“A LIFE TO WHICH WE HAPPILY INVITE
OTHERS”
Constitution 6, 60
Circular Letter 9
Dear Fellow Religious,
“’Come follow me.’
It was the Lord Jesus calling us.
“We were already his, for we bore the name of
Christians. We had already been initiated
into his church. We had been washed in
baptism and confirmed in our belief and given the Eucharistic nourishment in
memory of him. But there seemed to come
a time when the Lord was calling us to take some further step.
“It was a call that comes to us from without, but
also one that rose up within us, as from his Spirit.” (God’s Call, Constitution 1)
Our Holy Cross Constitutions describe well the
nature of God’s call to follow Jesus: it is a call both from within and from
without.
It is a call we hear from within the silence of our
hearts. We hear this call through the stirring of a longing and desire for
someone or something outside ourselves, someone or something needed to quiet
the inborn ache of the human heart. It
is a call inviting us to heal the unrequited love that waits within us. God’s
love calls us.
Our desire for love draws us to a union with the One
who is life itself. We are called to
turn inwardly to God, trusting that He will fulfill our deepest desire, the
desire He Himself placed within us.
Our vocation is a response to God’s love. We call to
God to satisfy our longing. The desire
for intimacy with God permeates our lives.
We will never find fullness without it.
This truth of love as life’s purpose and meaning is
often repressed within us. We seek other satisfactions in place of that which
alone can satisfy. Our Constitutions state our human dilemma simply, clearly:
“The world is well provisioned with gifts from God’s
hand, but the gifts are often worshipped and the Giver is ignored.” (C 5, 45)
We believe, through our own personal experience,
that the fulfillment of love is the goal, purpose and destiny of human
life. We are all fascinated with the
beautiful gifts of God’s hand, but to worship them and to ignore the Giver of
all good gifts is to lose our way. It is
a tragedy beyond words for any human being to arrive at the end of life and
find that this precious gift had not been enjoyed truly and lived well; that
love was lost or subverted through misconstrued enthrallments with power,
pleasure, and wealth.
“Why would I have been so foolish not to realize that everything in me desires the fulfillment of this union with You and nothing else, absolutely nothing else. For this is what I desire to be; this is who I truly am – one marked, claimed and surrendered over to Your love.” (Cloud of Unknowing)
God is the all of existence. God is the one from whom all things come; the
one in whose image and likeness we are created.
Love calls us out of nothingness. God gives us all that He is; God waits
for us to give Him all that we are.
The human vocation is to live in God’s love. Love consists in reverence for all, in
freedom, generosity, forgiveness and understanding. All people are called to
return love for love.
Our vocation is also a call we hear from without,
through the cry of the poor and the suffering of humanity. Though our world, God’s creation, is well
provisioned, there are enormous inequities of wealth, power and possession
among the members of the human family. Life
and love are sustained through the provisions of the earth, provisions that are
meant to be shared for the good of all: food, water, clothing, shelter, health,
education, the basic elements to human fulfillment and happiness. Love demands justice. Justice begets mercy. Mercy provides peace.
Our brothers and sisters, needlessly suffer when we
insist on power over others, more than our fair share of the earth’s
provisions, pleasure at the expense of others.
Enmity, violence and injustice seem to be almost as much a part of the
human story as love itself.
The vocational call to humanity as the children of
God is a call from within and a call from without. God calls each of us, with Jesus, “My beloved.”
We are all unique creatures, made in God’s image
with personalities and natural gifts of character to be shared in the communion
of love. God blesses us with distinctive
marks of nature to assist one another in building up the human family as a civilization
of love.
The concept of vocation implies that we are all
imprinted with a certain ontology, a way of being, both general and
specific. Speaking in general terms we
are all created in God’s image; specifically we have unique roles to play in
loving service to the human family.
God has created us in such a way that our very
nature finds its best expression in living the vowed life. God’s call implies a
unique sensitivity to the mystery of His love, a sensitivity that finds its
fullest expression in proclaiming the eschatological destiny of human life
through the testimony of our common life.
As consecrated religious we are exceptionally
sensitive to the divine love as the meaning of existence. We are educators in the faith. By definition a teacher is one who shows the
way. Our vocation to the common life
gives testimony to the final destiny of human life: we are meant to live in
love; it is a destiny that is inscribed within us. We are meant to show the
way. Our vocation proclaims that human life is something more than accidental;
life is not random, it is not without purpose.
Our genetic code is a guide to our destiny. It is part of our ontology.
