Lent 2025 Personal Devotion

Cultural Centres for French Heritage in Canada

Below are the links for French cultural centres and archives around Canada. Whether you're looking into maritime Acadian culture, Quebecois traditions, Franco-Ontarian culture, Franco-Manitoban history and heritage, there's so much out there for you! Many of these centres host events, music concerts, cultural festivals, art galleries, and research centres to help you learn your roots.

Franco-Ontarian Folklore Centre

Centre for Research on French Canadian Culture at University of Ottawa

The Acadian Centre of the Université Sainte-Anne

Historical Society of Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre

Marius Barbeau Centre, Montréal, Québec

Saint Isidore Museum and Cultural Centre, Alberta

Université Sainte-Anne

Centre acadien

Founded in 1972, the Centre acadien has large collections of primary and secondary sources that mainly feature the Acadian and Nova Scotian

https://ccfm.mb.ca/en/

Mighty Peace Tourism

St. Isidore Museum & Cultural Centre - Mighty Peace Tourism

St. Isidore Museum & Cultural Centre – English Situated in the quaint hamlet of St-Isidore, is a museum that depicts the storied heritage of

Holy Saturday’s vigil was lovely, even as I was visiting my in-laws and I didn’t have my altar cabinet or a church nearby who offered the service.

My paschal candle was prepared with my pocket knife with the Cross, Alpha and Omega and the year’s numbers, blessed with holy water and the ashes from the cut up bits of palm frond. I read from the Old Testament and the Gospel of Luke 24:1-12 (since in 2025, we are in Year C of the Lectionnary), read out the Litany of Saints, and played the Excelsis Deo with the ringing bells at around midnight. It was a simple and moving rite, and one that I love to take, since it has a section in the scripts used to undertake a renewal of baptism and vows.

My mom went to a church in St. Ambroise, in Saguenay for her vigil. She brought back a vigil candle, and Lillie was intrigued!

A Happy Easter to all the faithful, and I hope your day is filled with joy and love among your families and friends!

Out of all the cats in the house, Meringue is always on the altar, loafing, not even playing with the dangly things. What a well-behaved cutie who covets the altar cloth 🧡

Every action we take is fundamental to a better world that is kinder. I also recognize he had his mistakes and issues but he learned and he strove to do better. And for a Pope, that’s monumental. Rest in peace Pope Francis 🕊️

Pope Francis has died.

I know to a lot of people on the left and in the LGBTQ+ community, he wasn’t exactly seen as a holy herald of progressive values. That said I think he was more helpful to our community than we have ever really given credit.

The Catholic Church is hugely entrenched in the past. They may not ever accept gay marriage within our lifetime. But if you compare Pope Francis to any other Pope that came before him, he did more to progress the Catholic Church than anyone else ever has. He constantly spoke out saying that the church needed to accept LGBTQ+ members. He has denounced laws that criminalise homosexuality. He supported same sex civil unions—which I was literally taught was evil and dangerous when I was in Catholic high school. Transgender people can be baptized and same sex couples can be blessed because of him.

He was never enough, of course. He has affirmed the teaching that gay marriage is not spiritually possible and prior to becoming pope he opposed the legalization of same sex marriage. He has said gay children should seek psychiatric care. He has also been even less accepting of transgender people than same sex couples.

But at the same time he was the most empathetic Pope to have existed in the past several hundred years. I have left the church because I no longer believe in God, but I do recognize that the Catholic Church has power over huge swaths of the world. My mother still believes in her Catholic faith and has always stood by this idea: it’s impossible to move a behemoth organisation like the Church overnight. She stays in the community because she wants it to become better. She pushes, in her own small way, a little bit every day towards what she thinks is right. In this conversation, that is the acceptance of LGBTQ+ youths. Pope Francis was helpful in moving the Church away from a stance of hate. Now I hope that whoever the cardinals choose next for pope is someone who joins her in pushing that ball forward.

St. Anne wall shrine

I painted a boat-shaped key holder into a wall shrine to St. Anne today, as her saint day is coming up soon.

I incorporated a canoe and a sash, as St. Anne was a protective saint of voyageurs during the fur trade. Red, green and white felt like her signature colors, and she is near the ocean, as she was a treasured saint among fishermen and sailors.

I'll try to find a little tea light platform to glue to the bottom of the shrine for a fake candle to rest.

