B E G I N N I N G S and E N D S 

THE SISTERS 
of 

THE HOLY CROSS 

HOLY CROSS 
INDIANA 





BEGINNINGS and ENDS 

i 

The Sisters of the Holy Cross 
were founded in 1841 at LeMans, 
France. A fact stated so simply does 
not at first suggest great riches or 
beauty of inheritance. Yet the place 
is holy ground. 

Today LeMans is a busy modern 
city, a hundred and thirty miles west 
and south of Paris; but the ruins of 
a third century Roman wall in its 
more picturesque section bears evi-
dence of an ancient past. The name 
itself, a corruption of Celmans, testi-
fies to even earlier Celtic occupation. 
More precious than either is the his-
torical tradition that LeMans was 
visited by the immediate successor of 
Saint Peter who erected here one of 
the first bishoprics in the early 
Church. The religious communities 
that trace their origin to LeMans are 
fruit of an ancient planting. 

There had been the early flowering 
of stone and glass in the majestic 
Cathedral of Saint Julien. It stands 
today, a compact mountain in the 
great square with perfect apse and 
flying buttresses in clear silhouette 



B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

against the sky. Inside, the noble 
choir and nave are luminous with the 
beauty of the matchless old windows, 
some of the finest in all France. 

The cathedral is the greatest of 
many fine churches that link the com-
mercial city of today with its richly 
Christian past. It is interesting his-
torically as the place where Henry I I 
of England was baptized and where 
Berengaria is buried. 

In the story of Holy Cross, Le 
Mans is an environment as well as a 
place. It includes Chartres, fifty 
miles to the east, and Solesmes, less 
than twenty miles west. They are part 
of a profound inheritance. Authentic 
legend states that "before her death 
an altar had been dedicated in Char-
tres to the Mother of Christ." 

The earliest Christian missionaries 
sent into Gaul by Saint Peter found 
a grotto in the side of the hill on 
which the cathedral now stands. In 
it was an altar with a statue of a 
virgin holding a child on her knees. 
This was one of many Druid shrines 
in which the teachings and devotions 
of Christianity were anticipated with 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

startling accuracy. The Christian mis-
sionaries rededicated the grotto and 
built over it the first church to Our 
Lady of Chartres. The present cathe-
dral is the summary of thirteen cen-
turies of love. The beauty and insight 
of that love appear in vital stone and 
singing glass. But beneath is always 
"La Madonna Sous Terre," the vast-
est crypt in all France, which encloses 
the most ancient and authentic hearth 
of Mary. It is and has been through-
out the ages a place of devoutest pil-
grimage. Here Masses are celebrated 
daily with fastidious observance of 
rite and ceremonial. A little school 
of altar boys serves with precious and 
precocious propriety. Every genuflec-
tion, every response is a triumph of 
studied care. 

The chapel of the Madonna Sous 
Terre belongs in a way to the Sisters 
of the Holy Cross. From the days 
of their founding they have made a 
novena here every year. Mother 
Seven Dolors was in Chartres on this 
annual pilgrimage in 1867 when word 
came from Rome that the rules of 
her congregation had been approved. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

The great Benedictine monastery 
at Solesmes is the center and home 
of liturgcal worship and authentic 
Gregorian Chant. After decades of 
suppression the monastery was re-
stored to Dom Gueranger, in 1831, 
who rededicated it to its ancient uses, 
the prayer of praise and contempla-
tion. H e literally spent his life real-
izing the purposes of his order. The 
rebirth of liturgical worship is the 
rich fruit of his labor. 

This momentous spiritual revival 
took place at the very threshold 
of LeMans. Dom Gueranger and 
Father Moreau were devoted friends. 
The monks of Solesmes have always 
been cared for in illness by the Sisters 
of the Holy Cross at their Clinique. 
When the mother chapel of Our 
Lady in LeMans was reconsecrated 
in 1938, the abbot of Solesmes pon-
tificated and the monks of Solesmes 
sang the Mass. 

