International. An order of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, Grand Cross Star, around 1870
Catherine of Alexandria was a maiden of great beauty and intelligence, daughter of Constus, governor of Alexandria in Egypt during the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximin Daia (305 to 314).
She lived in a Hellenic knowledge center and received an excellent education. Her mother was secretly a Christian. She didn't want to get married, just to a man who would surpass her in everything. Her mother sent her spiritual advisor and he recognized her great faith in her and gave her an icon of the Virgin and Child. He baptized them and taught them. She prayed constantly and had a vision of the Virgin Mary and the Lord giving her a wedding ring. When she successfully defended her faith against the arguments of 50 pagan philosophers who had been sent by the emperor to confuse her and persuade her to deny his errors in Christianity, the emperor had him tortured on a spiked wheel sharply during his visit a pagan festival in Alexandria. A divine angel appeared and broke the wheel. After several tortures, she placed her head on the pyre and was beheaded with the sword in 310. She was 18 years old. Milk flowed from his body instead of his blood, and his body was said to have been transported by angels to a mountain in Sinai. A few years later, monks found his body intact on the top of this mountain, summoned from Mont Ste Catherine to transport him to the monastery. Today part of it is kept in the Orthodox monastery at Mount Sinai. Our priory is honored to be able to keep a relic of St. Catherine (a finger) in a reliquary. We honor him in our investments.
The feast of Ste-Catherine is celebrated on November 25th of each year. She is the patroness of single girls, wheel builders, millers and mold makers. Pope John Paul II reinstated this saint in the Roman calendar after his visit to the Monastery of Sinai in 2000.
Recall that the order was founded in 737 (before the Crusades) in the monastery on the mountain where Moses received the Tablets of the Law.
A few years later this monastery was rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian in honor of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The emperor granted the abbots the right to ennoble the pilgrims.
To counter the desert raiders who plundered and attacked the Sinai pilgrims, the Crusader Knights from Jerusalem reformed the order in 1063.
The current statutes are based on those of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, a religious and military order. Every year thousands of pilgrims flock to the monastery to venerate the relics of St. Catherine.
Several nobles and great men of this world were welcomed into this prestigious order:
Beaudin Ier, King of Jerusalem
Duke Henri II of Braunschweig
Richard Fearless, Duke of Normandy
Philippe d'Artois, Count of Eu, policeman of France
Duke Albert IV of Austria
Pierre de Portugal, Duke of Coimbre
Napoleon Bonaparte
And many others.
Closer to us:
The late Excellency Jeanne Sauvé, Governor General of Canada.
Theodore Rosevelt, wife of the former President of the United States.
The Honorable Lise Thibault, Lieutenant Governor of Quebec.
The order received favors from kings, princes and in turn from the sovereign popes, including Popes Honorius III and John XXII, who granted the Knights of Sinai many rights and privileges.
The order's initial goals were to protect the roads for pilgrims. From this principle arose the need to contribute to the maintenance of universal peace and then to watch over the family, the unfortunate.
Today we help specific people or groups in need. Here in Quebec we support the works of the Maison du Père, an institution dedicated to people on the streets. This order is non-profit. |
