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.