Monday, June 14, 2010

Grave of Bishop Power

The grave of Bishop Michael Power in the basement crypt of St. Michael's Cathedral.

The stone reads:

R. P. D. MICHAEL POWER
Primus Episcopus
Torontinus Obdormivit
In Domino 1° Octobris
                        1847

Bishop Power was the first Bishop of Toronto, oversaw the construction of St. Michael’s Cathedral (laying its cornerstone in 1845), and died of typhus while caring for sick and poor Irish immigrants who had fled to Canada during the Great Irish Famine.


Teach us, Good Lord... to give and not to count the cost...                    
                                               - St. Ignatius of Loyola


2 comments:

  1. There are several different colours of mortar around the tombstone. How often has the crypt been disturbed?

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  2. I don't know.

    I do know that at least once everything was opened up and surveyed. I also know that the original wooden posts which supported the Cathedral are terrifyingly small and that considerable work had to be done to put in new supports and to fix the foundations. I can only imagine that (in addition to whatever intentional investigations of the crypts have been carried out) there has also been some amount of natural shifting, settling, and cracking before, during, and after structural repairs to the Cathedral.

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