By some strange, unknown, inward urgency we are not
really alive unless we are actively using our lives to teach the world about
our human eschatology in God’s love; we are not really alive unless we are
offering the hope of the future. It is
the ministerial essence of our vocation.
It is not an elitist calling since we all share a common destiny but it
is a calling specific to us, a calling meant to teach and reveal the meaning of
human destiny.
Our vocation has definition. It has the boundaries of shape and form so as
to point the way to that which is at the depth of longing in every human
heart. As consecrated religious our
vocation is a gift from God to humanity.
God envisions our common life as a testimony to divine love in the unity
and interdependence of each and every human being.
Our specific vocation in Holy Cross finds us at the
crossroads of history. We were founded
in contemporary times of cataclysmic change. The age of Enlightenment in the
western world ushered in a culture of belief in humanistic values based on
reason as its new guiding light, abandoning trust in the light of Christ. That humanism has deteriorated into unabashed
secularism that seems to eschew basic moral values as guiding principles for
human behavior.
Father Moreau founded his Congregation to proclaim
the Gospel of Jesus as the core of life’s purpose and meaning in the midst of a
world culture growing ever more secular and relativistic, relying on the
advance of science alone as the healing grace to satisfy human aspirations for
wealth, pleasure and possession.
We are a contemporary Congregation born in these
times of radical upheaval. Father Moreau’s trust in Divine Providence guides
our hope for a future capable of being renewed in God’s love. We stand in
contradiction to a deterministic world seemingly bent on a path toward its own
destruction. The Congregation of Holy Cross proclaims confidence in the victory
of God’s ultimate love.
Basil Moreau’s hope in the cross as a gift allows us
to transcend the pain of human suffering through faithful compassionate
love. The cross is a sign of
contradiction to a culture that shuns suffering. Our Congregation embraces the cross as a gift
with the sure hope that “there is no failure the Lord’s love cannot reverse,
no humiliation he cannot exchange for blessing, no anger he cannot dissolve, no
routine he cannot transfigure. All is
swallowed up in victory” (The Cross, Our Hope – Constitution 8,118).
Father Moreau’s concern for union and communion
among the religious led him to choose the holy family as his model for the
Congregation. He demanded that we abide
with equal dignity among the priests, brothers and sisters in carrying out our
specific roles of ministry. In a contemporary world so divided by social,
religious and cultural status, the Congregation of Holy Cross esteems
collaboration between laity and clergy as a testimony to the inherent dignity
of every human being.
Basil Moreau’s commitment to justice and his
affection for the poor and the lowly compels us to identify ourselves in a
preferential way with those suffering social, political and religious
oppression. “We come not just as
servants but as their neighbors, to be with them and of them…We stand with the
poor and afflicted because only from there can we appeal as Jesus did for the
conversion and deliverance of all” (
The fulfillment of our vocation in Holy Cross
demands from us a clear, energetic and assertive expression of who we are as
followers of Basil Moreau, members of the Congregation of Holy Cross. We are educators in the faith, working for
peace through justice.
Pope John Paul II describes well the basic dynamics
of love among consecrated religious.
Through our lives we are to give the Church and world vibrant testimony
to the primacy of love in expressing life’s meaning and incarnating that
meaning through ministerial acts of justice, peace and mercy.
“Two dynamic forces are operative in religious
life: your love for Jesus – and in
Jesus, for all who belong to him – and his love for you”.
“We cannot live without love. If we do not encounter love, if we do not
experience it and make it our own, and if we do not participate intimately in
it, our life is meaningless. Without
love we remain incomprehensible to ourselves” (Redemptor Hominis, 10).
As educators in the faith we seek to identify the
mystery of human existence. It is one of
the two major mission priorities of our Congregation as mandated in successive
General Chapters since 1980: the
proclamation of the truth of the Gospel so as to deepen a renewed appreciation
for the meaning and value of human life.
This mission priority is an urgent concern in a
world inundated with ideologies such as secularism, relativism, materialism,
consumerism. Our mission has a clear focus
to proclaim life’s true meaning in a secular world culture that represses the
expression of divine love within us.
This mission priority stands against a deterministic world-view that
negates our freedom and our capacity for transformation.
It is true that we are somewhat bound by natural and
social determinants; we neither own nor fully control our lives. But love is dynamic. Love changes us in ways
that are often unplanned and even painful. We are able to conquer and supersede
the determinants, which would deny our full human potential. That is why the
cross stands at the center of our lives, not out of morbidity but out of the
realization that the gift of the cross is the primary means of our
transformation. When we die to self,
paradoxically we live life to its fullness.
