History of Blessed Sacrament Parish Ottawa On Canada
Of significant note is the Lenten mission held at Blessed Sacrament Parish leading up to the Marian Congress. In attendance was a 17-year-old by the name of Robert Bedard. Only heaven knew at this point the path carved out for this teenager; that he would become the founder of a new order of priests – The Companions of the Cross. – excerpts from Rev. Robert Bedard’s timeline on the Companions of the Cross website follow in italics.
1944 – 1948: High School: St. Patrick’s College High School, an all-boys school run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It was during grade 12 at age 17 in 1947 that he had a significant spiritual turning point in his life at a Lenten Mission given by the Redemptorist Fathers at his parish, Blessed Sacrament. He was already a convicted Catholic but at this point, he made a decision to stay away from sin and pursue holiness in his life.
1948 – 1951: College: Three Year Liberal Arts at St. Patrick’s College. The high school he was at offered a small liberal arts program in the same building so he decided to stay there. In his first year, when he was 19, the pastor at Blessed Sacrament, Monsignor Bert Armstrong preached on a line from the Gospel of the day: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own immortal soul?” As he meditated on this question for his own life, he heard himself saying, “I think I’d like to spend my life making that question as clear as possible to as many people as I can.” This led him to begin discerning the priesthood as the logical place for a man who wanted to present that important question from the Scripture to everyone.
June 6, 1955: Ordained at his home parish of Blessed Sacrament in Ottawa, the same parish where he was baptized, made first Confession, first Communion and was confirmed. He was ordained by Archbishop Marie-Joseph Lemieux, OP.