The Congregation of Holy Cross has been blessed with members who have demonstrated heroic virtue in their lives. We are so grateful for the life and intercession of St. Andre Bessette of Montreal, the miracle man and healer who, united with St. Joseph his Patron, was chosen by God to touch many hearts and lives to remind them of God’s power and love. Many souls and bodies were healed by St. Andre, and continue to be healed through his prayer to this day.
The Founder of our community, Father Basil Moreau, C.S.C., has been elevated by the church to the status of Blessed, the penultimate step before canonization and sainthood. Father Moreau’s zeal and humility are perhaps his most impressive virtues, and his vision of a family of priests, brothers, and sisters continues to influence Holy Cross apostolates throughout the world.
There are also currently four Holy Cross religious whose causes for sainthood are open and active, having served Church and neighbor in incredible ways: Bishop Vincent McCauley, C.S.C., Bishop Theotonius Ganguly, C.S.C., and Br. Flavian LaPlante, C.S.C., and Fr. Patrick Peyton, C.S.C.
Father Peyton’s cause has recently reached a new stage, and the Holy Cross Vocations Office wanted to share this good news with all of you, as we continue to pray for his canonization, ask for his intercession, and give thanks to God for the gifts given to the world through his life and work. As St. Andre would have given all the credit to St. Joseph, Fr. Peyton would have gestured to the Blessed Mother, acknowledging that she accomplishes, through Her Son, those favors she desires to give glory to God.
Father Peyton was born in Ireland, educated in the United States, and entered the Congregation of Holy Cross. He had an intimate and beautiful connection to the Blessed Mother, to Whom he attributed his personal healing from tuberculosis while in studies. He made a promise to Mary that he would give his life to her, to do whatever She asked of him to spread the reign of her Son.
He became the “Rosary Priest,” traveling all over the world and eventually meeting some of the leading celebrities of his time, not to give glory to his own name, but only to encourage regular Catholics, regular families, to entrust their lives to Mary as wellespecially by praying together the Rosary.
Fr. Peyton established the organizations that are now known as Holy Cross Family Ministries, Family Theater, and Family Rosary International. Holy Cross Family Ministries is the most wide-ranging apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, present in countries that do not even have any full-time Holy Cross religious. Fr. Peyton’s charisma and passion has started a movement that has lasted long past the limits of his time on earth.
As the Congregation of Holy Cross celebrates this milestone in the Cause for Sainthood for Fr. Peyton, we invite you to become more familiar with his life and work, and to consider praying for his cause as well. His mottoes: “The family that prays together stays together,” and “A world at prayer is a world at peace” are more true and more needed now than ever. Fr. Peyton shows us by his life that if we entrust our futures into the hands of the Blessed Mother she can use us to change lives in ways we could have never imagined on our own.
