Farewell, 2022!

 

 

Farewell old year, you won't be missed. Happy New Year! Welcome 2023!

Last walk on the hidden trail for this year

Although we've had a few mild days, the cold is upon us and it makes life a lot less enjoyable. While I am usually happy to go for a morning walk, now, hearing that it is -10 C outside, I think it might be a good day to stay indoors, or go for a shorter walk and buy a few groceries on the way home. There is really nothing appealing about cold weather, not our cold weather. And it was cold a few days ago when I went for a last walk for this year on the hidden trail. The usual conviviality of walkers and dog owners was gone, it was all women dog walkers and me. The dogs enjoyed barking at me, and what of the women? I ignored them as I hurried along, cold, colder, and getting colder still. 

Note: these photos were taken at least two weeks ago, before we had all of the snow we now have, and it's still falling.

The man who saved St. Mary's Hospital

When I was growing up I often heard about the three Callaghan priests, Frs. Martin, James, and Luke. The oldest priest was known familiarly as Fr. Martin, he was the first Montreal-born pastor at St. Patrick's Basilica; when he died he was buried in a plain wooden casket and, as his funeral cortege moved through the streets, people bowed their heads and acknowledged that he was an exceptional and humble man of God; they all loved Fr. Martin. Fr. James, the second born, was less known; the youngest, Fr. Luke Callaghan, was prominent but not as beloved as Fr. Martin. 

The Callaghans were proud of all of their children. John Callaghan, their father, was involved in religious organizations in Montreal and, coincidentally, he was a longtime friend of my great great grandfather, Laurence Morrissey, a relationship that predates the marriage of his daughter to Laurence's son, Thomas. The Sulpician order educated these three young men and they each became prominent figures in the Montreal community. Born into the working class their intelligence was recognized by the Church and they were given every opportunity to make something of themselves; they were given the greatest gift, an education. 

There is a saying, that one pays something forward (defined as "when someone does something for you, instead of paying that person back directly, you pass it on to another person instead.") Back in the 1920s and 1930s, and before, some members of the Irish Catholic community in Montreal wanted to build a hospital, and they did, it is St. Mary's Hospital which is also a McGill University teaching hospital. It was Fr. Luke Callaghan who saved the hospital when it was in jeopardy of being cancelled; he paid forward the good fortune that he had received from others.

Father Luke Callaghan

A Notman photograph of St. Michael's Church, 1934; Fr. Luke Callaghan
was the pastor here and he helped build the church.

The mission of founding a hospital originated with Sister Helen Morrissey (no relation) in 1908; she was born in the United States, and she was joined in this work of founding a hospital by Dr. Donald Hingston, an eminent Montreal surgeon and a member of an eminent Montreal family, his father had been a surgeon and mayor of Montreal. The first location of St. Mary's Hospital, chosen by Mother Morrissey, was Shaugnessy House, on then Dorchester Blvd West, and it opened on 21 October 1924; it is now the location of an architectural centre and museum. 

Shaugnessy House was soon recognized as being too small to serve its purpose and work began raising funds for a new much larger building. But the main hurdle was Mother Morrissey, she had her own vision of the new hospital, and that vision was that it would be under her control. She was also convinced of her own correctness, she was domineering, intelligent, articulate, and formidable. She was a literate person, she had written a book on Ethan Allen, and she knew what kind of hospital she wanted; soon, the business men fled saying Mother Morrissey was unworkable with. The men could do nothing with Mother Morrissey, she would not budge from her belief in what she wanted and her moral authority in getting it.

The original St. Mary's Hospital located at Shaugnessy House

St. Mary's Hospital in 2014

It seems that the men, prominent business men and politicians, cowered in the presence of Mother Morrissey, or they threw up their hands and were prepared to let the whole project become history. Thomas Morrissey was married to Mary Callaghan, a sister of the three Callaghan priests, and when Thomas died in 1916 Mother Morrissey visited the family in their working class home. Also present when were Mary Callaghan's brothers, the priests. So, when the hospital project went off the rails due to Mother Morrissey, who did they call? They called the only man who had the authority and connections to do an end-around Mother Morrissey, they called Father Luke Callaghan, pastor of, at the time, the largest congregation in Montreal, St. Michael's Church on St. Viateur Street in Mile End. Perhaps Fr. Luke had a chat with Mother Morrissey, he had the diplomacy to deal with all sorts of people and to get them onboard; he had seen through the building of St. Michael's church, a church that is architecturally unique in the city. Having lost her position of authority in the hospital project, Mother Morrissey seems to have disappeared from her involvement with the hospital. Soon, a million dollars was raised for the construction of a new hospital. The new hospital, located on Lacombe Avenue near Cote des Neiges Road, opened in 1934, where it is still located.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. J.J. Dineen's St Mary's Hospital, The Early Years: 

Canon Luke Callahan was named by Dr. Hingston as the man who, through his intervention with the Archbishop during the 1929 closure, saved the hospital. Father Callahan had persuaded the Bishop to sanction the removal of Rev. Mother Morrissey and bring in the Grey Nuns. Many of the Irish clergy had been strongly in favour of turning over the hospital to Rev. Mother Morrissey or another religious nursing order. The community in general was dissatisfied with the doctor-dominated board and it was during this state of general discontent, that a new board of prominent businessmen and politicians was established prior to the first major successful drive in July 1931.

