Our Lady of the Cape Shrine

The spiritual history of the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame-du-Cap dates back to 1694, when parish priest Paul Vachon established the Confraternity of the Rosary in the parish of Cap-de-la-Madeleine, then known as Cap-des-Trois-Rivières. While Marian devotion experienced a decline lasting more than a century following Vachon's death, it was revived starting in 1854 with the gift of a statue of the Virgin Mary, which remains the venerated image of Our Lady of the Cape today. The founding moment of the sanctuary's current renown occurred on June 22, 1888: that evening, Father Frédéric Jansoone, Priest Désilets, and a parishioner witnessed what was recorded as the "miracle of the eyes"—the statue of the Virgin, whose gaze is normally downcast, appeared to fix its eyes on the three men for several minutes. This event marked the beginning of a pilgrimage surge that has never ceased, making the site the second largest and most frequented Marian sanctuary in North America after Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, welcoming today over 500,000 visitors annually. The site uniquely combines the original votive chapel, built in stone between 1717 and 1720 and preserved intact as a direct testament to the miraculous events, and the modern basilica, elevated to the rank of minor basilica in 1964, whose bold architecture—evoking, according to some observers, a spacecraft on its launch pad—creates a striking contrast between centuries-old tradition and architectural modernity that defines this sanctuary designated as national by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.