With the exception of a few remaining details to be put in place, the stairs to the Issoudun pulpit installed in the nave last April are now in place. The pulpit will once again serve the purpose for which it was built once these remaining adjustments are completed and the sound system has been tested.

The stairs are the work of two very talented parishioners;  James Green and Michal Janek who carefully built a faithful replica of the original to ensure its faultless adaptation to the pulpit’s new position at Saint Anne.  The result is a respectful treatment of the original commissioned in 1912 for the church of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur d’Issoudun outside of Lévis, Quebec.

Thank you for the generous support that made this project possible.

On Saturday, April 8^th volunteers placed the traditional pulpit acquired in early 2016 in position on the same column in the nave on the Gospel side which had supported Saint Anne’s pulpit for many years until the late sixties when extensive renovations to the church interior resulted in its removal.

Now that the pulpit has been placed on the especially engineered steel infrastructure ensuring its support, the curved stairs leading up to it will be carefully modified to ensure a perfect fit in their new location.  The result will ensure a respectful adaptation of the original disposition in the church of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur d’Issoudun outside of Lévis, Quebec, for which both pieces were originally made.

The late neoclassical style Issoudun pulpit and stairs were commissioned in 1912 from the well-known wood working shop of Jos. Villeneuve Limitée whose firm in Saint-Romuald d’Etchemin (Lévis) enjoyed the patronage of the clergy at the beginning of the XX ^th century.

Thank you for the generous support which has made this project possible.

Work has begun on preparing the supporting column which will receive the traditional pulpit acquired from the church of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur d’Issoudun in Lévis, Quebec, today sadly closed.

Before the pulpit can be fixed to the column in the nave on the Gospel side, a robust infrastructure of steel needs to be put in place. Installed to engineered standards, it has been designed to ensure safety and stability. Once this work is complete, the pulpit will be placed in position and work on modifying the accompanying stairs to fit their new location in Saint Anne will be undertaken.

The cost of installing the pulpit is estimated at $15,000.

The Issoudun pulpit was commissioned in 1912 from the well-known wood working shop of Jos. Villeneuve Limitée whose firm in Lévis enjoyed the patronage of the clergy at the beginning of the XX ^th century.

In order to make it possible to build a parish hall that meets its needs the Parish, with the approval of the Archdiocese, has made a conditional offer to purchase 566 Old St. Patrick Street, a 4 apartment residence at the corner of Old St. Patrick and Patro just east of the church and next to the John Howard Society building.

It is envisaged that the new property will be a temporary residence for our priests while the church hall is under construction and may even possibly become a permanent rectory.  If all conditions are satisfied, including final approval of the Archdiocese of Ottawa, and the purchase completed in early May, the new property will be rented while plans for building a church hall in the location of the present rectory proceed.

Design plans for  the new church hall are expected to be ready for parishioner review within the next two to three months.

Please keep our priests, members of the Parish Finance and Pastoral Councils and this project in your prayers.

Msgr. Myrand’s altar was recently returned to its original location in the West transept. Modified and moved to the niche on the Epistle side of the sanctuary in 1967 during the renovations to the church’s interior, the altar was gifted to St. Anne by Msgr. Myrand in 1945. Granted special dispensation by Archbishop Alexandre Vachon, Msgr. Myrand,  parish priest at St. Anne from 1903 until his death in 1949, consecrated the altar and dedicated it to Our Lady of Deliverance of the Souls in Purgatory in the days following Easter Sunday 1945. At his death four years later Msgr. Myrand  was buried beneath the floor where his altar is once again located.

In addition to re-locating the altar to its original location, work has begun to prepare the niche on the Gospel side of the sanctuary to receive St. Joseph’s altar, the third of the parish’s Precious Blood Altars. At the same time installation of the marble baptistery font in the East transept will be undertaken.

Parish volunteers completed the installation of the new altar rail on Saturday of the Labour Day weekend.  The result of the skillful work of two parishioners, James Green and Michal Janek, the curved cherry wood altar rail spans the church’s 70 foot transept, features 109 turned spindles, fourteen posts, three gates and forged gate latches.

The design of the altar rail  was based on the careful study of several historically relevant examples, among them Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Quebec City whose interior refurbishment after the church was largely destroyed by British bombardment in 1759 was only completed in the 19th century, making it a fitting precedent for Ottawa’s Saint Anne whose architectural inspiration has its roots in Quebec. To ensure historical integrity, the brass altar cloth hooks which will eventually be used are carefully made copies of a model commonly in found in nineteenth century Quebec churches.

Furnishing the church with such a handsome and fitting altar rail would never have been possible without the unqualified financial support of parishioners whose the generous contributions ensured that the $25,000 needed to build and install the altar rail were never in question. Thank you!