I tell this story because some years ago someone very close to me was very ill, at one point she almost died while in hospital, but doctors and nurses rushed to her bedside and by the next morning she was still alive, but barely. Every year I expected it to be her last but it is now eight years later and each year is a blessing, it is a gift and to whom do I owe this gift? To the doctors, nurses, administrators, and staff at St. Mary's Hospital. God bless them all! And to whom do I owe this hospital? To Mother Helen Morrissey, Dr. Donald Hingston, and Fr. Luke Callaghan who helped keep the hospital project alive; he paid it forward and I, his great, great nephew, am one of the many recipients of his gift. Then, in June 2021, I had cancer, it required surgery; I was referred to the chief surgeon at St. Mary's and, within a few weeks, I was operated on and here I am, writing this and once again thankful to the doctors and nurses at St. Mary's Hospital and Fr. Luke for saving it from the misguided control of Mother Morrissey. By the way, I have no special privilege at the hospital; everyone is treated equally with dignity and care.

And this is what "paying it forward" looks like from someone who has received the generous gift of those who paid it forward. I hope everyone can be generous and give something to a reputable charity like the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation. Fr. Luke, when he helped save St. Mary's Hospital, had no idea that it was descendants of his own family that would be saved by his intervention with Mother Morrissey. 

Merry Christmas to you all!

Note: Sister Helen Morrissey's book, Ethan Allan's Daughter, was published in Montreal in 1940.

Hortus Conclusus at Le Petit Seminaire, Notre-Dame Basilica

Here is a satellite photograph of Old Montreal and, more specifically, of Notre-Dame Basilica and the enclosed garden, the hortus conclusus, behind the Petit Seminaire on the south-west side of Notre-Dame Basilica. The Petit Seminaire adjoins Notre-Dame Basilica and there is an entrance to the basilica from the seminary. The (possibly) better known Grand Seminaire is located on Sherbrooke Street West near Atwater. The enclosed garden at the Petit Seminaire is closed to the public and there don't seem to be many photographs of it. Of course, Montreal is "Ville Marie", the City of Mary, and Mary has a large presence here; the hortus conclusus is closely associated with Mary. Photographs of the exterior of Notre-Dame Basilica and the Petit Seminaire were taken in February 2002.

All of the institutions mentioned here are owned by the Sulpician Order. 

Seminary Gardens, Montreal, QC, about 1870;
photographed by Alexander Henderson (1831-1913). 
You can see the Victoria Bridge, top left of the photo.

Here is an old photograph of the rear of the Petit Seminaire and, coincidentally, 
of the enclosed garden at the seminary; the buildings in the background have been
demolished and new buildings constructed there

The following photographs were taken in February 2002 during a tour of the Petit Seminaire.

On rue Notre Dame, in Old Montreal, the entrance to the Petit Seminaire

Notre-Dame Basilica in Old Montreal

Le Petit Seminaire

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal

When we were children we would bike to the Oratory, it wasn't far, then walk around, always in awe and amazed by the size of the place and the celebration of religion that was unlike anything found in daily life, or my life; it was exotic, supernatural, and incredible. On occasion I still visit the Oratory, and quite often I drive by the entrance on Queen Mary Road and look up and marvel. The small chapel is where Saint Brother Andre began his healing ministry; later the larger building that most people are familiar with was constructed.

Driving by the Oratory, on Queen Mary Road

The smaller, older, chapel

In the original, small, chapel near the Oratory

In the small chapel

In the small chapel

Historical photographs of St. Joseph's Oratory

 

Work on St. Joseph's Oratory; early 1900s

The first chapel at St. Joseph's Oratory

1950s

Climbing the stairs at St. Joseph's Oratory

Photo taken 1938

Hortus conclusus, the enclosed garden

From the street

From the street

From the street

When my son, who is a Medievalist, saw the fences around my garden he mentioned "hortus conclusus", the concept of the enclosed garden from the Middle Ages; this garden design has its origin and attribution to the Virgin Mary but gardens are also a part of our spiritual history, beginning with the Garden of Eden and the fall of Man. The hortus conclusus is an archetypal garden, it has that special quality of spiritual authenticity that gives the garden a greater significance, as a place that resonates in both our Christian spirituality and the spirituality of other religions. So, this is no happenstance that I have these walls enclosing the garden; this is a way of finding spirituality, or God, in the physical and material world, and it is the reason I find such happiness in having the garden enclosed with these walls. 

