Even though St. Raphael’s shut down seven years ago, about two dozen of the faithful get together for an intimate prayer service or Mass every other week or so. They gather in what was once the boardroom of the now vacant but still handsome old church.
They were together for a Mass to usher in the New Year. As is the custom, the service was tailor made for the congregation, who choose the hymns, select the intentions, provide wine for communion — a bottle of Beaujolais is not out of the question — and bring a pot-luck brunch to eat after Mass.
“We make do with what we have,” explained Paul Kipens. “We are a support group. We encourage one another, we all know one another, we pray for each other.
“If you believe in miracles — and I do — I believe prayers are more effective when you pray for someone else instead of for yourself. I think groups like ours are the future of the Church, small groups who might feel disconnected or isolated in a bigger church, worshipping together as a family.”
Fr. Joe Mroz, a Jesuit who had been ministering to the congregation on a part-time basis until last fall when he moved to Newfoundland, was back in Montreal over the holidays to celebrate Mass on the feast of the Epiphany.
“When the congregation asked me to do ministry about six years ago, it was always going to be temporary,” he said. “But I kept coming back. The community is wonderful. They have a heart here for people who need help.”
St. Raphael’s was built in 1930 under founding pastor Fr. John O’Rourke to serve the well-heeled English-speaking congregation in Outremont, a predominately French-speaking neighbourhood. From the day it opened until O’Rourke’s death in 1975, St. Raphael’s was one of the richest parishes in the archdiocese.
But attendance had already begun to decline by the time O’Rourke died and Robert Harris, now the bishop of St. John, N.B. became pastor.
“Fr. O’Rourke had been the big drawing card,” Harris recalled. “Everyone knew him and he knew everyone by name. A good number of those who came to Mass when I was pastor were mainly outsiders who kept returning out of loyalty to O’Rourke.”
The election of a separatist government in 1976 hastened the decline as a number of parishioners left the province, while others became bilingual and started attending other nearby churches. A succession of priests soldiered on at St. Raphael’s before Fr. Gerry Sinel became pastor in 1990. A chaplain at St. Mary’s Hospital several blocks away, he brought a number of the hospital staff with him to the church and kept the church open for another 17 years.
But after Sinel died in 2007 the archdiocese closed St. Raphael’s and leased the building to a palliative care group, which has yet to convert the church into a hospice. Through it all, a core group of parishioners has continued to get together.
“We are like a family,” said Mary Stanton, who has been going to St Raphel’s for more than three decades. “They took away our church, but we are still here. The family is still here. St. Raphael the Archangel is still here!”