In the Voice of Moreau: Have you ever fallen in love before? It is a powerful and emotional experience. We invite our beloved into our home, our psyche. There, we enjoy the comfort and consolation of having someone who is with us wherever we go. We keep that one “in mind” at all times and our beloved in turn brings peace and a feeling of security in our hearts. What is it like to fall in love with God? God is not an object that can be kept “in mind.” God is an infinite, pure and simple Spirit, but nevertheless constantly wants to be close to our souls and bring us a deep and infinite peace that does not go away. And so he invites us to welcome the crucified Christ into our homes. As a kind of placeholder in the psyche, the Cross, which truly is the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), unmistakably and unceasingly points us in the direction of the one, true God. Let us learn to recognize our Beloved in the shape of the Cross and in so doing enter into passionate union with the One whom our hearts have loved all along (Song 3:1). Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Holy Cross Educator Response: We all “fall in love” many times. Differentiating among those persons deserving of an everlasting love from those momentary infatuations can be difficult especially for young children and teenagers. There is so much that entices us, that mesmerizes us for periods of time. This is a natural part of growing up and learning to make appropriate choices among so many “adorable” things and persons is ongoing. Certainly, one aspect of heart formation for CSC educators is assisting students to understand the difference between so many infatuations and the persons that demand a perpetual loving commitment. Learning to recognize the Lord in the shape of the Cross is really not that difficult. Each day, the news is filled with stories about people who are Christ crucified. The alien, the outcast, the destitute, the suffering child, the old, the infirm and the ignored are among the many who are crucified because of the human condition. Reflect upon the Beatitudes and you will identify those who suffer and yet are blessed. Bringing students “to completeness” is to provide them with many opportunities to reflect upon suffering humanity, the blessed ones. In Blessed Moreau’s words: “We must provide our students with the competence to see and, then, the courage to act.” One cannot fall in love with the crucified Savior unless one, first, falls in love with suffering humanity. Ave Crux Spes Unica!
He spent hours at the Grotto. Corby Hall, adjacent to the Grotto, was his home for nearly 45 years. Brother Cosmas was often seen tidying up the Grotto, resting, talking to people, and tending the flower beds there and around Corby Hall. One day, a secretary on campus was walking toward the Grotto on a lunch break when she saw Brother Cosmas hunched over a flower bed near Corby Hall. She thought he was ill and went to help him. When she got closer to him, she realized that he was weeding it. He also helped in the church and sacristy. For years this quaint, frail little man, with the round wire-rimmed glasses and black cassock, was a familiar sight to many as he quietly served the priests during Mass at Sacred Heart Church. He was revered by priests and lay people alike as a very holy man. In between church services, and his other work, he was always at the Grotto. One day a week he would go to Holy Cross House, the retirement home for priests 
on the campus. There he would help his “good buddy,” Brother Edward, attend 
He was born in 1849 in France and graduated from the Congregation’s College of St. Charles in St. Brieuc in Brittany. Gilbert entered the novitiate in Le Mans in 1867 where he would have met Blessed Moreau and pronounced vows in 1870. In 1872 he was assigned to teach at the Congregation’s college in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris. He served for a year on the staff of the novitiate and then was appointed director of the Neuilly school when its founder, Rev. Louis Champeau, C.S.C., died. At the General Chapter of 1892 he was elected co-adjutor Superior General with the right of succession. When Sorin died in 1893, Français became the Superior General. As Superior General, he labored to revive the community in France, including moving the General Administration back to France. Français was especially solicitous that the religious who were teaching earn degrees to insure the quality of their ministry. Responding to tension between priests and brothers, he vigorously supported the move of the brothers into secondary education in North America where they directed the schools that they staffed. He wrote in a circular letter dated January 2, 1912: “From this time forward, the High School is the outstanding vocation for our Brothers! It is a vocation grander and more sublime than they themselves can conceive. Accordingly they must prepare themselves for it, in the first place by a reinforcement of their whole religious life, and then by a thoroughly well acquainted and well digested knowledge of the branches which under these new conditions they will be called upon to teach. And they must be vigorously encouraged and helped along in this new line of activity.” Father Français always promoted the religious life in his circular letters and several times visited the houses in Canada and the United States to encourage adherence to the Constitutions. He collaborated with other French religious to revive devotion to Blessed Moreau. When the French government passed laws in 1901 and 1904 abolishing religious congregations, Français moved the General Administration back to Notre Dame. His attempt to resign in 1920 was denied by the Vatican and instead he was given a co-adjutor, Rev. Andrew Morrissey, C.S.C., who died the following year. 
