St. Joseph’s Oratory is Canada’s largest church and the largest St. Joseph shrine in the world.

This holy place “pulls you toward something higher,” as one pilgrim told EWTN News’ Mark Irons as part of a segment for EWTN News In Depth.

Monier and Danielle Morin are Montreal locals and devotees of St. Joseph. Monier said, “We pray for him to intercede for us.” 

Danielle added: “He listened to God.”

They also venerate a fellow Montrealer devoted to St. Joseph: St. André Bessette. “He’s a local. He’s our saint,” Danielle said.

The oratory was founded by then-Brother André. The grand edifice on Mount Royal draws 2 million visitors per year, all in a spiritual quest to “Go to Joseph.”

David Bureau, the oratory’s archivist, observed: “At the heart of it really is the prayer to St. Joseph, the devotion to St. Joseph.”

St. André, known affectionately as the “Miracle Worker of Montreal,” worked as a humble doorman, first at Notre Dame College across from the oratory grounds and later at the first chapel on Mount Royal. The saint took care of visitors’ heartfelt prayer petitions, taking them to St. Joseph.

Reports of the miraculous abound, attested to by crutches on display.

The small chapel where André served as guardian beginning in 1904 bears witness to “the saint Brother André loved,” Bureau explained. He added that André’s tomb lies in the grand church, where all the stained-glass windows depict miracles through the intercession of Jesus’ earthly father.

The oratory church took decades to complete — until 1967, long after André’s death during its construction in 1937.

Visitors come from far and wide to pray here.

Visiting the oratory prompted Ken Arellano to become a devotee of St. Joseph.

Visitors are not solely Catholic, or even Christian. Aziza, a Muslim from Montreal, comes because it’s peaceful.

Bureau noted of Joseph, the patron saint of Canada, that the faithful relate to someone “just like you” — “a working man; he’s a family man. He took care of a child. He took care of his bride.”

“He trusted the Lord,” he added.

 

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