When most people think of Catholic Quebec, three major shrines come to mind: St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montréal, Our Lady of the Cape near Trois-Rivières and St. Anne de Beaupré beyond Québec City. But, in the 18th century, a little church off the beaten path in rural Quebec was exchanging gifts — in an expression of the communion that joins Christian communities — with the great Cathedral of Chartres.

That little church lies halfway between Montréal and Trois-Rivières, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. It is the mission church of Odanak, an Indian reserve in the Centre-du-Québec region.

And a superior side trip it would make for those attending the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City June 15-28.

Odanak, with a population of about 500, is an aboriginal village for the Abenaki Indians, whose dominion once covered what is today Maine, New Hampshire and southern Quebec. Conflict with expanding British settlement and decimation by disease eventually contracted their territory. Abenakis settled in the region around 1660. Marguerite Hertel, who owned a tract of land along the St. Francis River, ceded it in the early 1700s to establish this Indian reserve, which it still remains today.

If the tourist guides mention Odanak at all, it is to point out its Musée des Abénaquis (Indian Museum, online at museedesabenakis.ca). The museum does an excellent job of explaining Abenaki culture and tradition. For those interested in digging into the history of the Odanak church, including efforts to create a competing Anglican mission to wean Abenakis from the Catholic faith, check out Father Thomas Charland’s Les Abénakis d’Odanak, which the museum bookstore usually stocks.

My interest, however, was diverted to a wooden church and chapel standing opposite the museum.

The Our Lady of Fatima Chapel is simple: four pews, four chairs, eight windows. The chapel is dominated by remembrances of Our Lady as she appeared to the three Portuguese children in 1917. I noted that votive candles flickered in the calm summer air, adding to the gentle spiritual ambience, but what moved me most about this little house of prayer were the testimonies of the faithful attributed to the Blessed Mother’s intercession.

Thrice Re-risen

The larger wooden mission church attests to the tenacity of the faith among the Abenaki. The original church was built in 1700 and has been the victim of fire three times. On Oct. 4, 1759, Major Robert Rogers and a band of his New England “Rangers” pillaged Odanak and set fire to the village during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The church burned down in 1816 and was rebuilt in 1828. Lightning struck it in 1900, although it spared the sacristy.

Perseverance was not just characteristic of the church’s builders. The priests who served this tiny spiritual outpost were extraordinarily dedicated men. Father Joseph DeGonzague, born in Odanak in 1864, served that parish for 42 years, until his death on Aug. 23, 1937. Father Rémi Dolan ministered to the parish from 1959 until he died in 1975.

The warm wooden interior of the simple church provides a peaceful and prayerful feeling. The native decor, including totem poles that frame the altar, makes one aware that the Catholic Church is at home in every place and among every culture. This is an Abenaki church and it clearly says: “We belong to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”

Indian ‘Pallium’

On the wall is a reproduction of an Abenaki Wampum necklace. The natives made the original necklace in 1691 out of porcelain shells, leather and vegetable dye, with the request that Father Jacques Bigot, the Jesuit missionary who served them, present it as a gift to the Cathedral of Chartres. My French may be lacking, but I understood its inscription to read: “Holy Mary, Our Good Mother, please receive on this day our most precious gifts. Bless us forever and ever.”

The wampum necklace is still in the Chartres crypt. In 1700 the chancellor of Chartres reciprocated by sending a silver Madonna and Child to Odanak. The original, unfortunately, was pillaged in the Rogers raid. Having heard the story, the John Wortendyke family presented Odanak with a replica in the 1960s.

As I drove away from Odanak, stopping along Route 132 for a basket of fresh raspberries, I marveled at the fact that, here in rural Quebec, I learned a lesson about the sense of communio that permeates the Church. When a man becomes an archbishop, the pope confers the pallium upon him as a sign that the Church, though far-flung, is one: His archdiocese is one in communion with the Apostolic See.

In Chartres there is an Indian “pallium” from Odanak, a gift from those then young in the faith to the Church’s “eldest daughter” back in the colonial ruler, France.

That “pallium” speaks eloquently of the sense of Eucharistic oneness that should animate the Church Universal. As it will surely be doing all this week in Quebec City.

John M. Grondelski writes from

Washington, D.C

St. Francis de Sales Abenaki Mission

120 Wâbanaki

Odanak, Quebec, J0G 1HO

(450) 568-2727

Planning Your Visit

Odanak is about a two-hour drive from Montréal. For more on the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City June 15-28, call (866) 436-2008, e-mail [email protected] or visit cei2008.ca/en on the Internet.