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Book Review
Holy Cross fathers ground prayer in action
Reviewed by Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
March 20, 2008
Considering the atmosphere out of which the religious order was founded, it’s easy to see why the Congregation of Holy Cross would take as its motto, “Hail, the Cross, our only hope.”
The Holy Cross fathers made their way onto the scene in the first few decades after the French Revolution, a time when many of their countrymen placed all their hope in the hands of governments and revolutionaries.
But for Fr. Basil Moreau, who founded the Holy Cross fathers in 1837, the cross was the only thing in the world that could sanctify daily actions and provide hope for tomorrow and the next life.
Fr. Hugh Cleary, current superior general of the Congregation of Holy Cross, finds ample relevance today in Blessed Basil Moreau’s example.
“This exciting moment in our history offers the grace-filled opportunity to encounter Fr. Moreau with a fresh perspective,” he writes. “As a person of faith bringing God’s love to a secular and sometimes cynical age, his is a life worth imitating.”
Thankfully, learning how to imitate the actions, wisdom and charism of the Congregation of Holy Cross just became a little easier with the publication of “The Cross, Our Only Hope: Daily Reflections in the Holy Cross Tradition.”
In it, members of the congregation offer 365 reflections on what it means to live the spirituality of the cross.
And there’s also a nice local connection. Holy Cross fathers minister across the world, and a few from Phoenix — including Fr. Bill Wack of André House, Fathers John Herman and Eric Schimmel of St. John Vianney Parish in Goodyear and Fr. Tom Zurcher, former vicar for priests, to name just a few — have contributed their reflections to the book.
“We believe that the cross is more than a dead piece of wood that we bear; it is a living thing, a new tree of life that is planted in our lives,” write Holy Cross Fathers Andrew Gawrych and Kevin Grove in the introduction.
“As we allow this tree of the cross to take root and to grow in our lives, it begins to bear fruit, giving us new, abundant life,” they write.
And reading through the entries day-by-day can help plant the seed of this new life. Each one begins with a quote from Blessed Moreau, one of the other early Holy Cross fathers or the congregation’s constitutions.
For example, the entry for Aug. 20 is from Blessed Moreau: “Let us then renew our generosity in His service, and if our work seems hard and difficult, let us remember that, after all, it will last only a short time, whereas its reward will remain forever.”
It’s a beautiful statement that sets the reader in a meditative state, and it pairs together perfectly with the concrete reflection from a Holy Cross father that follows.
The interplay between the sometimes lofty, almost poetic thoughts shared by the early founders of the order and the more experiential, anecdotal reflections by current members works well and highlights something special about Holy Cross spirituality.
The very name of the order can clue readers into the charism of the Holy Cross. While the name obviously refers to the cross Christ hung from, it also comes from a town in France.
“We are named for a small French town called Sainte-Croix on the outskirts of Le Mans in northwestern France. This little-known fact is important to the identity of the congregation and our tradition,” Fathers Gawrych and Grove write.
“For while we serve the Cross of Christ, our mission developed out of Sainte-Croix — a town with real people and problems, one that needed both teachers and preachers,” they write.
The congregation’s combination of both a deep interior life and apostolic energy and zeal is well represented in this book of daily reflections. It can help Catholics learn to love the cross, and from that love comes a transformation in daily action.
Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.
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