This evening, all over the province of Québec, huge bonfires will be lit to celebrate the official beginning of summer. Everywhere you go, you will find people assembled to laugh, sing, dance and have fun, all while celebrating our heritage as Québécois.
National Holiday (Quebec) – from commons.wikimedia.org
The tradition was revived in the 1820s and cemented in the early 1900s in the face of a growing nationalistic sentiment and today, La St-Jean-Baptiste is our national holiday.
In the early days of the celebration, strongly influenced by the Catholic Church’s presence, the St-Jean-Baptiste day parade always included a boy dressed like John the Baptist that served as a reminder that he was a precursor of our Lord’s coming to earth. For years, Québécois identity and the Catholic Church went hand in hand. It was so unmissable that Mark Twain said during his visit to Montréal: “This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window.” The reminders of Jesus and His sacrificial love and work were everywhere.
St. Jean Baptiste, Montreal, QC, 1867 – from the canadianencyclopedia.ca
Then came the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, where the influence of the Catholic Church waned almost completely, while the Québécois whole-heartedly embraced secularism. Today, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of people would identify as Catholic, most of them have never set foot in a church except for funerals, the occasional christening and the incredibly rare wedding, creating a true Post-Christian society.
Therein lies the challenge. The common belief is that God and the church are “passé,” something that our grandparents did, but completely irrelevant to society today. Out of a population of over 8 million Québécois, around 1% of them would identify as Evangelicals, making the Québécois the most unreached people group in the Americas. Most people have never heard the name of Jesus used outside of a swear word, much less interacted with the life-changing message of the Gospel.
St. Jean Baptiste, Montreal, QC, 1867 – from the canadianencyclopedia.ca
Yet in spite of this, we have hope. In recent years, we have been witnesses to the Holy Spirit working mightily here. Power to Change, as well as other ministries and churches, are seeing increasing growth in numbers and effectiveness.
People are thirsty, searching for understanding, love and purpose and finding those needs met in Jesus. Lives are being transformed; the light of the Gospel is starting to shine once again in one of the darkest places in the world! The doors are wide open and the fields are white, as the harvest seems to be upon us!
Today, as the Fleurdelisé flies everywhere across our province, would you remember to pray for Québec? Would you pray that God would continue to open doors as well as provide workers for the harvest?
To find out more about Power to Change’s ministry in Québec, click here!
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