BASILICA BEAUTY - ST. JOSEPH'S ORATORY

It's time for our Gilligan's Island tour of Montreal.

It's a three-hour tour complete with a tiny spitfire of a tour guide.  The bus, driven expertly through the construction that is swallowing the city, weaves from place to place, sometimes stopping but more often not stopping.  The tour guide tells us that two things can be seen from space: The Great Wall of China and Montreal's orange cone invasion.

There is one stop, though, that makes this tour worthwhile.  We stop at St. Joseph's Oratory, which is a minor basilica and national shrine.  L'Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont Royal, its French name, this magnificent church is Renaissance style and built on a small mountain.  It contains such treasures as the heart of the devout Brother Andre.  (There really is a shriveled heart in a glass case.)

This place is amazing.  Believers can work for a miracle by climbing up a long stone staircase outside on their knees.  Yup.  Knees.  To the top stair.  The center riser area is roped off for those making the climb on their knees.  We consider it briefly then decide the only miracle we will need after making this climb will be knee replacements. Oh, puhhhleeeeeeeze!  The people we are with had to pull over every few miles to prevent deep-vein thrombosis on the way up here.  Nobody in our group will be kneeing for a miracle.  Some of them already believe it's a miracle just to have knees.

We enter the first part of the church, a room specifically for offerings and candle lighting, and think, "Wow, this is amazing."  We enter a back passageway and come face to face with a statue of the Virgin Mary.  She's alone with a spotlight shining on her, standing peacefully against the stone backdrop, on a giant pedestal in a small indoor brook.  "Wow," we think again, "this is amazing."

Up the stairs or, in our case, the elevator, we come to a landing with a view of just over 180 degrees (we cannot see behind us due to the rock ledge, but we can see Montreal for an eternity.  And we think maybe this is it because wow, this is amazing.

But, no.  There is more.  Upstairs above this on the next floor, cases and displays house information about the devout Brother Andre who lived on the church property, including the case holding his heart that, though a religious shrine, strikes me somewhat as sickly morbid that people loved Andre so much they cut out his heart.

But still, there is more.  The Basilica itself, is amazing, so amazing that I dare not go much further than just inside the doors.  I am not Roman Catholic, and many people have come here to sit or kneel in thought and prayer.  It seems a sacrilege to gawk at the beauty of the architecture while these people, maybe even some of whom kneed their way up here, are having a religious experience.

I work my way back down, leaving my two of my pals behind then finding the third so he can lead me out of the place.  I have a terrible sense of direction, and I'm terrified the bus will leave me here and God will know I'm not a true believer cut from this cloth.

I wish the tour could spend more time here, though..  This place is an excellent feat of architectural and religious glory and the grounds are incredible.  Plus, I grab the bus seat arm rest a mere four times as we make the steep and horrifying descent down the winding road back to the main street.  Thank goodness, unlike Gilligan, our three-hour tour ends without a wreck.  Now, if we can just convince the tour guide to stop talking and the bus riders to hold their repetitive questions so we can get on with our day, we'd hit the
pinnacle of success.