What are the charisms of Community, Family & Cross? | University of Portland

What are the charisms of Community, Family & Cross?

We continue our look at the charisms—the purposes that ignite the work of the men and women who are part of the Congregation of Holy Cross—and remembering that they were formed in response to the wounds inflicted on the people of northern France during and after the French Revolution. Basil Moreau and his band know they could not address these challenges on their own, and so the charism of tapping the talents of the community is woven into the Holy Cross tapestry. They adopted the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as their model of interacting with one another, and so the charism of family—in all its complexities, ups and downs and permanent commitment—is part of being Holy Cross. And the paradoxes of the cross—a death that yields eternal life, the vertical quest for transcendence intersecting the horizontal beam of the realities of this world—offer another animating spirit to the ongoing Holy Cross mission of bringing about the work of resurrection to a bruised, blessed world.