About Us
A bit of history...
The centre was built in 1961 on land received by the Ursulines as a bequest of Montreal lawyer Francis McLennan. It had a triple vocation as the provincial house, the novitiate, and a retreat house for the Ursuline Sisters of Quebec City.
The novitiate was relocated in the early 1970s, and the Centre for Christian Renewal expanded, welcoming increasingly numerous and varied groups. In 1999, its name was changed, becoming today’s Ursuline Spirituality Centre (Centre de Spiritualité des Ursulines).
The Ursuline Spirituality Centre is located in a peaceful area, surrounded by extensive grounds and woods crisscrossed with paths. It’s an oasis of calm, ideal for restoring spiritual energy and communing with life.
The Centre’s monastic architecture is an invitation to silence, inwardness, renewal, and encounter with spiritual presence. It hearkens back to the values of the Ursuline founders, Angela Merici and Marie de l’Incarnation, in practising a ministry of welcome.
The Centre puts on retreats and renewal workshops and hosts youth and adult groups with their own training, renewal, and interiority activities as well as meetings, general assemblies, teambuilding events, and other programs.
The Centre also welcomes individuals looking to take a break, catch their breath, or recharge their batteries in a setting conducive to self-discovery and encounter with the Other.
The Ursuline Spirituality Centre is rooted in the story of its founders Angela Merici and Marie de l’Incarnation. Women of vision who made their mark through their lives and their faith. Angela Merici, a woman of community, founded in 16th-century Italy a company of women living lives consecrated to God while remaining in the world. Marie de l’Incarnation left France to come to Canada in the 17th century to bring the gospel to young Indigenous people and open the first girls’ school in the Americas.
To learn more:
Mission
The Ursuline Spirituality Centre is a haven of welcome, renewal, and development of individuals and groups in search of meaning and greater well-being.
Vision
The Ursuline Spirituality Centre is known for its kind, personalized welcome, first-rate services, and openness to diversity. It perpetuates the values of the Ursuline sisters while adapting them to the present day.
Values
Human-centredness: the Ursuline Spirituality Centre welcomes each person in his or her uniqueness, recognizing their dignity and providing opportunities for growth.
Openness: in a spirit of openness, the Ursuline Spirituality Centre welcomes people of all cultures, beliefs, and religions respectfully and without judgement.
Kindness: the Ursuline Spirituality Centre is attentive to the individual person and offers outstanding services out of a concern for the well-being of all.
Awareness: through sensitivity to beauty and the environment, the Ursuline Spirituality Centre seeks to motivate every person to continue pursuing their search for meaning and fulfilment.
- Angela Merici: icon by Regina Testoni, Brescia.
- Marie de l’Incarnation: painting by Gertrude Martineau, 2018. Private collection, all rights reserved.
