New book celebrates gifts of Holy Cross | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › New book celebrates gifts of Holy Cross New book celebrates gifts of Holy Cross Published: February 13, 2009 Author: Michael O. Garvey Lent is the 40-day liturgical season during which Christians fast, pray and give alms in preparation for the celebration of their Lord’s resurrection at Easter. Sundays are excluded from the season, as each is itself a celebration of resurrection and thus a “little Easter.” This year the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, falls on Feb. 25. At first glance, Lent is a season inextricable from suffering, death, sadness and failure. People deliberately go hungry, encounter their own and others’ poverty, confront, lament and struggle with their meanspiritedness, and all the while contemplate the image of a tortured man breathing his last on an ugly rack. It is, of course, a paradoxical season for all Christians because of who that man is and why and for whom he has died, and what his death has irrevocably done to death itself. Because of its concentration on the cross of Christ, it is a season of hope. Such hope is acutely appreciated and eloquently celebrated in the constitutions of Notre Dame’s founding religious order, the Congregation of Holy Cross, which exult 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 the victory of his Cross.” In celebration of the victory, “The Gift of the Cross: Lenten Reflections in the Holy Cross Tradition, edited by Rev. Andrew Gawrych, C.S.C., associate pastor of St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Phoenix, recently has been published by Ave Maria Press. A collection of daily Lenten meditations by members of the Holy Cross community, each based on the scriptural readings of the day’s Mass, the book includes reflections by Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C, and president emeritus, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., as well as numerous other Holy Cross priests and men and women religious involved in a wide variety of ministries. Recurring throughout the meditations is the conviction expressed by Rev. Thomas K. Zurcher, C.S.C., director of formation for Holy Cross in Mexico, that “our transformation into Christ is never finished. There is always more to come. That is why the Church gives us another Lent. It is not that our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving themselves transform us, but that they open our hearts and minds anew to the grace of conversion.” Father Gawrych was graduated from Notre Dame in 2002, earned a master of divinity degree from the University in 2007 and was ordained a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross the following year. Contact: Cathy Odell at 574-287-2831 or avemariapress.1@nd.edu Posted In: Faith Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 03, 2022 dCEC to Award 2023 ND Evangelium Vitae Medal to Robert P. George September 22, 2022 In memoriam: Rev. Richard Warner, C.S.C., longtime leader for Notre Dame, Congregation of Holy Cross September 15, 2022 In new book on global Catholicism, Provost John McGreevy explores modern history, current challenges of the Church September 15, 2022 Death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean to speak at Notre Dame September 14, 2022 Apostolic nuncio to Great Britain to deliver the 2022 Keeley Vatican Lecture For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn