The Congregation of Holy Cross invites all friends, collaborators, and ministries to join in celebrating a landmark spiritual initiative: the Year of Mission, officially beginning on April 28, 2025. This global observance for the Congregation, themed “Hope Beyond Borders,” will mark a renewed commitment to missionary zeal across cultures, communities, and continents.

The chosen launch date is no coincidence—it honors the 185th anniversary of Blessed Basile Moreau’s first missionary dispatch outside France to Algiers in 1840. This powerful historical echo reminds us of Holy Cross’s founding charism and propels us forward into a new era of pastoral outreach as “educators in the faith” who make a “preferential option for the poor.” 

Declared by Superior General Br. Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C., the Year of Mission is an invitation to stretch beyond the familiar. In alignment with the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, Pilgrims of Hope, this effort encourages all members of the Holy Cross family to respond courageously to the signs of the times in their communities.

As part of this bold endeavor, the Congregation has already taken a significant step by establishing a new mission in the Diocese of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Known as the Holy Family Mission, this marks the first new foreign mission undertaken by Holy Cross in nearly four decades. A dedicated team of eight missionaries—four brothers and four priests—now serve two parishes, Christ the King in Hantova and Sacred Heart in Tinputz, reaching over 10,000 parishioners and supporting local schools.

Br. Paul has also offered three reflection questions to help guide individual and community discernment throughout the year:

1. What are the pressing and unmet needs of the neighborhood or society in which you live? Who are those who remain on the ‘peripheries’ and who might benefit from the mission and hope your ministry brings?

2. What are the borders that you must cross in order to reach them?

3. What action(s) will your jurisdiction/ministry/apostolate undertake in order to meet the pressing needs you have identified? How do you foresee these actions as bringing hope to those who need it the most?

We hope you’ll take this journey with us—reflecting, responding, and rejoicing in the gift of mission. Whether through prayer, outreach, or solidarity, there’s a place for every person and every community in this shared work of hope.

Let us cross new borders together.

Posted: April 7, 2025