HOLY CROSS, COMMUNE
"Commune of Holy Cross received the name of Holy Cross from St. Bertrand, Bishop of Mans in the Sixth Century, who built a Church and hospital there." P. OF HOLY CROSS", p. 26
"In the midst of these letters, Father Moreau was asked by Bishop Bouvier to take over the direction of the teaching Brothers of St. Joseph, founded in Ruille in 1820 by the venerable Father Dujarie. Overburdened though he was with his duties as vice-rector and the formation of nascent community, Father Moreau consented to do so; but only on condition that the novitiate and boarding school of the Brothers be moved from Ruille to a piece of property which he had been given in the Holy Cross section of Le Mans. The Commune of Holy Cross was so named by St. Bertrand, Bishop of Le Mans in the Sixth Century. The estate, a gift from a priest he had befriended, consisted of a mansion and two smaller houses and 68 acres of farm lands and vineyards . . . .
"At once Father Moreau reorganized the two communities into a Congregation which, because of its birthplace, he called our Lady of Holy Cross. During the retreat he gave the Brothers in 1836, he divided the community into teaching and working Brothers. At the close of the exercises the members, 60 in all, bound themselves to the society by perpetual vows. When his Auxiliary Priests had grown to sufficient numbers to permit sending some of them as missionaries to Africa and America, the Father Founder thought it best that they too should bind themselves by vows." FLAME IN THE WILDERNESS, p. 70, McAllister