The world needs the witness of consecrated life that
proclaims the saving possibilities of transforming love. As consecrated religious, patterned to the
person of Jesus through the brand marks of the evangelical counsels, we give
testimony to the pattern of dying to a self that is too often limited by
secular ideologies proclaiming a human glory too small, too insignificant to be
true to the divine love within us.
Our consecrated life is needed now as much as ever,
perhaps more than ever:
“By the profession of the evangelical counsels, the
characteristic features of Jesus – the chaste, poor and obedient one – are made
constantly “visible” in the midst of the world and in the eyes of the faithful
are directed to the mystery of the
Our community life points to the purposeful destiny
of creation while our mission seeks to create communities of love in the midst
of the world as vibrant signs of the fullness of life’s meaning.
Along with a proclamation of life’s meaning as
educators in the faith, our general chapters have called us to incarnate divine
love through a mission that expresses a prophetic, preferential option for the
poor. Our ministries make our love
real. They give credence to the love we
proclaim.
The work of evangelization through our ministries is
a counter sign to the values of today’s individualism that serves the self
first and fosters indifference to the plight of others, especially those most
in need. Our ministries serve those in
need with the hope that the gifts they have received will be shared with others
to widen the circle of reverential love for all people. It is in this community of love that we find
the holiness of life.
“Religious for their part find in their consecrated
life a privileged means of effective evangelization. At the deepest level of
their being they are caught up in the dynamism of the Church’s life, which is
thirsty for the divine absolute and called to holiness. It is to this holiness that they bear
witness. They embody the Church in their
desire to give themselves completely to the radical demands of the
beatitudes. By their lives they are a
sign of total availability to God, the Church and the brethren.
“Thanks to their consecration they are eminently
willing and free to leave everything and to go and proclaim the gospel event to
the ends of the earth. They are
enterprising and their apostolate is often marked by originality, by a genius
that demands admiration. They are
generous: often they are found at the outposts of the mission and they take the
greatest of risks for their health and their very lives. Truly the Church owes them much.”
(Paul VI. Evangelii Nuntiandi,69)
Our Congregation of Holy Cross is blessed in its
internationality. We reach to the ends
of the earth. Our international
interdependence provides our vocation with a unique authority for proclaiming
the truth of human solidarity as the design of God’s providence.
At the start of our 2004 General Chapter, Pope John
Paul II encouraged us by praising our missionary activity as enkindling the
flame of hope in the hearts of God’s children throughout the whole world. Quoting the Second Vatican Council he told
us: “Missionary activity extends the saving faith of the Church, it expands
and perfects her catholic unity…and bears witness to her sanctity” (ad Gentes
6).
He challenged us to renew our commitment to a life
of holiness and joy in the vocation, which the Lord in His goodness has given
us. He asked us to set out boldly into
the deep, to cast wide our ministry nets and inspire others to do the same. Will we set out to the deep in the
future? The future depends on the
boldness of the present.
At his inaugural Mass, Pope Benedict XVI issued a
stirring clarion proclamation to those assembled:
“The Church is alive!” he vibrantly declared. The thousands overflowing Saint Peter’s
square responded enthusiastically and affirmatively.
“The Church is alive!” He proclaimed again. “And the Church is young. She holds within
herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way toward
the future. The Church is alive and we
are seeing it: we are experiencing the
joy that the Risen Lord promised his followers.
The Church is alive – she is alive because Christ is alive, because he
is truly risen.”
“The Church is alive…I greet you men and women
religious, witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God.”
Dear religious of Holy Cross, “We are alive!” We are blessed with a vibrant vocation. The Church and world depends on our witness
of the transfiguring presence of God. We
are alive and we will be in the future, but only if we want to be. I am convinced God wants us to be. We are alive, more than we may believe. And we will be alive for the future but only
if we choose to be.
We are at a pivotal point in our history. Our founder, the Venerable Basil Moreau is
about to be beatified; so too, Brother Andre will soon be canonized. The universal Church is recognizing the
Servant of God, Patrick Peyton, for his ministry in family prayer.
In the midst of these moments of grace and grateful
recognition for the presence of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the life and
mission of the Church, we find ourselves in an enveloping crisis that is
striking at the very heart of our existence.
The storm seas of diminishment are swamping our beloved Congregation.