Marie Stanton received the habit of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1925 and was in the second band of Sisters to go to India in 1929. The first four Sisters (Olga, Marie Estelle, Rose Monica and Rose Bernard) traveled to India as missionaries in 1924. Toward the end of October 1931, Sister Jarlath was stricken by influenza and died on November 1 in Toomiliah, India. She was the first and youngest Sister of the Holy Cross to die in India. In the December issue of the periodical, 
He was one of seven children, all boys, who was of French and Anglo-Indian descent. The family lived in Calcutta for some time and then moved to Dacca when Eugene’s father was made jailer at the city’s local jail. When he was tens years old, his mother died. He was among the first students to finish his high school education at St. Gregory School in Dacca first under the Benedictines and then under the Holy Cross Priests and Brothers. He entered the Congregation in 1884 by receiving the habit. There was no canonical novitiate at that time. For nearly 70 years he worked in many elementary schools throughout Bengal. “For many years he [is] one of India’s greatest sharpshooters; and for two years, his victories brought him recognition as the champion shot of all India, Burma and Assam. Brother was a master sergeant in the Indian Military and for many years he organized and drilled for what in our country [U.S.] corresponds to the ROTC. For his skill and many years of service he was given the Kaiser-i-Hind medal by George V. Whenever he traveled he took his St. Etienne rifle along with him. His shooting was a work of science and art. Even on the wing, he never missed 
a shot. As an old man he could out-walk men fifty years his junior, despite tropical rain or heat. [Because of his many years as a teacher] children for miles around Dacca know and love him. Often parents ask him to bless or at least make the sign of the cross over their children trusting that they would receive a special favor from God. Despite his popularity Brother Eugene lives a very simple life. After passing the four-score mark and spending over sixty years on the Bengal mission, Brother Eugene is still admired by all for his ability to do a day’s work, and for his cheerful acceptance of the handicaps brought on by old age” 
He was born in 1930, in Portland, Oregon and attended St. Rose Parish School and Central Catholic High School. He attended Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon for three years and then joined the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1949 and was ordained in 1957. After ordination and until 1966 Fr. Plasker served in the District of Chile at St. George’s College and San Roque Parish. He then studied at the University of Texas for a year and assisted in the Diocese of Santiago de Veraguas in Panama where he taught and served at San Juan Evangelista Parish. In 1969 he returned to Chile where he served as assistant superior at the Holy Cross Community Center and was director of the professed seminarians. He served as District Superior from 1970-74. In 1973, following the takeover by the military junta in Chile, Father Plasker was expelled from Chile by the Delegated Rector of the Ministries of Education “for Marxist activities [and he] has been proposed as the Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross” (Cánapa, Jorge, C.S.C.). Fr. Plasker moved to the District of Peru, serving in Chimbote, Canto Grande, and Lima. He was the founding pastor at Our Lord of Hope Parish in the Canto Grande desert where he formed Christian communities and served the poverty stricken people of Canto Grande. The parish remains a cornerstone of the Holy Cross apostolic effort in Peru. It is a place of vigorous pastoral activity and of flourishing Holy Cross education. In entering Holy Cross, Fr. Plasker embraced the motto: Across the World with Holy Cross. Beginning in Santiago, Chile, then across the Chilean desert, to Peru, it was Fr. Plasker’s dream to serve the People of God in the missions of the Congregation of Holy Cross around the world. In the late eighties, Fr. Plasker was called to serve in the General Administration of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Rome as 2nd General Assistant. Through his service in the General Administration, his desire was to fortify the dream of Blessed Basil Moreau for the mission of the Congregation. After serving in the General Administration for six years, the call to “cross the world” came again. This time it was to return to formation work in Santiago, Chile, where he served as director of the professed seminarian program. It was also a call to return to the educational ministry at St. George’s College. It was a return to catechetical education and family pastoral care at San Roque Parish, where he served until his death. In his life and ministry, Fr. Plasker was known as educator, pastor, formator, religious superior, and committed to family life. These roles and traits marked his life in Holy Cross as a religious and in his priestly ministry for 51 years. (From the 
