How the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, Lay Apostolate, Began
From Ted Harasti, President
While the Queen of The Holy Rosary Shrine Lay Apostolate was not an official Knights of Columbus initiative, Many of its founding and current Directors are Knights. We take this opportunity to extend a very cordial thank you….thank you to the clergy, donors, supporters, including the 2nd. Ontario District, Assemblies, Councils, private Knights & Ladies who have helped our Lay Apostolate achieve its mission goals.
It is difficult to speak about our work without giving you a brief history of our inception, which must include the genesis of The Rosary Path at Marylake and its development. However, before I begin, I want to also express our sincere and humble thanks to the Augustinian Fathers of Ontario Inc. (AFOI) for welcoming us to Marylake and allowing us to build on their lands. The Rosary Path is approximately 20 acres in size, with the Path being 1.5 km. long.
The genesis of The Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine began while I was on retreat at Manresa, in Pickering, Ontario in 1974. I had a locution (private revelation) with our Blessed Mother Mary in which she asked me to build the Rosary Path as Her gift to Her Most Blessed Son, Christ our Lord, to save Souls. And she instructed me to promote the recitation of the Rosary to help bring souls to Her Son.
When I arrived home from that retreat, I was extremely excited and wanted to put pen to paper so as not to forget anything. I began producing many drawings of what our Mother had shown me, in the greatest of detail.
My life was extremely busy with working, raising my family, and working at founding The Right to Life Committee in Canada. I was also in the process of studying ways and means of building the Rosary Path.
While life kept intervening, I never stopped pursuing the concept. Some 40 years later, several interested fellow Knights and volunteers formed and incorporated the Queen of The Holy Rosary Shrine, Lay Apostolate as a charity. Our largest effort is to be the construction of The Rosary Path and promotion of the Rosary. Those volunteers became our first Directors; they were:
- SK Ted Harasti, PFN
- Andrew Dos Santos
- SK Dave Bicknell, PFN
- Edmund Pereira
- Margaret Banbury
- SK Pat McCarthy
- SK Vishnu Rampersad
- Richard Geoffroy
- Rose Nadeau
- Suzan Dulny
We were awestruck at the Herculean task before us. We began with several fundraising activities which included a Walk for Mary. We raised enough funds to become an incorporated, not-for-profit, registered charity with CRA approval.
We had several meetings with Bishops and the Cardinal and were successful in receiving Diocesan Approval to fundraise. Then we began making presentations wherever we could with anyone who would listen. Our fundraising grew, as did our support; thanks be to our Blessed Mother.
SK.Pat McCarthy had arranged a meeting with the Marylake officials in King City, Ontario, so we prepared a polished presentation. And again, thanks be to Mary, we were welcomed with open arms. The former Prior, Br. Paul Koscielniak, and the former Executive Director, Joe Gennaro, suggested we walk the fields and see where we might like to place the Path. Once I stepped foot on the ground of the field by the Chapel on the Hill, I knew! This was the place!
Within a few months and with the aid of the former AFOI Board, Chair, Frank Stadler, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding and began the build.
Our Holy Mother brought us many volunteers and donors. We raised over one million dollars to build the largest Rosary Path in North America, a world-class pilgrimage site of Marian devotion. We are eternally grateful to our individual donors and corporate donors such as King Cross Contracting, ADM Stainless Steel, Inox Industries, and fellow Knights for their dedicated support to our worthy cause.
A Brief History
When the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine Directors arrived at Marylake in 2013 and began planning the Rosary Path, there was already in place an old, no longer functioning, Way of The Cross on Chapel Hill. It was decided to remove them with the proviso that we ultimately replace them with new Stations, around the outside of the Path.
The Stations were not, however, part of my private locution regarding the Rosary Path; but, were added prior to our coming to Marylake. We had scouted many other potential properties for the Rosary Path location, some sites did include adding the Stations.