The numbers of those who would join us and follow in
our footprints is thinning seriously, particularly in North America and
Though we are attracting new members in Asia and
THE
CALL TO ACT
We have to do something about it. We cannot remain indifferent. We can revitalize our lives, if we want to. Do we have the will and courage to do so? It is a question we must ask ourselves from within the depths of our hearts. If we are to remain young and vibrant, we must believe in ourselves, believe in the vocation that is ours. We have work to do. This challenge is ours.
If we wish to receive new religious among us, may we
delight in our vocation. May we delight in the wonder of our lives. May we give
strong testimony to the gospel and faithful companionship to one another. May our ministries be characterized by joyful
sacrifices and may we offer a gracious presence to all we encounter.
Successive general chapters have given priority to
vocation recruitment. Let us now give it
our highest priority.
Reviewing the 2004 General Chapter legislation, the
General Council, at its inaugural meeting, established an “ad hoc committee on
the urgent need for vocation recruitment” from within the new Congregational
Vocation and Formation Commission.
We wanted to underline the General Chapter’s
conviction that “vocation promotion is essential to our growth in service to
the Church and the principal mans of directing potential candidates to the
Congregation’s mission. Our desire to
have men join us in our life and ministry ‘demands of us more than the mere wish,
more even than the firm decision – it demands the conversion of our habits, our
character, our attitude and our desires.’”(C6, 57).
We fully realize how dedicated our vocation
directors are and how hard they work at recruitment and formation. The entire Congregation offers them our
gratitude and support. It is a demanding
task in these days. The General Council
thought that we could well assist our vocation directors by undertaking a
professional study regarding the appeal of Holy Cross to young people with a
vocation interest, just as we undertook a professional study of our
Congregational finances with the Plante and Moran Company.
We contacted the consulting firm McKinsey &
Company of
Brother Joseph Tsiquaye is the General Council
liaison for the Congregation’s Vocation and Formation Commission and is heading
up the ad hoc committee to do our study.
The committee is currently comprised of Brother Joseph, Father Kevin
Russeau (IP), Brother Paul Bednarczyk (EB), Father Yvon Cousineau (CP), and
Father Richard Warner (IP and General Council).
We thought that since the crisis is most evident in
North America and
It is our hope and prayer that all members of the
Congregation will actively engage themselves in the vocation recruitment plan
as it now gets underway.
The Council of the Congregation in October will be
dedicated to the theme of vocation recruitment: “A Life To Which We Happily
Invite Others”.
In the meantime and throughout the foreseeable
future please make vocation recruitment the highest priority of your life and
ministry. Let us pray fervently and
reverently for new vocations on a daily basis.
Many of our local communities pray the prayer for Father Moreau’s beatification
at the time of morning or evening prayer.
During that prayer, when we petition his favor, we can express our faith
and trust in the intercession of Father Moreau by asking him to grace his
Congregation with new vocations.
We pray in gratitude for all the vocations we have
received throughout the Congregation and pray for all the young men in our
formation programs. Please pray daily for our vocation directors, that we support
them and cooperate with them in their ministry.
It is imperative that we stress vocation promotion
at every available opportunity such as at local chapters, general and
provincial visits, meetings of superiors and directors, and include vocation
promotion in our parish bulletins and ministry publications. We strongly encourage you to organize
meetings with potential candidates and to take a pro-active stance in inviting
people to such gatherings.
“Our experience in Holy Cross is demanding. It is joyful as well. And so it should give us a life to which we
would happily invite others. The Lord’s
call will be heard in our steadfast witness to the gospel, the companionship we
offer one another, the cheerfulness with which we serve in our mission without
counting the cost, and the sincere welcome we openly offer men who join
us. If we delight in our vocations, we
will share it with others.” (Formation
and Transformation, Constitution 6)
It is time, past time, for all of us to embark on a
new, unstinting effort to invite people to attend to the Lord’s call to the
consecrated life and to priesthood within the Congregation of Holy Cross. Our future effectiveness demands it.
“The footsteps of those men who called us to walk in their company left deep prints, as if men carrying heavy burdens. But they did not trudge; they strode. For they had the hope.
“It is the Lord Jesus calling us. ‘Come. Follow me” (The Cross, Our Hope, Constitution
8, 122, 123).
May the Venerable Father Moreau, Blessed Brother Andre, the Servant of God Patrick Peyton help us in our ministries of praying, healing, and teaching.
May Our Lady of Sorrows,
Sincerely in Holy Cross,
Hugh Cleary, C.S.C.
Superior General