Long before the one that now adorns the summit of Mount Royal, a luminous cross appeared in the skies over Montreal – and it’s closely linked to the one that covers today’s Sainte-Marguerite-d’Youville sanctuary.
On the night of this first Canadian saint’s death, December 23, 1771, an illuminated cross is said to have appeared above the Montreal General Hospital, which Marguerite was then running. The next day, onlookers learned that she had left this world.
Today, the cross at the top of the sanctuary symbolizes this unusual phenomenon, albeit illuminated by the miracle of electricity.