The birthplace of the Sisters of the 
Holy Cross is indeed holy ground. 
In itself one of the first episcopal 
cities of the Church, it bequeaths to 
its children through Chartres the 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

primitive devotion to Our Lady and 
through Solesmes the holy inheri-
tance of liturgical worship. 

II . 
Basil Moreau came to LeMans in 

September, 1818. H e was the son of 
a wine merchant from Laigne-en-
Belin, a little village nine miles away. 
H e was nineteen years old and had 
just completed his preparatory 
courses in the Little Seminary at 
Chateau-Gontier. He had always 
dreamed of entering the major semi-
nary of Saint Vincent at LeMans. 
This year had brought fulfillment. 
H e was brilliant and deeply spiritual. 
He completed his studies before he 
had reached the canonical age of ordi-
nation. Through special dispensation 
he was ordained on August 12, 1821, 
in the chapel of the old Visitation 
Convent, Notre Dame de la Couture. 

There followed a year of study at 
St. Sulpice in Paris and of more pro-
found spiritual formation at the 
Solitude in Issy. Then came the first 
apostolic assignment to teach phil-
osophy in the preparatory college at 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

Tesse. In 1825 he returned to Le 
Mans to take the chair of dogmatic 
theology at his own school, the Grand 
Seminary of Saint Vincent. Almost 
immediately he was named honorary 
canon at the cathedral. 

During the next ten years he en-
tered upon an apostolate of creative 
spiritual activity. Bishop Carron di-
rected this. H e raised funds for the 
support of the Brothers of Christian 
Doctrine, contributed his own prop-
erty to a home for aged and infirm 
priests, founded the Convent of the 
Good Shepherd at LeMans and acted 
as its spiritual director. In collabora-
tion with the Abbe Dujarie he pro-
jected a plan for a community of mis-
sion priests and in 1835 he accepted 
the charge of the Brothers of Saint 
Joseph which had been founded by 
Father Dujarie in 1820. 

In the spring of 1841 two young 
girls entered the novitiate of the 
Good Shepherd nuns in LeMans. 
They were the nucleus of a commun-
ity designed by Father Moreau to 
further the work of religious educa-
tion. On August fourth they and two 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

others were clothed in the religious 
habit. They were the first Marianites, 
later to be known as Sisters of the 
Holy Cross. One of them received 
the name of Sister Mary of the Seven 
Dolors. She became the first superior 
general of her congregation. The 
community flourishes today in France, 
Canada, America, India. Years of 
persecution and religious suppression 
brought the work perilously near to 
extinction in France. Today, however, 
the Sisters maintain the best surgical 
clinic in LeMans, schools and clin-
iques elsewhere in France. The Holy 
Cross College has been reopened and 
the Church of Our Lady of the Holy 
Cross rededicated. 

A quiet road leads out past the 
college and the church along a lovely 
park and into the peace of a simple 
cemetery. The Sisters come here 
every Sunday. One section of it holds 
their dead. In its center stands the 
mortuary chapel of Father Moreau. 
A marble slab in the floor bears the 
inscription : 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

In this chapel, erected by himself, 
and, under this slab, 

proof of the love of his kindred, 
of the gratitude of the Sisters 

Marianites, 
and of the faithful remembrance of 

his students, 
rests unto the last day 

the devoted son and servant of the 
Church, 

Basil Anthony Moreau, 
apostolic missionary, 

eloquent in word and in works, 
former Assistant Superior of the 

Grand Seminary 
and Honorary Canon of LeMans, 

Founder and Ecclesiastical Superior 
of the Monastery of the Good 

Shepherd at LeMans, 
and of the House of Our Lady of 

Holy Cross, 
and of the Religious Institute of 

Holy Cross 
approved by Rome in 1857, 

and of the Religious Institute of the 
Sisters Marianites 

approved by Rome in 1867, 
born at Laigne-en-Belin, the 11th of 

February, 1799, 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

died at LeMans, the 20th of January, 
1873, 

blessed by His Holiness, Pius IX. 

The grave of Mother Seven Dolors 
is just outside. 

Perhaps half a mile beyond is La 
Solitude, the place where Father 
Moreau found such precious peace 
during life. The old house stands on 
the brow of an eastern sloping hill. 
Pleasant paths lead into the un-
troubled wood where he meditated 
upon the Way of the Cross and map-
ped out the rule of life for the Sisters 
of that royal road. The inscription 
above his grave summarizes his great 
and holy work for God. La Solitude, 
more than any place on earth, pos-
sesses his spirit. 

I I I . 
In 1841 Father Edward Sorin and 

a little band of six Brothers embarked 
for America to carry on the mission-
ary work of Father Moreau in the 
New World. They settled at what 
has since become the mother house 
of the Community of Holy Cross and 
the University of Notre Dame. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

Two years later they were joined 
by a group of three priests, a Brother, 
and four Sisters. Within three months 
three postulants had joined the Sis-
ters. The little community opened its 
first home in the new world at Ber-
trand, Michigan, four miles north of 
Notre Dame, in a house rented by ^ 
Father Sorin for them. New subjects 
entered. A school was opened. Other 
activities developed. The young com-
munity flourished. 

Among the subjects received at 
Bertrand were Eliza Gillespie, who 
became Mother Angela, co-foundress 
with Father Sorin of the congregation 
in America, and Amanda Anderson, V 
who became Mother Augusta and the 
first American mother general. 

The entire Bertrand foundation 
was moved in 1855 to the present site 
at Holy Cross, Indiana. In the course 
of almost a century it has grown from 
a single frame building to a small city 
of God. It comprises today the 
mother house of the congregation, the 
novitiate, the midwestern provincial-
ate, Saint Mary's pre-school, pre-

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

paratory school, academy, and col-
lege. 

The community developed rapidly 
L as an educational order and as a nurs-

ing order. Because of difficulties and 
differences in academic and profes-

i sional demands, the congregation in 
America received permission from the 
Holy See in 1868 to separate in ad-
ministration from the mother house 
in France. Today it is a community 
of fifteen hundred members, conduct-
ing three four-year fully accredited 
liberal arts colleges, eight hospitals, 
and approximately a hundred secon-
dary and preparatory schools. These 

V are fairly distributed among three 
provinces, the eastern, the midwest-
ern, and the western. 

/i By policy the community opens 
new houses near those already estab-
lished. Its most numerous missions 
are, therefore, in Indiana, Illinois, 
Maryland, the District of Columbia, 
Texas, Utah, Idaho, California. Its 
largest parish school is in New York 
City. One of its finest hospitals is at 
Columbus, Ohio. There are some 
other missions in neighboring states. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

The Sisters of the Holy Cross are 
characterized by a robust, normal 
spirituality, an unfailing devotedness. 
This may be one way of saying they 
love and serve God with their whole 
minds and with their whole strength 
as well as with all their hearts. They 
are dedicated specifically to the work 
of schools and hospitals. They are ex-
cellent educators, competent nurses. 

Their rule is based on the Rule of 
Saint Augustine. It provides for daily 
meditation, Holy Mass, the recitation 
of the Little Office and the Rosary of 
the Blessed Virgin, other vocal and 
private prayers, monthly and annual 
retreats. It invites to the pursuit of 
their own spiritual perfection young 
women who today seek a challenge to 
their finest possibilities, who are look-
ing for something infinitely worth, 
while. It offers to the girl who wishes 
to teach divine means to divine ends, 
to the ambitious social worker a field 
transfigured by a vowed dedication to 
Christ's needy. The young profes-
sional woman, the artist, the musician 
can all find here their fullest inspira-
tion. The girl of no particular talent 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

can discover here many and beautiful 
ways of using her least gifts for God. 
Life becomes at once generous and 
exalted. To be a Sister of the Holy 
Cross means to accept the Cross of 
Christ as a way of life, to choose God 
as a career. 

