Pilgrimages are a part of the faith life in many religious traditions, including Catholicism. Different from religious or other tourism, pilgrimages are as much about the one making the journey as they are about the final destination. Typically, pilgrims head to places that are crucial to the stories of their religion, or to sites tied to key people within a religious tradition. Places of miraculous healing, holiness and miracles are frequent destinations: think Lourdes, Fatima or the Holy Sepulchre. Participants in Catholic pilgrimages leave room for the Holy Spirit to transform them along their travels.
On Monday, May 6, UP students and 4 staff/faculty accompaniers will embark on a pilgrimage to El Salvador, home of one of the Church’s most recent saints, Archbishop Oscar Romero, canonized in September 2018. While in El Salvador, they will visit, worship, and reflect at the church of his martyrdom, talk with citizens committed to working for justice in the country, and walk alongside others engaged in the struggles for peace, both living and dead. All members of the UP community are invited and encouraged to keep these pilgrims in their prayers throughout the week: Megan Caren, Joshua Bode, Taylor Cole, Ana Clyde, Quinn Burdick, Sophia Truempi, Sofia Ortega, Justin Manahan, Fr. Jim Gallagher C.S.C., Alex Roth, Maria Echenique, and Karen Eifler.
“Did You Know?” is a sort of regular feature in upbeat to help staff and faculty understand dimensions of this Catholic, Holy Cross university. You can send questions to Fr. Jim Gallagher (Campus Ministry) or Karen Eifler (Garaventa Center).
Do you know why Catholics use Crucifixes?
At a recent brownbag lunch, four faculty members shared tips for getting started on Untethered Lecture Capture. Their lessons learned in two years of implementing this approach are distilled at 
Here’s a true fact: a mere four nucleic acids in our DNA yield endless variety in human beings. What if we re-combined that infinite human potential to heal this broken world? The post-Revolutionary world into which Blessed Basil Moreau launched his new Congregation of Holy Cross demanded more healing and education and pastoral care than even the most zealous vowed religious priests could ever hope to accomplish on their own. Constantly on the move, Moreau expanded Holy Cross to include religious brothers and sisters whose work as educators and nurses complemented the efforts of the priests to “make God known, loved and served.” Even that was not enough; thus, the practice of drawing upon the varied expertise of lay collaborators was built into the “DNA” of Holy Cross life to a far greater degree than in most Catholic religious orders.
How does one live in relationship with the world today and do so in the light of the teachings of Jesus? Catholic Social Teaching seeks to answer this question. This teaching does not come from one particular document but is drawn from a range of sources that have been developed over the years. From these sources seven principle themes have emerged: Life and Dignity of the Human Person; Call to Family, Community and Participation; Rights and Responsibilities; Option for the Poor and Vulnerable; The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers; Solidarity; and Care for God’s Creation. Learn more 
When Blessed Basil Moreau founded the Congregation of Holy Cross he did so with a vision of a community of sisters, brothers, and priests who would look to the life of the Holy Family for inspiration. The sisters were dedicated to Mary, the Blessed Mother of Jesus; the brothers were dedicated to Joseph, the foster father of Jesus; and the priests we dedicated to Jesus, in particular under the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Each member of the Holy Family is to be looked upon as a model for the members of the different societies within Holy Cross. As well, the loving dynamic shared by the Holy Family was also to be the harmony that the members of Holy Cross strive to emulate. In turn, that same harmony and bond of community is the vision for what one experiences in any Holy Cross parish or school. 
The Teaching & Learning Collaborative will host one more peer-led workshop from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3, in the Murphy Room of Franz Hall. Come hear Carolyn James, mathematics; Jeffrey White, Learning Commons; Rebecca Smith, education; and Lorretta Krautscheid, nursing, offer tips and pitfalls of the newly popular approach to teaching content-heavy courses, dubbed “untethered lecture capture.” Bring your lunch and find out why this strategy has captured so many teachers’ attention and what users wish they had known before they started with ULC.
Bringing people out of the ravages of the French Revolution tapped every single gift Basil Moreau could discern in his young Congregation of Holy Cross, and then some. So does the teaching and healing and grace-bringing done by Holy Cross and their co-disciples (all the rest of us at UP fit into that group) today. Interdependence is the Holy Cross charism that captures that robust tapestry of necessary connections. Holy Cross men and women and their lay collaborators look at the battered world through eyes of hope that will not be abandoned, a hope that is constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit. Very few hard things worth doing are finished in a day, and so the charism of fidelity is an animating spirit of Holy Cross that keeps the intentions and actions kindled by hope moving forward and helping members of Holy Cross communities (again, all of us here) seek the wisdom and talents of our colleagues, taking humble advantage of the reality of our interdependence.
All senior faculty members are invited to apply to be part of the June 2020 pilgrimage to the birthplace of the Congregation of Holy Cross in northern France. For a sense of what the experience will entail, check out this 
Every Catholic religious order was founded to address a particular problem of a time and locale. In the case of the Congregation of Holy Cross, that problem was the devastation wrought by the French Revolution, which had led to suppression of public worship and the shutting down of many Catholic communities. Nearly two generations of French Catholics were ill-informed about their faith. Basil Moreau’s band of priests, brothers, and sisters formed in order to be dedicated educators in the Catholic faith; that is the work the Church acknowledges that they do, and what their constitutions say they are to do. That is the principle of Holy Cross charism; several other charisms in the “DNA” of Holy Cross men and women fuel their audacious task. Among these are zeal (an unwavering spark for and commitment to living out their call), reliance on Divine providence (understanding that God can and does use any circumstance or human choice to reveal something of God’s love to a world ravenous for meaning and purpose ) and hospitality (commitment to be the face of Christ to all who show up and, perhaps more importantly, to see the face of Christ in all who show up).