“As my time here comes to a close, I am profoundly grateful for this year of grace,” writes Mr. Mark DeMott, C.S.C., who has been on a pastoral internship in East Africa this past year. “The beautiful, slow, free way of life here has begun to soak into my soul. I’ve learned to sit in the stillness and listen for God’s presence, invitation, and activity in my midst. ... My journey toward God will be forever bound up with the people of East Africa.” Read More

This week our blog posts will focus on our mission work in México.  In order to understand our ministry there today, we first need to look back to the beginning of our presence in México. In today’s post, Fr. Pete Logsdon, C.S.C., who served in our mission there for over two decades, chronicles the history of Holy Cross in México.

  Read More

“It was much more than youthful energy let loose on a project that I saw in these young missionaries. It was really zeal, simply defined as great energy or enthusiasm for a cause or objective,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about Summer Mission 2012 in our Holy Cross parish in Peru. “Blessed Moreau chose the word “zeal” to insist with his brothers on the urgent intensity of the mission and the intentionality of the energy dedicated to it.” Read More

“This experience gave me new awareness and sensitivity to the inner turmoil of not having a consistent place to lay one’s head,” writes Fr. Eric Schimmel, C.S.C., the Director of André House, about having spent four nights moving from place to place. “Our homeless guests experience this every night. Some have a regular place they sleep – an assigned cot in a shelter, or a regular camp sight somewhere in the city. Most do not.” Read More

“These folks don’t make this sacrifice in order to get a better job or increase their salary,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about the adults enrolled in our Peruvian parish’s School for Pastoral Leadership. “For them the School for Pastoral Leadership opens the door to serving the parish and chapel communities as volunteer chapel coordinators, directors of liturgy and social action, Bible teachers, leaders in the ministry to the sick, etc. They become the ones who make the parish work—guaranteeing the essential services that are needed to get the gospel message around and to put it into practice.”

  Read More

“Carrying heavy loads is a daily task in East Africa. Overloaded pickup trucks struggle to move along washed-out dirt roads,” writes Holy Cross Seminarian Mark DeMott, C.S.C., from his pastoral year. “In conversations with my students, I am reminded that these burdens that I see are only a shadow of the burdens that the East African people carry within their hearts.” Read More

“This nurse was there to wait on whoever might need her amazing attentiveness,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., “imitating the extreme sensitivity of Jesus who, in the midst of the noisy, pressing throng, stopped everything He was doing to turn the power of His attentiveness toward a poor sick woman who just happened to brush past the fringe of His garment.” Read More

“What Señora Rut has taught me is how the poor eke out a living in the midst of this inhospitable rocky terrain,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about our mission in Lima, Peru. “Jesus said that his Church was to be built on rock, and here we can’t help but be aware of the fragmented rock upon which our local Church is built; it’s all around us.” Read More

This month over two million Peruvians, including parishioners from our Holy Cross parish, will take to the streets in Lima to march in procession with their beloved Señor de los Milagros.  As Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., shares in his monthly post, “The simple lesson of this tremendous devotion is that a miracle isn’t an event to be observed by spectators, nor is it limited to a moment.  In the case of El Señor de los Milagros, the miracle continues on …” Read More

After sharing with us last month how he was drawn by God to be a missionary, Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., our correspondent in Peru, has checked in with his second post. It is a beautiful reflection that gets at one of the cores of our charism as Holy Cross priests and brothers. Read More

Happy Labor Day to one and all! It seems only providential on this Labor Day that our regularly scheduled post comes to us from Fr. Eric who serves the homeless, and often jobless, at André House in Phoenix, Ariz. As in the past, Fr. Eric has produced a reflection for us that is a real witness to his labor of love on behalf of the poor there. Be nourished. Read More

This year, we are blessed to accompany a veteran missionary to Latin America, Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., who after spending many years working in Chile is now serving in Peru. As you will find right from his first post in which he recounts the call that led him to missionary work, Fr. Don is one of the best spiritual writers in our community. It will be our treat to fall into step with him this year. Read More

Approaching the end of his first year in East Africa, Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., reflects in his blog post this month on ten simple lessons he has learned from his life and ministry there – ten simple lessons he says are “not so much lessons as reminders.” Read More

I´m writing this from the Centro Patricio Peyton, CSC, in Lima, Peru, where I am leading a group of Yale students on an Alternative Spring Break trip. The Peyton Center is an extraordinarily beautiful and comfortable building for weary students to stay after spending the day unloading wheel chairs donated from the United States or teaching English and Math to students at a local Fe y Alegria school. The dusty brown hills of Lima where the Peyton Center is located seem far from the moist, green Mayo that gave birth to Fr. Peyton, but his vision of strengthening family life through prayer and education in the faith is very much present in the work of this place. Read More

Almost nine months into his assignment as rector of our seminary in Kenya, Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., reflects quite insightfully for us in his blog this month on what it means to be a missionary today. It is well worth the read … Read More

Although the Christmas season officially came to an end last week, Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., takes us back one last time in his post this month to that great feast as he shares with us about his first Christmas in Africa, having become superior of our seminary there. Read More

Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., sent his latest post about his missionary adventures in East Africa. Today's is a real adventure as he shares about the trials - and the graces - of the government's forced demolition of our seminary in Kenya. Please keep him and our seminary community in your prayers. Read More

Our last post highlighting our mission in East Africa comes from one of the candidates at Moreau Seminary this year, Joe Wysocki. After graduating from the university of Notre Dame, Joe spent a year and a half serving as an overseas lay missionary in East Africa working with the Holy Cross community there.  Read More

Today, we take a look Kitete and Kambi ya Simba Parishes in Tanzania to get a glimpse of parish life there. Fr. David Eliaona, C.S.C., one of the parochial vicars, invites us into the real adventure of life in this African parish. Read More

Today we continue our week highlighting our Holy Cross mission in East Africa.  Today we take a look at education as a part of that mission, focusing on Holy Cross Lakeview, a secondary school founded by Holy Cross in Jinja, Uganda.  Bro. Alan Harrod, C.S.C., a missionary to East Africa, shares the amazing story of the school with us. Read More

Today in the Church we celebrate World Mission Sunday. Since our founding, foreign missions have played a significant role in the life of Holy Cross. This week we will take the chance to look at our mission in East Africa, which is a district of the Indiana Province. Starting us out is Fr. Leonard Olobo, C.S.C., the Director of the Holy Cross Mission Center based in Notre Dame, Ind., which has responsibility for the promotion of the international mission of Holy Cross both within the congregation and to outside constituencies. Read More

Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C, continues his posting for us from his missionary work in our seminary in East Africa.  Today he shares the moving vocation story of one of our recently ordained priests there. Read More

Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., continues to share with us in his monthly series his adventures as a newly minted missionary in Africa.  Today, this Indiana native relates to us the lesson he received when applying for his driver's license. Read More

After ten years working at Moreau Seminary, Fr. Pat Neary, C.S.C., answered the call in June to become rector of the Holy Cross Formation House in Nairobi, Kenya. In this series, “Into Africa,” Fr. Pat will chronicle his missionary adventures with Holy Cross in East Africa. In this first installment, Fr. Pat shares how this Indiana native providentially wound up in Africa in the first place. Read More