A poor peasant once happened by 
chance upon the Cure of Ars in ec-
stasy. Later when asked to tell what 
he saw, he could describe his vision 
of the holy pastor only incoherently 
thus: "He stretched out his arms in 
the form of a cross. He looked at the 
crucifix. H e laughed." This might 
describe the spiritual aspiration and 
ideal of every Sister of the Holy 
Cross. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

HOUSES OF T H E SISTERS OF T H E 
HOLY CROSS IN T H E ORDER OF 

FOUNDATION 

The Generalate, Holy Cross P.O., Indiana. 
Saint Mary's Convent, Holy Cross P.O., 

Indiana. 
Saint Mary's Novitiate, Holy Cross P.O., 

Indiana. 
Saint Mary's Convent, Tomiliah, Kaliganj 

P.O., Dacca District, Bengal, India. 
Saint Anthony's Convent, Nagari, Dacca 

District, Bengal, India. 

Mid-West Province, Holy Cross P.O., In-
diana. 

Saint Mary's College and Academy, Holy 
Cross P.O., Indiana. 

Holy Cross Convent, Notre Dame, Indi-
ana. 

Saint Angela's Academy, 912 East North 
Street, Morris, Illinois. 

Immaculate Conception School, Morris, 
Illinois. 

Saint Joseph's Academy, 303 South Tay-
lor Street, South Bend, Indiana. 

Saint Patrick's School, South Bend, Indi-
ana. 

Saint Mary's School, South Bend, Indiana. 
Saint Mary's Infirmary, Cairo, Illinois. 
Saint Columba's School (Colored), Cairo, 

Illinois. 
Saint Joseph's Hospital, 401 North Notre 

Dame Avenue, South Bend, Indiana. 
Saint John's Hospital, Anderson, Indiana. 

A. Our Saviour's Hospital, 446 East State 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

Street, Jacksonville, Illinois. 
Saint Joseph's School, 606 East LaSalle 

Avenue, South Bend, Indiana. 
Saint Mary's School, Eleventh and Pearl 

Streets, Anderson, Indiana. 
Saint Vincent's School, 1118 South Main 

Street, Elkhart, Indiana. 
Saint Theodore's School, 6201 South Paul-

ina Street, Chicago, Illinois. 
Saint Peter's School, 1203 Monroe Street, 

LaPorte, Indiana. 
Saint Charles School, Crawfordsville, In-

diana. 
Saint Vincent's School, 820 Spear Street, 

Logansport, Indiana. 
Saint Michael's School, 600 North Center 

Street, Plymouth, Indiana. 
Saint Mary's School, 324 Plum Street, 

Union City, Indiana. 
Saint Patrick's School, Park and Main 

Streets, Danville, Illinois. 
Saint Patrick's School, Chatsworth, Illi-

nois. 
Saint Paul's School, Valparaiso, Indiana. 
Saint Mary's School, 519 Fillmore Street, 

Davenport, Iowa. 
Saint Mary's School, 330 Judd Street, 

Woodstock, Illinois. 
Saint Joseph's School, Harvard, Illinois. 
Saint John's School, 730 Blaine Street, 

Peoria, Illinois. 
Saint Patrick's School, 3814 Grand Boule-

vard, East Chicago, Indiana. 
Catholic Central High School, Box 846, 

Hammond, Indiana. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

Saint Mary's School, 412 East Tenth 
Street, Michigan City, Indiana. 

Holy Cross School, 822 West Adams 
Street, South Bend, Indiana. 

Saint Patrick's School, Cairo, Illinois. 

Eastern Province, 2935 Upton Street, 
Washington, D. C. 

Academy of the Holy Cross, 2935 Upton 
Street, Washington, D. C. 

Dunbarton College of Holy Cross, Wash-
ington, D. C. 

Saint Thomas' School, Washington, D. C. 
Saint Matthew's School, Washington, 

D. C. 
Saint Cecilia's Academy, 601 East Capitol 

Street, Washington, D. C. 
Saint Mary's Academy, 706 Prince Street, 

Alexandria, Virginia. 
Saint Mary's School, Alexandria, Virginia. 
Saint Mary's Academy, Austin, Texas. 
Saint Mary's School, Austin, Texas. 
Sacred Heart Academy, 504 East Orange 

Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 
Saint Anthony's School, Lancaster, Penn-

sylvania. 
Catholic High School, Lancaster, Penn-

sylvania. 
Mount Carmel Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. 
Saint Mary's Academy, Marshall, Texas. 
Saint Paul's School, 141 West Sixty-First 

Street, New York City, New York. 
Saint Patrick's Academy, 924 G Street, 

Washington, D. C. 
Saint Paul's Academy, 1413 V Street, 

Washington, D. C. 

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B E G I N N I N G S A N D E N D S 

Saint Joseph's Home and School, 28th St. 
and Eastern Ave., Brookland, Wash-
ington, D. C. 

Saint Patrick's School, 313 South Broad-
way, Baltimore, Maryland. 

Saint Patrick's Orphanage, Baltimore, 
Maryland. 

Dolan Aid Asylum, Baltimore, Maryland. 
Our Lady of Guadalupe School, 1112 East 

Ninth Street, Austin, Texas. 
Holy Trinity School, Government Avenue, 

Ocean View, Virginia. 
Saint Peter's School, 133 C Street South-

east, Washington, D. C. 
Blessed Sacrament School, Chevy Chase 

Parkway, Washington, D. C. 
Saint Catharine's School, Bexley, Ohio. 

Western Province, Ogden, Utah. 
Sacred Heart Academy, Ogden, Utah. 
Saint Joseph's School, Ogden, Utah. 
College of Saint Mary-of-the-Wasatch, 

Salt Lake City, Utah. 
Holy Rosary Academy, Woodland, Cali-

fornia. 
Holy Cross Hospital, Salt Lake City, 

Utah. 
Saint Teresa's Academy, Boise, Idaho. 
Saint Joseph's School, Boise, Idaho. 
Saint Alphonsus Hospital, Boise, Idaho. 
Saint John's School, 1105 S Street, Fres-

no, California. 
Saint Charles School, 822 Van Ness Ave-

nue South, San Francisco, California. 

[ i t ] 



BEGINNINGS A N D ENDS 

Saint Agnes School, 2625 South Vermont 
Avenue, Los Angeles, California. 

Saint Agnes Hospital, 1451 Roeding 
Street, Fresno, California. 

Saint Paul's School, 1920 South Bronson 
Street, Las Angeles, California. 

Catholic Girls' High School, Los Angeles, 
California. 

Judge Memorial School, 650 South Elev-
enth East Street, Salt Lake City, 
Utah. 

Saint Matthew's School, 900 El Camino 
Real, San Mateo, California. 

Saint Joseph's School, Eureka, Utah. 
Saint Ann's Orphanage, 430 East Twenty-

First South Street, Salt Lake City, 
Utah. 

Saint Joseph's School, 630 West Fremont 
Street, Pocatello, Idaho. 

Saint Alphonsus School, 351 Kearney 
Boulevard, Fresno, California. 

Holy Rosary School, Idaho Falls, Idaho. 
Holy Cross School, Ventura, California. 
Our Lady of Lourdes School, Colusa, Cali-

fornia. 
Saint Catherine's Academy, 1932 Foster 

Avenue, Ventura, California. 
Saint Bernard's School, 1631 Sixty-

Second Avenue, Oakland, California. 
Immaculate Conception School, 3263 First 

Avenue, Sacramento, California. 
Good Shepherd School, 504 Roxbury 

Drive, Beverly Hills, California. 
Saint Didacus School, San Diego, Cali-

fornia. 

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