She was born in Ireland in 1841 and entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1859, receiving the habit in 1860 and professing final vows in 1864. Over the next 50 years Sister Lydia served as a nurse in the Civil War from 1863-65 at St. Edward Hospital in Mound City, Illinois. She also served as a “chief nurse” in the Spanish American War in 1899 at Camp Lexington in Kentucky. “Major Glennon wanted the sisters to take over a military hospital for which they would be paid $60 a month. Sister Lydia would be paid double that amount. Because her ‘common sense….discipline…knowledge, skill and fitness made her an ideal superintendent’” ( Schuller, O. S. F, Sister M. Victoria, 
Sister Margaret André was born in Detroit in 1935. She was as multifaceted as she was multitalented. Margaret André lived who she said she was, a Catholic woman and dedicated Sister of the Holy Cross. She was filled with zeal, vivacious and whole-hearted. One could truly say she “was the joy of the Gospel.” Her enthusiastic being and deep spirituality touched many lives and nurtured many faith journeys. She never knew how she helped people grow and how her life inspired so many to help others do the same.
The following excerpts were written by Daniel V. Casey ’95 in 
In the 1930s four Spanish-speaking Holy Cross priests, Fathers Frederick Schmidt, C.S.C., Thomas Culhane, C.S.C., Alfred Mendez, C.S.C., and Joseph Houser, C.S.C. were assigned to Central Texas. They formed Catholic Communities which soon became parishes in which Spanish was the primary language. It was not until the 1970s that Holy Cross expanded its ministry into México. In May of 1972 at the age of 65, Father Frederick Schmidt, C.S.C. requested a sabbatical. After 35 years of work with Mexican Americans in Georgetown, Killeen, Copperas Cove and Round Rock in Texas, Fr. Schmidt desired to spend some time in México. What the Provincial at the time, Father Christopher O’Toole, C.S.C., didn’t know was that he was looking for a parish in México that had no priest. He soon found one in the mountains of San Luis Potosí and received permission to spend his sabbatical year there. As his ‘working sabbatical’ was drawing to a close, he called Fr. O’Toole and pleaded with him to remain. He described how the people had waited for him for hours when he first arrived and how the children greeted him with flowers and put on a magnificent fiesta. Every day the people would 
tell him how important it was for him to stay with them. They desperately needed a priest in their town. After contemplating Fr. Schmidt’s request, Fr. O’Toole brought the matter to his Provincial Council and it was agreed that Fr. Schmidt could stay in Ahuacatlán. He was pastor there for the next 25 years and pastor emeritus for five more! During that time, Fr. Schmidt was also chaplain to the Dominican Sisters in the neighboring town of Xilitla. He founded a group of Franciscans’ Recollect in his parish where, with some help from benefactors in the United States, he built a beautiful convent that would hold 40 sisters. Soon the convent was full. Fr. Schmidt died in 2003 at the convent and was buried in the crypt of the 
He was born in Barberton, OH in 1939 and attended St. Augustine Elementary School in Barberton and St. Mary’s High School in Akron graduating in 1957. That winter he decided to join the Brothers of Holy Cross and pronounced his first vows in 1959. His first assignment was to teach at Boysville of Michigan, for seven years and then he served as Vocation Director for another seven years. He studied for a year to earn a degree in spirituality at the Berkley School of Theology, and he put what he learned into practice by serving for 20 years as the campus minister at Holy Cross High in River Grove, IL, at Our Lady of Westside Schools and Holy Trinity High School in Chicago, IL, and Archbishop Hoban High in Akron, OH. While in Chicago he was co-director of the TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) for four years. His mission in life was youth ministry, and he was a mentor for hundreds in Chicago’s inner-city youth. When