“Today is Sunday, and I’ll be ringing the church bells.” Did you know that in 1905, 85% of French Canadians and most Irish immigrants in Quebec are Catholic? Meanwhile, most English and Scottish people practice the Protestant religion. A minority of people belong to the Jewish religion or various religious movements. These other religions are mostly practiced in Montreal, which had a higher percentage of recent immigrants.

Life in the parish

The Catholic Church sets and dictates the behaviour of its believers. Priests play an important role within Catholic society, while its members—being good Catholics—help maintain the parish by either doing work or paying a tithe. Believing in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is the creed of all good Catholics. People are baptized and raised in the faith by receiving the holy sacraments at different stages of their lives (the Eucharist, confirmation, marriage and sometimes extreme unction). These are rites of passage. To help maintain the parish church, people like my grandfather do repairs and families pay a tithe each year to help the priest run the parish.

Family

In my family, we pray every morning and evening. Before each meal, we recite the blessing to thank God and ask Him to bless our meal. At the end of the day, we kneel as a family and recite the rosary. Sunday is the Lord’s Day. The whole family puts on their best clothes and we go to church for mass.

See French video:  J’ai la memoire qui tourne at
http://primaire.recitus.qc.ca/sujets/10/langue-culture-et-religion/3786

Author: Service national du Récit de l’univers social

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