St. Joseph the Worker Shrine

A Little Bit of History

On April 18, 1868, Father André Garin O.M.I. arrived in Lowell to preach a mission at St. Patrick’s Church to the hundreds of French-speaking mill workers, who had migrated from Canada.  The local diocesan priest, Father O’Brien, could only minister in English.  This was a barrier for the many Canadians who were busy keeping the thousands of bobbins turning in the area mills.  A true disciple of St. Eugene, Father Garin preached to the working people, not in “Provencal”, but in French as it was spoken in Canada.

 The preaching was so successful that the people refused to let him leave. They raised enough money for a down payment on an abandoned Unitarian church structure at 37 Lee Street. (Hey, that’s us!) Soon a group of volunteers rearranged the interior of the church for the first Mass which was held on Sunday, May 3, it was St. Joseph’s Day. (Hey, that’s where we got our name!)

As the French population grew, Father Garin began the construction of St. John the Baptist church in 1890 to accommodate more parishioners. Our building here on Lee Street remained as a chapel, and in 1956, with the encouragement of Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston, we were blessed as a shrine in honor of St. Joseph the Worker.