Brother Andre to be a Saint

Pope Benedict XVI announced on Friday that Blessed Brother André Bessette, C.S.C., will be canonized in a ceremony to be held October 17, 2010.  Blessed Brother André was a brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious order which founded the University of Notre Dame.  He is the first member of the Holy Cross Order to be named a saint.

Brother André served as a porter, or doorman, at Montreal’s College of Notre Dame, an assignment in which he continued for the next 40 years.  In addition to welcoming visitors, he served as janitor, launderer, and sacristan, ran errands, and provided the students with cheap haircuts.  More and more people began to visit him, seeking his advice, counsel, and healing.

Brother André is routinely mentioned in campus liturgies, and there are two statues of him on campus, one in the Basilica and one at the Eck Visitors Center.  For the full story, see this press release by the University.  The University's site, http://www.nd.edu/, has a good introduction to Brother André.  The video found below is also very good.

Holy Cross Seminarian Dies in Haiti Earthquake

As many of you know, the Congregation of Holy Cross, the order of priests and brothers that founded and runs Notre Dame, has a large presence in Haiti.  The order is organized into provinces with one of them being the Haiti Provence.  (Another provence is the Indiana Provence.)

The Congregation of Holy Cross has been serving the poor in Haiti for more than 60 years. Holy Cross missionaries from Canada first came to Haiti in 1944 to direct an existing secondary school in Cap Haitien. That initial mission, now called College Notre-Dame, sparked the establishment of other Holy Cross educational, social, and parochial ministries throughout Haiti, now organized as the Province of Notre-Dame du Perpetual Secours, with 70 religious members, including two Holy Cross bishops.

The Holy Cross school and seminary in Haiti were completely destroyed.  Worse still, one of the seminarians was killed.

Early Friday morning, Holy Cross leaders reported that massive damage almost completely destroyed the provincial house and the Congregation’s school, Ensemble Scolaire Basile Moreau, which opened in 1989 to serve the poor in Port-au-Prince. In addition, a seminarian who taught at the Congregation’s high school in northern Haiti was killed in the collapse of a building at the University Quisqueya.

Below is a video of the damage at Quisqueya University.



If you wish to support the Congregation, please send donations in care of Holy Cross Mission Center, P.O. Box 543, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

The Notre Dame Haiti Program building, despite being located closer to the earthquake's epicenter than Port-au-Prince, did not collapse.  Fr. Streit and several students who were there at the time of the earthquake survived and are in the process of returning to the United States.  Holy Cross Associates also has a program in Haiti.

Fr. Jenkins celebrated Mass at the Basilica this evening, a Mass in which several students who had worked in Haiti attended.