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Priest & Parish Staff

           Administrator:  Rev. George Okoye SMMM               
                            Ph: 613-476-6276                   
​                         [email protected]
             Administrative Assistant:  Nancy Covel                                           
                             Ph: 613-476-6276                 
                                           [email protected]
            Maintenance:                                            Donald Geggie
          Parish Office Hours:      Tuesday to Thursday    9am to 3pm
​    7 Church St. Picton, ON  K0K 2T0

                                                                          History of St. Gregory the Great Parish

​ In 1668 the Roman Catholic faith was introduced to the region by the Sulpician Fathers of Quebec. They built their mission in the Consecon district and named this place Kente. From here priests attended their missions for hundreds of kilometres around about the countryside.

Little is known between 1680 to 1830. St. Gregory the Great Roman Catholic Church, in Picton, Ontario, was established in 1837, on land donated by the Rev. William MacAulay, Rector of the Church of England in Picton, St. Mary Magdalene Parish, to his friend, Father Lalor, the Catholic Priest. The first stone Church was built on the site in 1837, and dedicated by Bishop MacDonnell and Bishop Ganlin in 1839.

In 1870, the land for the present Mount Olivet Cemetery was obtained. In 1891 construction commenced on the present day St. Gregory the Great church. The laying of the corner stone taking place on September 4th 1892. The following year hundreds of people greeted His Grace, Most
Reverend Doctor J. V. Cleary who arrived by steamer. They extended the greatest reception and most cordial welcome ever before bestowed upon a Bishop by the populace of Picton. He dedicated the handsome new Church to St. Gregory the Great on 5 October 1893.
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The building, 120 feet long, the nave of which is 32 feet wide, and the transepts 63 feet wide, is a is beautifully and gracefully trimmed with cut stone. It is Gothic in style, with lancet windows and fine tracery transoms over the doors of the entrance, also tracery windows in front gable and pediments of the roof. The ceiling is fifty feet high in the nave, finished in fine wood paneling, and presenting a most elaborate appearance. On the left of the front entrance is the Baptistery, on the right a circular tower, in which is the staircase leading to the choir gallery. The gallery railing is beautifully worked in Gothic panels, the spaces in front of and between the posts filled in with Gothic Brackets and arches.
St. Gregory the Great, for whom this church is named, was Pope from the year 590 until his death in the year 604.

Who Was St. Gregory?

​Pope St. Gregory I, , known as St. Gregory the Great, was Pope from 3 September 590 AD until his death in 604 AD. A Doctor of the Church, Gregory was the first Pope to come from a Monastic background. Pope Gregory was known as “the Great” because of his charity in feeding starving Romans, his protection of the Jewish people of Rome, and his great political diplomacy. There was an Anglo-Saxon boys’ choir in Rome. Pope Gregory was told that they were Angles (from England). Because of their ruddy complexion, he said they were not Angles, but Angels. Pope Gregory then sent the missionary St. Augustine to the Royal Court in Canterbury to reawaken the remnant of the Catholic faith that was still in England. Canonized by popular acclaim immediately after his death, Gregory is the patron saint of musicians, singers, students and teachers. To learn more about St. Gregory the Great, see: https://infogalactic.com/info/Pope_Gregory_I

St. Gregory the Great Parish Prayer

Loving God, 
we ask your blessing upon 
our parish community.
Help us to hear and embrace 
the Gospel of Christ, that your kindness
and mercy may flow through us to others. 
Keep us faithful and secure in your love, 
renewed and united
each time we celebrate the Eucharist. 
Fill us with the Holy Spirit to inspire our
prayer and lead us in faith. 
Mary, Mother of God and of the Church,
we ask for your care and protection. 
St. Gregory the Great, 
servant of the servants of God, 
pray for us.

Who was St. Frances of Rome?

St. Frances of Rome is one of the great mystics of the 15th century. She was born in Rome to a noble family in 1384 and died in Rome on March 9, 1440. Her parents were very wealthy.
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She wanted to enter the convent at the age of 11, but in obedience to her parents, she instead married at age twelve to a young nobleman named Lorenzo Ponziani, Commander of the papal troops of Rome and member of an extremely wealthy family. Although the marriage had been arranged, it was a happy one, lasting for 40 years, partly because Lorenzo admired his wife, and partly because he was frequently away at war.
Frances was a good wife and homemaker, and the mother to three children. Frances experienced many sorrows in the course of her marriage with Lorenzo. They lost two of their children to the plague. This experience it sensitizes them to the needs of the poor.
Lorenzo was away defending the pope in Rome and against various anti-popes in Great Schism of the Catholic Church. While he was gone, his property and possessions were destroyed. Lorenzo was wounded so severely that he never fully recovered, dying in 1436. Frances nursed him throughout the rest of his life.

Frances had the gift of miracles and ecstasy. Although a mystic, she was also in touch with reality and what was happening in the world. Frances prayed, visited the sick and took care of the sick, and convinced wealthy women of the city to do the same. She turned part of her estate into a hospital. Frances was known for her works of charity to the poor and her zeal for souls. Frances cared for victims of epidemics (lost two children with the plague) and wars (Her husband severely wounded.) Both of these were frequent events in the 15th century. Frances sold all her possessions to raise funds so she could care for the sick. Frances accepted her losses as the will of God, and blessed His holy Name.

On the feast of the Assumption of Mary, August 15, 1425, Frances founded the Oblates of Mary, a lay confraternity of pious women, attached to the Church of Santa Maria Nova in Rome. Neither cloistered nor bound by formal vows, they could follow her pattern of combining a life of prayer with answering the needs of their society.

In March 1433, she founded a monastery in order to allow for a common life by those members of the confraternity who felt so called. This monastery remains the only house of the institute, and is called the Oblates of Saint Frances.

When Frances’s husband died in 1436, she moved into the monastery and became the group’s President. She died in 1440 and was buried in that Church. On May 9, 1608 she was canonized by Pope Paul V, and in the following decades a diligent search was made for her remains, which had been hidden due to troubled times in which she lived. Her body was found April 2, 1638, and reburied March 9, 1649, which became also her feast day.

In 1925 Pope Pius XI declared her patron saint of automobile drivers because of a legend that an angel used to light the road before her with a lantern keeping her safe from hazards.
-From Father B.J. Breen’s Homily on the Feast Day, March 9, 2012