First, the city is celebrating its 360th anniversary, while Notre-Dame-de-la-Présentation is marking its centenary.
Second, the exhibition, titled “Jesuits in Canada, 1611-2011, Men for Others,” has given the order the impetus to shine the spotlight on Fr. Jacques Buteux, the Jesuit missionary who played a founding role in the region’s development, Bellemare said.
Buteux was the first European to travel along the Saint-Maurice River from Trois-Rivieres, Que., to visit Native settlements. He is featured in artwork adorning the interior of Notre-Dame-de-la-Présentation, painted by Quebec artist Ozias Leduc, whose artwork also decorates another 30 churches.
“As we had a representation of a Jesuit among the 15 large painted murals in the church, we thought it would be a beautiful opportunity to make the link with the exhibition which we have on display in the sacristy,” said France St-Amant, head of the committee dedicated to protecting the artwork of Leduc.
St-Amant was surprised by many of the things she learned through the exhibition. For example, L’actualité, currently a popular magazine in Quebec, originated as a type of church bulletin created by Jesuit priests. But also interesting were the many professions held by Jesuits and the variety of ways they recorded early life in Canada — the most vivid examples being the English-Native dictionaries and historical paintings.
This exhibition, housed in the church sacristy, contains a noticeable spiritual depth and a wide range of pieces including artwork, academic books, photographs, personal letters and much more. It has also attracted a greater number of visitors from outside the Shawinigan region, St-Amant said.
“I believe, and I think the Jesuits do as well, how important their documents are for Canadian history because of how involved they were in all spheres of Canadian history,” said Céline Widmer, director of the archive and one of the creators of the exhibition. But with the added spiritual dimension to the collection, “it can really reach a lot of interests.”
Archive staff selected the pieces to highlight the Jesuit theme of mind, soul and body, which can be seen today in contemporary Jesuits as much as it could be seen 400 years ago, said Fr. Jacques Monet, S.J., head historian at the archive in Montreal. This theme was especially apparent in the Jesuit school system, as they not only hosted spiritual activities such as Mass and maintained intellectual studies of classic works and other important subjects, but also emphasized the importance of sports and drama to help keep the body healthy and exercise human creativity.
But whether a visitor to the exhibition is looking at 17th-century documents, old editions of Jesuit texts, artwork representing St. Ignatius of Loyola or Félix Martin, pictures of theatre clothes from early days at College Sainte-Marie, a Renaissance sculpture or even icons from Ethiopia or Europe which the Jesuits brought back from missions, the same holistic theme of mind, soul and body permeates it all.
The exhibition will return to the archive in Montreal after Sept. 25, where it will remain on display until May 12, the end of the Jesuit anniversary year.
Jesuit archives a ‘gold mine’ of the order’s Canadian past
By Carolyn Girard
In 2009, the English Jesuit archive was combined with the French archive in a brand new state-of-the-art facility in its current location, housed within Maison Bellarmin, a Jesuit residence and offices.
Because the Jesuits still thrive today, the archive will continue to grow, every academic paper carefully filed, audio interviews with aging Jesuits enthusiastically recorded, said Céline Widmer, director of the archive. Already, if lined up end to end, the archive would span two kilometres.
Staff are still working at placing everything into its correct location among the various rooms which include offices, meeting rooms, a main show room, library, a vault for older documents, a quarantine room and various storage rooms. It’s essentially a gold mine of art, textual documents, photographs, objects, books — anything and everything that “recalls the memory of their living faith, of their efforts, of their spiritual values and of their institutions of Jesuits in Canada and their missionary activities abroad,” said Widmer.
As the Jesuits work to meet modern archival standards, migrating index cards to computer, Widmer expects it will take many years to complete, but will be well worth the efforts.
“We receive a lot of research requests — we were actually surprised. Now we’re hoping to get even more.”
With 250 research requests, more than 50 group visits per year so far and the popularity of the exhibition, Widmer says they’re off to a good start.