Our Lady’s altar was installed in its rightful place within the sanctuary over the course of this Civic Holiday weekend. On Saturday, volunteers carefully removed the marble Myrand Altar positioned in the niche on the Epistle side of the high altar and replaced it with the Precious Blood Altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Plans call for the installation of the altar dedicated to St. Joseph to be repositioned to the niche on the Gospel side of the sanctuary at a future date. Both altars are part of the historic ensemble of wooden altars commissioned in 1898 by the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood and carved by Joseph-Flavien Rochon (1824-1902) for their monastery chapel and which in 1984, were saved by the Latin Mass Congregation of Ottawa, later to become St. Clement Parish.

The marble Myrand Altar, gifted to the church in 1945 by Msgr. Joseph Alfred Myrand, long time parish priest at St. Anne from 1903 until his death in January of 1949, will be returned to the position it originally occupied in the West transept above his tomb prior to the changes brought about by the renovations to the church interior undertaken in 1967.

The link between the Precious Blood Altars and St. Anne is a particularly strong one. In addition to being closely associated with the identity of St. Clement Parish today at St. Anne Church, they would also have had deep significance for Msgr. Myrand, buried not far from where they now stand. The Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood, before moving to a new location on MacKay Street in New Edinburgh and commissioning three new altars from Mr. Rochon in 1898, originally occupied a house which had once belonged to Msgr. Myrand’s parents and in which he had been born. It was in this first convent chapel that in 1892, Msgr. Myrand was ordained priest.

With the turning of all of the required one hundred spindles completed and preliminary assembly underway, work on building the new altar rail is entering the final stages involving careful

adjustments, staining and finishing; all steps which need to be completed before the various pieces making up rail are brought to St. Anne and assembled in the sanctuary.  This last stage is likely to take longer than originally anticipated which means that on-site installation of the new rail may not begin until soon after May 10th.

The new altar rail is budgeted at $25,000 of which in excess of $23,700 has been raised so far thanks to parishioner generosity.

On Friday, September 19th Canada’s former Governor General, The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Colonel-In-Chief of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was at Église Ste Anne to preside over a special ceremony of re-dedication of the commemorative plaques cared for by St. Clement Parish, plaques which honour the war sacrifices of this important Canadian regiment.   The plaques go back to our time at the Precious Blood convent and so have been part of the Latin Mass community since our founding in 1968.  Fr. Bélanger, who said the masses for us, served as this regiment’s chaplain.

The PPCLI was the first Canadian infantry unit to enter the theatre of operations, arriving in France on December 21, 1914.  In total 1,272 officers and enlisted men of the Patricias were killed (500 in Flanders) and 82 officers and enlisted men were captured during this war.   This year marks the one hundredth year of the regiment’s  creation and so we are honoured to be part of the centenary tributes.  Requiem aeternam, dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.  Requiescant in pace.  Amen.   

St. Anne’s early sanctuary lamp has returned from being recently refurbished and for the first time since 1967 is again in its rightful place at the heart of the sanctuary in front of Our Lord’s Tabernacle.

The lamp was blessed and returned to service by Fr. Erik Deprey, FSSP during the Easter Vigil on Saturday, April 19^th 2014.

Found damaged and lying in pieces in the organ loft when St. Clement Parish arrived at St. Anne in 2012, the lamp was restored by Turn of the Century Lighting, a Toronto firm specializing in the restoration of antique lighting fixtures.

Restoration work is expensive. The cost for refurbishing and re-installing the lamp is $6, 554, half of which has been raised in special donations received so far.  A further $3, 350 is required to meet the total costs.  If you would like to contribute to the costs of the lamp’s restoration, please be sure to mark your cheque or envelope with the direction:  “For Sanctuary Lamp”.

Thank you your generosity!

*For more information on the history of the sanctuary lamp, please go to About  on this site and click on “Sanctuary Lamp”.

Historical buildings very often only reveal their secrets over time and even then, only after patient questioning.  St. Anne Church is no exception to the rule.

When the parish was preparing the brochure commemorating the 140^th anniversary of the founding of St. Anne in 1873, one of the things we very much wished to do was to highlight the church’s remarkable stained glass windows. The challenge in that lay with the nine windows of the sanctuary vault and those figures which initially at least, were not readily identifiable. One of them, on the Gospel side, caused considerable questioning until a 1998 issue of the parish bulletin turned up identifying it as St. Agnes.

Recent closer examination of the sanctuary windows has revealed the figure’s true identity:  Saint Gabriel the Archangel. Jean-Claude Grant, who has taken many photos of church interiors including many of St. Anne, recently photographed the windows using a more sophisticated camera which very clearly shows what up until now had not been easily visible from the sanctuary floor; the figure’s red wings! The wings, together with the diadem crowned with a cross are typical of the iconographic depictions of angels leaving no doubt about the figure’s identity.  St. Gabriel the Archangel is shown standing opposite St. Michael the Archangel, bringing a nice balanced logic to the window series.

Thank you Jean-Claude!