inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!

August 2016 - Montreal Quebec

While in Montreal a few weekends ago we took a scenic drive along Bord du Lac or Lakeshore along Lac Saint Louis. See more here.



Saint-Joachim de Pointe-Claire Church (French: Église Saint-Joachim de Pointe-Claire) or simply Saint-Joachim Church is a Roman Catholic church in Pointe-Claire.

I had to google him.

Joachim (/ˈdʒoʊ.əkɪm/; "he whom Yahweh has set up", Hebrew: יְהוֹיָקִים Yəhôyāqîm, Greek Ἰωακείμ Iōākeím) was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus, according to the Catholic,Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of James. Joachim and Anne are not mentioned in the Bible. His feast day is July 26.

The first church in Pointe-Claire was built in 1713. It was a stone church, but became obsolete, and was replaced in 1746.

In 1848, about one hundred years later, another new church was proposed. It was built according to plans made by the architect Victor Bourgeau in 1858. Numerous delays pushed the start of construction to 1868. The interior of this church was completed around the beginning of 1881. Later that same year, April 17, 1881, a fire destroyed the old church. The fire then spread to the new church, which was also destroyed.

The construction of a replica was undertaken that year, with the same team. Construction completed in 1885.
The presbytery next door to the church.

The 1858 design came several years after the construction of the Saint-Pierre-Apôtre de Montréal Church, which had made known architect Victor Bourgeau. The Saint-Joachim project was finished around the same time as he completed the interior of the Notre-Dame Basilica which I featured a couple of years ago.

This statue sits across the street from the church.

The interior is so pretty and peaceful in shades of blue.

We had never been here before and until I was writing this post I had no idea that the convent was actually named after the windmill which we had never seen either.

Here is an aerial shot from the Montreal Gazette.

We walked over to the now closed convent. I found an article in the Montreal Gazette from 2014 which stated that:

The Notre-Dame-du-Vieux-Moulin convent in Pointe-Claire is closing.

Maintaining the imposing greystone building at the tip of what is called “La Pointe” has become too expensive, so the 19 remaining Congregation Notre-Dame nuns will move to other convents in December.

The swath of land which houses the convent, the city’s signature windmill and St-Joachim Church and its presbytery belongs to the St-Joachim Parish. The Pointe-Claire windmill was built in 1709. It’s been declared a cultural property by Quebec’s Ministry of Culture and Communications.

The city declared the convent a heritage site in 2013. Reversing a heritage designation is not impossible, but difficult.

A statement from Pointe-Claire city hall said the city will “ensure that all measures are taken to preserve the integrity of the heritage status of the convent of the Congregation of Notre-Dame.”

The original convent was built behind the church and presbytery in 1787 and sisters of the Congregation Notre-Dame were allowed to move in on the condition they educate the young girls in the region.

An 1831 report described the school as “one of the best primary schools that you can find for its teaching of reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic, along with modesty and good manners.”

When that convent crumbled with age, a new convent was completed in 1867, and in 1962 two wings were added.
I wrote about the CND Congregation Notre Dame, the nuns I had in high school in this article.

When it closed there were only nineteen nuns still living there.

It is the oldest windmill on the island of Montreal and one of 18 remaining windmills in Quebec.

Like most mills in New France it was built to a French design, a cylindrical stone tower with a movable roof which could be turned by a tail pole to face the sails to the wind. The mill had two doors, to provide an exit regardless of which ways the sails faced. The walls are four French feet (1m32) thick at the base. The interior is 12 French feet in diameter by 24 high.The mill originally contained elevated platforms beneath gun slits for defence. The surrounding shoreline was fenced with pointed wooden stakes. However, the site was never attacked