And so, the hortus conclusus is a place of peace, and one wants to be there because it is a place of quiet, an entrance to the spiritual, and a place of temenos. All of this is foreign to our contemporary life, but people in the past, especially the Middle Ages, understood the meaning of the enclosed garden. 

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems (2)

 

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Poems, no matter how dark their subject matter, are always an affirmation of life.1.  What can be seen in the dark no matter how dark it is? What light will we follow when it is most dark? It took me many years to know what is obvious to many people; the light that is always present, even in the darkness, is the goodness of life, it is love. That light is love.

1. Because the act of creating something is, in itself, an affirmation of life.

William Morrissey on Westmore Avenue

An hour ago I was walking on Westmore Avenue, on my way to Pharmaprix on Westminster Avenue, when a cardinal flew across the road; maybe he's here for the winter, or maybe cardinals stay all winter. Westmore was always my favourite street in this area, large lots, nicely kept Cape Cod houses, and quiet. In fact, in 1997 when we were looking at homes we looked at two houses on this block of Westmore; this was two years after the 1995 referendum on separation (we call the topic the "neverendum") and the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market; home owners were accepting rock bottom offers for their homes; what else could they do if they wanted to sell their home? Political instability will destroy the economy because business hates instability. Anyhow, those inexpensive homes from 1997 are now worth six or seven times what people paid for them, but it's almost thirty years later and house prices across the country have become prohibitively high. 

One day, years ago, my mother commented that back in the early 1950s my Uncle Bill lived on Westmore. I checked it out in Lovell's Montreal City Directory and there was his name, living in the house where the cardinal flew over the street earlier today. I think he and my Auntie Lill and possibly his son Bill Jr., stayed for a year in this house before buying a home in Ville St-Laurent. My mother was never critical of Young Bill but she was also never critical of anyone in the family.

My cousin, Young Bill, as opposed to Old Bill who was my uncle (this is how they were referred to), had been in the army in World War Two and had been part of the Canadian army that liberated Holland; his mother would speak to my mother and read her letters from Young Bill that described in detail the horrors of war. Young Bill was alcoholic and returned to Canada with possibly/probably undiagnosed PTSD; maybe when he was younger he also had Asperger's disease or ADHD, maybe that's how he would be diagnosed today. People were critical of Young Bill for his alcoholism that seems to have consumed his life. I've heard stories about him falling down drunk in the streets . . .  I don't know what became of his wife, the mother of his daughter Jo-Ann, she was never mentioned, but Uncle Bill and Auntie Lill raised Jo-Ann and she was very close to her grandparents and, as far as I know, estranged from her father. 

I haven't mentioned any of this before now; I didn't know Jo-Ann when she lived in Montreal but I got to know her on Facebook. I am sad to say that she died about a year ago. I never mentioned her father, Young Bill, to her, I felt he was persona non grata. 

This is the house at 5265 Westmore Avenue that Uncle Bill rented in 1950,
back then it would have been typical of other Cape Cod cottages, not renovated like it is now.

This is the grave of Lillian and Bill Morrissey at Mount Royal Cemetery;
their son, William Chipman Morrissey, is also buried here. He died on 27 February 1990.

William Morrissey in 1973

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems (3)

 

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Creativity has the capacity to heal; some have fallen into the darkness of existence, and writing poetry or making art is one way to find light in the darkness; what is the light? It is the discovery of love in one's life. It is greater than any darkness.

How wrong could I be?

Only a month ago we had +20 C weather (that's 68 degrees Fahrenheit), the colours of nature were brilliant and gave variety and life to things, but now late fall and the approach of winter has been pulled over our heads like a large wool sweater and it is a grey world we're living in, reduced, monochromatic, cold (-5 C or 23 F), dull, and uninviting. 

Out walking, when I approached Meadowbrook Golf Course I saw this long line of cars and people standing around, my first thought was that there must be an extraordinarily rare bird in the swampy area to the right of the road and all of these people had gathered to see this bird, or maybe a deer was there, or a bear, the Bear Clan are just a few miles away . . . of course, I was wrong, stupidly wrong, projecting my own interests on a lot of parked cars and men standing around waiting for the golf course to open, possibly for the last time this season. But I would have preferred my scenario and seen some extraordinary bird before it took to the air and flew south for the winter.