Brother Bob taught at Holy Trinity High School his students had homework assignments to provide service to people in the neighborhoods. Living on the south side of Chicago, he took pride in leading youth retreats especially in Kujenga Leadership retreats. One of his favorite slogans was “We don’t fear the future, we embrace it.” He helped many teenagers stay away from drugs, so that parents loved him. Always a “people person,” he didn’t preach selfless service, but selfless service, leading from the front. Brother Bob’s leadership skills were evident while serving on the Midwest Provincial Council for seven years, being chosen to be the Assistant Provincial in 2000. He was unanimously elected Provincial Superior in 2003. Even in this new responsibility, Brother Bob maintained his friendly out-going interest in people and ministries in the Midwest Province and on trips to Ghana and Bangladesh. He had a strong belief in the help of Blessed Moreau and St. André Bessette. When a decision had to be made, he would pray over it and was firm and unafraid in making it and moving forward. When his role as Provincial Superior ended in 2009, he spent the last four years of his life in Schubert Villa and Dujarie House in South Bend, IN with people who were so dear to his heart. His brother, Rick, said in his eulogy that “Bob’s life and accomplishments touched so many people that they all could fill Notre Dame’s stadium more than ten times over.”
ill be buried in [the] Notre Dame community cemetery [Holy Cross] Saturday, following services and the celebration of solemn requiem mass in Sacred Heart Church. The students will attend the mass. Rev. Father L’Etourneau was a priest at Notre Dame for more than half a century, and he held many high offices in the Catholic church and was a former head [Provincial] of the Holy Cross order [Congregation], an office now held by the Very Rev. Andrew Morrissey, [C.S.C.] in the United States. He was also assistant superior-general. He was born in Detroit, Mich., Oct. 3, 1828. He finished his theological work in Italy and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1857. Father L’Etourneau’s parents came to this country from France in the early days of the last century. They amassed considerable wealth and as a young priest he inherited much money which he devoted entirely to charity, one of his gifts to Notre Dame being Corby [H]all. Father L’Entourneau in life linked the past generations of the college with the present. He was one of the most popular priests the members of the university alumni of the past generation recall. For 25 years he held the honored position of master of novices at Notre Dame. He was also for a time superintendent [superior] of the community house [Columba Hall]. After his ordination in Rome, Father L’Etourneau visited France and was present at one of the greatest events in Catholic history of the 19th century, the exercises in the establishment of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception” (
“Sister Paula, a young novice who had left her family in Ireland entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross at age nineteen. She had only been in the convent three years in 1861 before she was sent to Saint John’s Hospital in Cairo [Illinois]. Out of the freshness of youth, she describes the appalling conditions of the hospital upon her arrival. ‘As we stepped in-to [
nursing sisters back to Notre Dame. The sisters responded obediently to the superior general, yet many felt guilty that they were leaving their patients. “Sister Paul evokes a compelling image [of these feelings] in her recollections. She recalled that they left at night, but as they were preparing to leave, the mules that were to take them to the railroad station ran away. Sister Paul lamented, ‘The poor mules understanding the situation of the whole affair talked the matter over between themselves and naturaly [sic] came to the conclusion. If we take those sisters to meet the train it will surely be a great injustice to the poor sick and dying, and again it will stir up the wrath of Dr. Franklin which is always near at hand. No we will not take them we will break loose and run away and hide in the woods until morning, and so they did….The night was extremely warm….neither moon nor stars were visible. They too seemed not pleased with our leaving the poor sick and dying as they refused their light and …. hid behind the thick clouds which guarded them well’” ( extracted from Wall, Barbara Mann. “Grace Under Pressure: The Nursing Sisters of the Holy Cross, 1861-1865” as published in 
Voice of Moreau 