Martyrs' Shrine > Our Ministry

Our Ministry

In 1639, Fr. Jérôme Lalemant, superior of the Jesuits serving the Wendat peoples, proposed to them the establishment of a single permanent residence and mission centre, at the heart of their nation, dedicated to Mary. His vision, to have a ‘house apart’, a place of ‘retreat’, ‘meditation’, and ‘peace’, from which to set out on mission ‘conveying to the nations the holy name of our Lord’. The result, a centre of diverse apostolic ministry that offered spaces of cultural encounter, pastoral care, catechesis, retreat ministry and spiritual direction, writing and research, rest and renewal, medical care, and training, that was mostly self-sustainable and integrated into its natural environment.

The evangelical efforts of the Jesuits and their lay collaborators in this mission, found its apex, in varied circumstances, that invited eight of them to offer their lives in the service of the Wendat people. Subsequently, Jesuit fathers Jean de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Isaac Jogues, Antoine Daniel, Noël Chabanel, and lay companions Jean
de Lalande and René Goupil, were canonised martyrs by the Roman Catholic Church in 1930. Recognising the magnitude of both their role in the early history of Canada and their Christian virtue, the Church of St. Joseph was built as a site of pilgrimage in 1926 and their original mission of Sainte-Marie, at the feet of Martyrs’ Shrine, was reconstructed by the Provincial Government of Ontario, as a historic site and living history museum, in 1965. Subsequently, in 2014, the Society of Jesus in Canada re-emphasised the importance of this National Shrine, and the ministry here, by establishing a permanent, year-round, Jesuit community and residence.