Five-thousand strong, the faithful gathered on Mission Hill Thursday morning for a jubilee mass to celebrate the 150th anniversaries of the Catholic Church and St. Albert.
“This is indeed a community celebration,” said Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools superintendent David Keohane, who pointed out that children in attendance were from all the St. Albert Catholic schools as well as from Morinville and Legal.
“We are called by our religion and by our history to be here,” he said.
The yellow school buses that encircled Mission Hill looked like giant bumblebees as they disgorged the multitude of children, who walked down the hill towards the temporary altar in the flat area in front of Ă©cole Father Jan. Each school had its own allotted square where the children sat, making a giant, coloured patchwork pattern against the dry spring grass.
“We were expecting 5,500, and though I’m not sure of the exact number, I do know children from all the schools came,” said religious co-ordinator Louis Kloster.
Kloster recalled a similar outdoor mass was held in 2000 to celebrate the millennium, but Thursday’s event was larger with more participants.
The 5,000 sat comfortably together, filling only half the space on the hill.
The occasion had a family-outing feel to it. A few little girls took turns braiding each other’s hair. To the side, a new mother sat quietly in the sun and nursed her infant. A father rocked a sleeping toddler in his arms. Up near the top of the hill, students from one school began to make folded paper fans out of their programs and soon Mission Hill was dotted with thousands of busily fluttering white fans. One teacher happily sprayed anyone and everyone with mosquito repellent.
Music was provided by teachers and school board members including Kloster, Keohane, Brother Dan Dionne, Mike Wurtz, Graeme Peppink, Ryan Herbold and choir members from Vital Grandin school. Together they stood on Mission Hill and sang a hymn, This is Holy Ground, We’re Standing on Holy Ground.
“Isn’t this beautiful? It’s a grandiose day the Lord gave us with this sunshine,” said Sister Simonne Mageau. The member of the Grey Nuns was sitting along with members of her order who had travelled from Edmonton and Lac St. Anne.
“Only two of us [Grey Nuns] are missing out of 34,” she said. “We consider this day to be our day.”
Oblate Fathers Joseph Goutier and Jean-Paul Vantroys, who walked down from Foyer Lacombe, agreed with Mageau, adding that they too felt the celebration paid tribute to the work the Oblates did in founding St. Albert.
“We are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Mission. We’re part of it and we follow our elders,” said Vantroys, 86.
“Now they put us old people down in front and the future is behind us,” he said, as he glanced back at the hill full of seated children.
In his address to the audience, Archbishop Richard Smith also paid tribute to the work of the missionaries.
“Today we celebrate the visionaries who came to this land and planted seeds. The seed they planted was the word of God,” he said as he began the mass.
Soon the Eucharist was shared in celebration of the Ascension of Christ and the children percolated back up the hill into their waiting buses.
“I’ve never been to something like this before. It is really exciting to see so many people,” said Ă©cole Secondaire Sainte Marguerite d’Youville student Chenel Kimber, 15. “It’s amazing!”