We mention this to show that planning had already begun, in our early development, to add the Stations to create this beautiful, pilgrimage. We called The Stations “Mary’s Way of The Cross” and it includes a beautiful 15th Station, with an empty tomb and sepulchre depicting The Resurrection.
In 2016, we built and installed the beautiful wooden Crosses and designed the Stations areas, and began placing benches. This, in itself, was a daunting task. To achieve this, we set aside our plans to install a working wet fountain as the Medallion of the Rosary and instead built a temporary one.
Then we were free to raise more to build the Stations. We had always planned to build the “wet” fountain once the task of building the Stations was completed.
We knew we needed to consider what artwork would accompany the crosses. While we were capable of creating the artwork, the entire Environmental Sculptural installation of the Rosary Path and Stations of the Cross was too much to handle entirely on our own.
We reached out to some of Canada’s most talented sacred artists like Stuart Reid for the Way of the Cross Artwork and Tim Schmaltz for the beautiful Corpus on The Great Crucifix. When we heard of Stuart Reid’s installation of large glass panels at Union Station in Toronto, our entire executive board went downtown to view his work.
At once, most were left speechless! We were then assigned to contact Stuart and after several consultation meetings with Stuart, Brother Paul Koscielniak, former Prior of Marylake at that time, and Joe Gennaro, former Executive Director. Following these successful meetings, the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine commissioned Stuart to create the beautiful, provoking artwork you see today.
The Official Opening of The Rosary Path at Marylake was officiated by His Eminence, Cardinal Thomas Collins of the Archdiocese of Toronto on Sunday, August 14, 2016. The ceremony can be viewed on our website www.holyrosaryshrine.org/albums.
What we have built at Marylake now is uniquely beautiful but, it is not yet finished. Due to current conditions, we are now on a hiatus, the completion of the build as called for in my locution now lies in the hands of the Augustinian Fathers, and the Queen of The Holy Rosary Shrine, Lay Apostolate, will be there when they wish to resume. With our Blessed Lady’s continued help and guidance your continued help and prayers, and the help of the Augustinian Community - all are possible.
While we are in a state of hiatus with the Rosary Path build, the Queen of The Holy Rosary Shrine, Lay Apostolate, continues faithfully working on its Mission Statement: -
- Promoting the Catholic Faith
- Raising Awareness of the Abundance of Spiritual Riches and Material Benefits Flowing From Reverently and Leisurely Meditating Upon the Prayers of the Rosary, the Way of the Cross, and Divine Mercy
- Spreading the Gospel by Means of Both Preaching the Word and by Imaging the Word Through Sacred Art
- Promoting Pilgrimages and Retreats to Marylake, Shrine of Our Lady of Grace
- Raising Funds to Successfully Achieve Our Lay Apostolate Work
- Helping the Poor and Needy
Please, let me reiterate that the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, Lay Apostolate, and the building of the Rosary Path/Way of The Cross was not a one-man effort. As previously mentioned, it was a Herculean effort that was made possible by all the efforts of our past and present Executives, volunteers, and individual and corporate donors. I truly believe Our Blessed Mother hand-selected and called each and every one of the volunteers, donors, and Directors to ensure Her request to Build the Rosary Path, was fulfilled.
Current Board of Directors
- Edward T. Harasti, President, Director, Founding Member
- Patricia Margery, Director, Ambassador Special advisor and Assistant to the President
- (Br) Paul Koscielniak, O.S.A., Director, Spiritual Advisor
- Annette Cumberbatch, VP Finance, Director, Treasurer
- Gino Di Pede, Director, Secretary
- Elmont Cumberbatch, Director, Ambassador
- George Chelvanayagam P.Eng., Director
- Teresa Morier, Director
- Mary Petrolo, Director
- Joe Petrolo, Director
- Jonathan Benjamin Neville
- Armando Cappuccitti, Director
- Vince Dumael, Director
- Neriza Neville, Ambassador
- Charmaine Deogracias, Ambassador
Breaking Ground Ceremony
The Ceremony was officiated by Br. Paul Koscielniak