Our reflection on the love of Christ is not complete if our focus is exclusively as “recipients” of the great gift of this love for us. Certainly, we are the beneficiaries of the profound and infinite love of Jesus which we see, as did Longinus, in gazing upon the cross. But to engage more deeply in this love, we must understand not just the gift, but the Giver, and to know the Giver, we must touch His Most Sacred Heart.
Our commemoration of and devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus reminds us of the fullness of His love for us and calls us into a deeper Communion. As we come to know the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we come to know His virtues and His teachings, His inner life and his infinite love. We will find our lives transformed as did Saint Longinus, so with our eyes we will see His truth, with our hands we will hold His body and blood and with our hearts we will love as the Master has shown us love.
“Surely in the eyes of faith, nothing more deserves our respect and adoration than does the Sacred Heart.”
Holy Cross Patrons
Our founder Blessed Basil Moreau envisioned a community that will live like a family and he entrusted each society of the congregation to an individual patron within the Holy Family. The priests of Holy Cross are consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The brothers of Holy Cross, drawing upon their beginnings with Fr. Jacques Dujarié as the Brothers of St. Joseph, are dedicated to St. Joseph. The congregation of Holy Cross was placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Sorrows.
As Holy Cross Priests, we ground our model of priestly charity in the Sacred Heart of Jesus – that heart pierced by the soldier’s lance in the final proof that Jesus offered all, every last bit of His life, for us. In imitation of Him, we also seek to offer all in ministering the Sacraments and preaching the Good News.
Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, is both the patron of Holy Cross Sisters and the special patron of the whole family of Holy Cross. In selecting Mary under this title as our principal patron, Blessed Basil Moreau gave us a patron who, better than anyone else, could instruct us in our spirituality and mission to proclaim the Cross of Christ as our only hope.
Saint Joseph embodies the virtues for which all Christians, but especially we religious, strive, including integrity, fortitude, fidelity, and sanctity. We seek to live our vocations as Holy Cross Brothers with the same loyalty, faithfulness, and generosity that Joseph showed in his vocations as the husband of Mary and the foster-father of Jesus.
