherine from La Rochelle, France, when she arrived as a newly professed 16-year-old in 1648, is also on display in the chapel. The exhibit notes that the statue was transferred from the Hôtel-Dieu du Précieux-Sang to the current location, the Hôtel-Dieu, General Hospital, in 1693.

“The Foundresses of this hospital, to mark their taking possession of the premises, installed the statue in the choir, and consecrated themselves to the Mother of God in front of it, thus recognizing her as the first superior of their new monastery.”

There are five remaining Augustinian sisters who live in a wing of the former monastery located on the backside of the Quebec City General Hospital. There were once 250 sisters. The monastery building is now a hotel, but the furniture and history remain. There is a separate museum to the right of hotel reception that contains the artifacts and documents of this important part of Quebec history. The Trunk of Three Keys, or Foundresses Trunk, that served as an altar during the sea passage to the New World is given pride of place.

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From a corridor at the back of the chapel there is a door which opens directly to a hallway of the hospital. Though the provincial government took over administration from the Augustinians in the 1960s, patients and doctors can still walk though that door to attend Mass. That unlikely door, a passage between religious and secular Quebec, remains open for the time being.

Opened in May, the rosary exhibit will run for two years until the spring of 2026.