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The Devotion to the Holy Family The Grand Séminaire and the Petit Séminaire
The Council of Trent and Gregorian rite  
 
  The Devotion to the Holy Family
 

Ceremony of homage to the Christ Child
Ceremony of homage to the Christ Child
Musée de la civilisation, Archives du Séminaire de Québec,
MS-179, pp.58-59,
Photo : Idra Labrie

 
 
Holy Family insignia, in Eugène Lévêque's Manuel théorique et pratique de version latine, 1864
Known at first as the Séminaire des missions étrangères (SME), or Foreign Missions Seminary, the Seminary was established in Quebec City under the patronage of the Holy Family.
Bishop François de Laval was a fervent Catholic in the reign of Louis XIV. Along with his contemporaries, he had an earnest devotion to the Holy Family. This devotion intensified and spread when the birth of a new heir to the French throne was announced. On September 5, 1638, the future king was born, Louis-Dieudonné, the fourteenth king by that name. The miracle of his late conception (after 20 years of marriage) was quickly compared to the birth of Christ. From then on, Jesus was depicted as an infant king in the arms of his mother, both of them wearing crowns. These representations served both to sanctify the royal family and make the devotion to the Holy Family a tangible reality. Bishop Laval consecrated the Seminary that he founded in New France to the Christ child, and placed it under the protection of the Holy Family.