Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau was born near LeMans, France on February 11, 1799 during the closing months of the French Revolution. He was ordained a priest there in 1821 and spent his early years in seminary teaching. He founded the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1837 through the union of two groups that had been placed under his direction: an association of Auxiliary Priests formed to preach parish missions, and the Brothers of Saint Joseph, originally founded in 1820 by Father James Dujarie to serve as educators in village schools. The Congregation got its name from the small town of Sainte Croix (Holy Cross), eighty miles from Paris near Moreau's birthplace. Holy Cross' philosophy was, as it remains today, to promote the education of the whole person -- spiritual, intellectual, artistic, physical, and social.
Father Moreau's congregation flourished and expanded into other countries from their headquarters in France. A young Holy Cross priest, Edward Sorin, went to the United States in 1841 with six brothers to found the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana. A year later Father Moreau gave a rule of life to a small band of dedicated laywomen, the first sisters of Holy Cross who became known as the Marianites. The founder's wish was that the priests, brothers, and sisters be united in their lives and work as a visible imitation of the Holy Family. The congregation's principal feast is that of Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15.
Though Father Moreau first intended his community to renew the Church in the devastated parishes and rural schools of France, he was eager to respond to the urgent needs for personnel in the Church's international mission as well. Within sixteen years of its founding, Holy Cross had stretched its mission beyond the borders of France to four different countries: Algeria 1841, the United States 1842, Canada 1843, and Bengal, India (now Bangladesh) 1853.
At the age of seventy-four, Basil Moreau died in France on January 20, 1873. However, his Congregation continued to grow and to expand its teaching around the world. There are now nearly 1500 Holy Cross Priests and Brothers and a similar number of sisters in sixteen countries on four continents. We work in schools, hospitals and parishes as educators in the faith, reaching out in a preferential way to the poor and the oppressed in a wide variety of ministerial contexts. Wherever we work, we try to help people develop their own gifts - and to discover the deepest longing in their lives.
Our mission sends us across borders of every sort. Often we must make ourselves at home among more than one people or culture, reminding us again that the farther we go in giving, the more we stand to receive. (Constitutions, Congregation of Holy Cross).
