Year of Mission
Beginning on 28 April 2025, the anniversary of Blessed Basil Moreau sending the first Holy Cross missionaries beyond the borders of France in 1840, the Congregation will commemorate a special Year of Mission. Br. Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C., Superior General, first declared the year in his sixth circular letter on Holy Cross Mission: Continuing to Cross New Borders (28 April 2024).
Coinciding with the establishment of the Congregation’s new Holy Family Mission in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, the Year of Mission presents an opportunity for the whole Family of Holy Cross to reflect on our mission and to renew our missionary zeal.
“While our mission, like our charism, remains the same, we need to refashion or adapt it at times in order to revitalize it in light of the Church’s and society’s needs. We cannot just rely on what we have always done before,” wrote Br. Bednarczyk. “We in Holy Cross must discern new pathways in fulfilling our mission.”
The year’s theme, Hope Beyond Borders, draws its inspiration from the Congregation’s Constitutions: “Our mission sends us across borders of every sort” and “we must be men with hope to bring” (2:17, 8:118).
Holy Cross during this Year of Mission renews its commitment to cross not just the physical borders that separate nation-states, but also all those other borders that separate people into groups of us versus them. It is our pledge to join in deeper solidarity with “men and women of grace and goodwill everywhere in their efforts to form communities of the coming kingdom” (2:12).
Through the resources on this page, which will be updated during the course of the Year of Mission, the Congregation invites you to join us in bringing hope beyond borders!