In 2019, my mom had suffered a slipped disc in her spine, and she went through immense pain and fear as they were processing her through emergency. I was so scared she was going to remain paralyzed or hurt more, it ate at me for months. I visited her every day after work in the hospital. Of course she has nerves of steel, so she worked hard to recover and now she can walk just fine. Back when she was in hospital, she shared a room with an old woman who was also ailing. We got to know her and we learned she loved to quilt. When my mom got sent home, we received a package. In it was a handmade prayer quilt, with almost 50 strands hanging from its squares for every single person who wished her well. It was from that sweet lady's church quilting group. I was speechless at this amazing, powerful and thoughtful act. I painted her a dove and olives folkart box for her as a big thank you. I think of that great moment of humanity to this day.

i don’t think humans are inherently bad i just don’t. once i posted about how i can’t ever get poached eggs right and someone took time out of their day to send me tips on how to make them. they used their finite time on this planet to teach me how to poach an egg with no motivation other than helping a stranger have a better breakfast and if that isn’t proof humanity is worth saving i don’t know what is

May 17 - National Fiddlers Day - la journée nationale des violoneux

This year, I’m earnestly starting up my fiddle learning as part of my spiritual practice. For many Acadian and French Canadian families, having a violoneux (fiddler) among us was a guaranteed entertainer!

My great great grandfather Dominique Malaison, out of thirteen siblings, was the only one to pick up a musical talent! He would keep his fiddle attached to an old red ribbon, and mounted it on the staircase wall. He would play the Hangman’s Reel and the Devil’s reel to my then young great uncle Leo’s requests. Dominique’s wife Anasthasie Arsenault would be the expert podorhythmic and would turlutte the songs with great breath control! They passed on this gift to my great grandmother Angèle Malaison. She would play tunes and my mother would dance to them. I also have vague memories of dancing to her playing as well when I was really young.

Others in my family also had the penchant for the fiddle. My great great grandfather Joseph Gilbert would learn his tunes with recorded vinyls, and practice late into the night. Their house was really small and no soundproofing! His daughter, my great grandmother Florida Gilbert, would be sleeping in her room and tell him “you don’t have that part yet!” And he’d go to her bedroom door and ask her “well then sing it for me!”

My mother took violin lessons, but never really stuck with it. Although, she does keep Angèle’s fiddle displayed on the mantle in her house. I’ll inherit it one day.

Learning fiddle for me is a struggle, it being a really hard instrument to learn anyway. As I’m attempting to understand how to read music and develop my musical ear, I remind myself of those who came before me, and that I am carrying on for them. I want to bring that same joie de vivre and dancing joy to my own house with this heritage, and participate in my musical culture in full swing! I try to light a candle every time I practice, to remember them and to wish me luck at the same time!

Dominique Malaison

My mom (little kid at the right), enjoying Angèle playing tunes while her son Raymond sits nearby.

Florida and Noël on their wedding day, with Joseph Gilbert on the right.

Legend of St. Hubert, oil con canvas. — Samuel John Carter (British, 1835-1892)

Folk Altar Stained Glass Painted Windows

I finished my stained glass painted windows today, and I'm so proud of them! The window's scene selections were to highlight important parts of my path as a catholic folk practitioner in my Quebec and Acadian culture. The scene on the right is a painting originally by Clarence Gagnon (Harvesting, c.1928-33) portraying some farmers in the fields of Charlevoix. The center window showcases the Star of the Sea, patron saint of the Acadians, keeping a ship safe in an ocean storm. (My own design). And the last window shows a scene from the folk tale "la chasse-galerie" from Honoré Beaugrand, when a group of woodsmen make a deal with the Devil to fly in an airborne magic canoe to visit their families on New Year's Eve. My practice entails researching my family's agricultural lifestyles and crafts, their religious life, and their folk tales.

My next project will be to paint the medallions on the doors of the altar cabinet.

The home country has some good Easter candle lore! In the maritimes, fishermen would keep fragments of the easter candle on their boats! Guess I’ll do a post soon!

The protective magic of Easter candles. [French Folks Traditions.]

The fragments of Easter candles and other wax seals distributed by the priest constitute powerful protective amulets, whose power seems superior to that of Candlemas candles. In the Vosges, they attract money, and a person who suddenly makes a fortune is said to have "robbed a church on Easter Day." Elsewhere, on Easter Monday, a fragment of a candle is hung behind the front door of the house for protection; this Easter wax is also used to ward off lightning. In the Alps, a few drops of wax are dripped into water, which take on the appearance of flowers, then thrown into the fireplace during a storm.

The Easter candle also has a particularly effective effect against witches. It is slipped into the sockets of cows' horns so that they cannot be milked from a distance ; or into a child's shoe or cradle to protect them from evil spells. It also happens that several buttons of Easter candle wax are glued onto or into the butt of a rifle, so as to be effective against werewolves.

[Excerpt from M.C. Delmas, in the Dictionary of Mysterious France.]