The Marylake Augustinian Monastery, also known as Marylake Monastery, Marylake Shrine, or simply Marylake, is an Augustinian

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

in King City,

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. The campus is nearly , residing on Keele Street, just north of 15th Sideroad (Bloomington). It is part of the Province of Saint Joseph, the Canadian province of Augustinians which operates under the jurisdiction of the Chicago-based Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel. Marylake is the chief foundation of the Augustinians in Canada, and is now well known as a spiritual centre for the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. Marylake generally refers to the complex which includes the property, the monastery and shrine, and which operates a retreat centre. The shrine is named the ''Our Lady of Grace Shrine'', whose title is taken from an Augustinian shrine in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

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. The monastery motto is ''One mind and one heart unto God''. In 1999, the

mendicant order Mendicant orders are primarily certain Catholic religious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to less we ...

established a school on the property, St. Thomas of Villanova College. It uses the house system, with houses such as St. Augustine, St. Nicholas, St. Rita, and St. Monica.

History

Originally, the property was the farm and summer home of Sir Henry Pellatt, and it was named for his first wife, Mary. It has been owned by the Augustinians since 1935. An agricultural school was established on the grounds in the 1930s by the Basilian fathers, and in 1942 the Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal McGuigan, ''"invited the Augustinians to establish a shrine and to offer a program of weekend retreats for lay people"'' He expressed that it was his own personal dream that it was his hope that this shrine at the Marylake Centre would become not only an important place of pilgrimage in honour of our Blessed Mother Mary in this area, but that one day it would officially become the centre of Marian devotion for all Ontario. The success of this program resulted in the construction of the shrine in the 1960s, which was dedicated on November 30, 1978 by Cardinal Carter. The building consists of split

fieldstone Fieldstone is a naturally occurring type of stone, which lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Fieldstone is a nuisance for farmers seeking to expand their land under cultivation, but at some point it began to be used as a construction mate ...

native to Marylake, based on designs by J. Stuart Cauley. Marylake held its first mass in 1945. It is the site for a yearly June

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...

by 3,000

Danube Swabians The Danube Swabians ( ) is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in the Kingdom of Hungary in east-central Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in greater numbers in the 17 ...

for an open-air mass paying "homage to Germans expelled from Eastern Europe". In October 2012, the Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal

Thomas Christopher Collins Thomas Christopher Collins (born 16 January 1947) is a Canadian Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Toronto, Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto from 2007 to 2023, the Roman Cat ...

, declared Marylake as one of four official archdiocesan sites of sacred pilgrimage for the Year of Faith. On February 3, 2013, in a Solemn High Mass, the Very Reverend Bernard Scianna, O.S.A., Ph.D., Prior Provincial of the Canadian an
Midwest Augustinians
officially blessed and designated the main entrance to the shrine as a holy door open to all who come to Marylake seeking the special graces of the Year of Faith. The Rosary Path at Marylake The Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine (Lay Apostolate) gained approval from the Augustinian Friars to place an environmental sculpture of the Rosary at Marylake In 2014, ground was broken to build the largest rosary path in North America. In August 2016, Cardinal Collins blessed and Opened the rosary path. The Corpus of The Great Crucifix which is at the beginning of the rosary path was created by the world-renowned sculptor Timothy Schmaltz. In 2016, Mary's Way of the Cross was added to the pathway, and in 2017, large (7' X 4') glass panels created by Stuart Reid were added to the Way of the Cross. The rosary path at Marylake was conceived by architect Ted Harasti of Toronto. After receiving a Marian locution on a retreat in 1974, Harasti made it his quest to build the rosary path at the request of the Blessed Mother Mary.

Pipe organ

The monastery has a

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

built from two 1928

Aeolian-Skinner Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866–1 ...

Duo-Art organs, which were obtained in 1960 from the Eaton estate and Seagram estate. Work to combine the two organs began in 1968 and was completed in 1973; it was first played for midnight mass that year. It has the original leather work, now cracked and torn, and has over 3000

pipes Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circu ...

. Marylake plans to repair the organ and transform it to digital operation at a cost of .

Filming locations

* The 1960s TV series '' The Forest Rangers'' used Marylake as a filming location, as it was a good match for lake scenery from Ontario's north * 1995 film '' Billy Madison''

References

Notes

* * * * *
Midwest Augustinians - Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel

External links

Marylake Shrine of Our Lady of Grace
{{coord, 43, 57, 2.47, N, 79, 32, 36.62, W, region:CA-ON_type:landmark, display=title Augustinian monasteries in Canada Buildings and structures in King, Ontario Christianity in Ontario 1935 establishments in Ontario