The Congregation of Holy Cross and those of us at the University of Notre Dame are celebrating the annual January 20 feast of the Congregation's founder, Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau, C.S.C.
There are many events in remembrance of Fr. Moreau this week at Notre Dame.
At Ave Maria Press, founded and supported to this day by the Congregation of Holy Cross, we have continued to reflect and respond to Basil Moreau's call to educate the whole student, in mind, heart, and hand:
An education that is complete is one in which the hands and heart are engaged as much as the mind. We want to let our students try their learning in the world and so make prayers of their education.Additionally, Fr. Moreau wrote:
Pedagogy derives from two Greek words—that for a child and that for leading. It is the art of helping young people to completeness. For the Christian, this means that education is helping a young person to be more like Christ, the model for all Christians. From the word's roots, we can interpret pedagogy to mean "leading a young person away from ignorance and disorder." In this way it consists precisely in the reforming of human nature, which has been weakened by original sin. This reforming involves restoring to rational process the light that existed before the fall of our first parents and then restoring to the heart the kinds of feelings and sentiments that ought to reside there. This notion of pedagogy is founded on the principles of Catholicism and makes educating young people a most important work for those who try to perform it—it truly makes education the art of arts.
In commemoration of the Feast Day of Blessed Basil Moreau, encourage your students to explore and consider religious vocations, particularly to the Congregation of the Holy Cross.
