The Source and Foundation

Sts. Peter and Paul School efficaciously lives its motto — "May the Holy Cross Be My Light" — through the spirituality inherited from its Parish- led Norbertine Fathers, who carry forward the same reforming and renewing vision that St. Norbert of Xanten, himself deeply inspired by our school's patron St. Paul, entrusted to his Order nine centuries ago. 

At the heart of that vision, and at the heart of this motto, is a single, irreplaceable reality: the Holy Eucharist. The heartbeat of the Norbertine Order has always been fervent devotion to the Eucharistic presence of Christ — and this devotion is not incidental to the school's identity, but its very center. To pray "May the Holy Cross be my light" is, in the Norbertine tradition, to stand before the altar, for it is there that the sacrifice of the Cross is made present, and the light of Christ is given to the world.

The Cross and the Eucharist are one mystery: the same self-offering of Christ, made present at every Mass. Crux Sacra sit mihi lux [“May the holy Cross be my light.”] asks that this mystery become the light by which students see and navigate all of reality. Devotion to the Holy Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life,”[CCC 1324] lies at the core of school culture at Sts. Peter and Paul School. 

1. The Eucharist as the Summit of School Life

The School’s Norbertine pastoral leaders serve the Christian faithful — "lifting high the Holy Eucharist over the miseries and errors of this world," in the words of Pope John Paul II. This is precisely what the school motto calls students to: to hold up the light of the Cross — most fully encountered in the Eucharist — over the confusion and suffering of their world.

Practical implementation:

• Every school Mass is framed as the community gathering at the foot of the Cross, where the light of Christ is made present and received.

• Students are formed to understand Holy Communion as a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Lord — the source of all wisdom

• Students are formed to understand that Eucharistic life is always outward-facing, a light carried to those in need.This is made manifest through classroom and school-wide works of mercy projects.

2. Ordering the Day Through Prayer

Norbertine spirituality is organized according to the prayer of the Church: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. "Seven times a day I praise You," says the Psalmist, and by chanting together the prayers of the Hours, Norbertine canons continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. 

This Norbertine charism is central to the school’s motto; the day itself becomes a liturgical act — each hour consecrated to God, each transition marked by prayer.

Practical implementation:

• In addition to daily Mass, the school day at Sts. Peter and Paul is woven through with prayer: students pray the Liturgy of the Hours, pause at noon for the Angelus, and mark each hour with a decade of the Rosary. These are not interruptions to the school day — they are the school day, anchoring every lesson and transition within a holy [as well as comforting and energizing] rhythm of ceaseless praise.

• The Psalms, which form the backbone of the Liturgy of the Hours, are saturated with cross-and-light imagery, forming students in a vocabulary of faith related to the school’s motto that becomes second nature.

3. The Canonical Life — Monastic and Apostolic United

The school is not merely a place of academic instruction, but a canonical community — a place of common life, liturgical prayer, and apostolic service, all held together. Such canonical monastic communities formed some of the world’s first universities, such as those at Oxford and Paris. These ideal academic environments helped form history’s greatest scholars. This model forms the ideal school culture, where students are efficaciously disposed to grow in virtue, according to God’s grace.

The entire school community — parish leaders, families, teachers, staff — is called to a special communio, "to be of one heart and one mind" on the way to the triune God; to be shaped by the Cross and illumined by it.

4. Formation Through the Cross: Conversio Morum

In Norbertine spirituality, Conversio Morum, Latin for, “Conversion of Ways,”  is meant to foster a commitment to changing one's habits so they are like those of Christ; an effort to think and act as Christ did. 

This is where the school’s motto is made into a rule of life. "Let the Holy Cross be my light" is not a passive slogan — it is a vow of conversio: to be continually reshaped, reoriented, and illumined by the mystery of the Cross. For students, this means:

• Daily examination of conscience in the light of the Cross

• Virtue formation framed as becoming light for others through receiving and sharing Christ’s love with others

• Understanding suffering, academic struggle, and service as participation in the mystery of the Cross — not merely burdens to endure — may we always allow Christ to help us carry our crosses. We are all in this together - may we be Christ to others, in helping them carry their crosses in ways God calls us to. First and foremost through our prayers. Without the cross, there is no Resurrection - if we try to escape from our daily crosses, they only become larger. May we be magnanimous in carrying out the duties of our state in life, even when it entails crosses.

The School Motto in Light of Classical Education 

Central to the classical liberal arts education offered at Sts. Peter and Paul is the formation of the whole person ordered toward the perfection of intellect and will and ultimately toward union with Him who is Truth and Goodness itself.

This formation encourages students to dispose themselves toward receiving God’s grace to grow in virtue — theological, moral, and intellectual — each illumined by the light of the Cross at the center of the school's motto.

The theological virtues orient the student directly toward God: faith trusts that the Cross is light even in the deepest darkness; hope presses forward by that light when the path is uncertain; and charity radiates it outward, making each student a bearer of Christ's light to others.

The cardinal virtues show how that same light is lived in the concrete choices of daily life. Prudence is the virtue of seeing clearly — of reading every situation, every decision, and every relationship in the light of the Cross, discerning what is true and good. Justice moves the student to render to God and neighbor what is rightly owed, recognizing in every person the dignity of one for whom Christ suffered. Fortitude is the courage to carry the Cross without turning away — to endure difficulty, resist what is wrong, and remain faithful when faithfulness costs something. Temperance orders the appetites and passions so that nothing dims the light within; it is the discipline that keeps the soul clear and recollected before God.

The intellectual virtues draw the student deeper still into the mystery the motto proclaims. Understanding penetrates beyond the surface of things to grasp their deeper truth in the light of faith. Knowledge reads the created world rightly — as gift, as sign, as testimony to the God who redeemed it from the Cross. Wisdom, the highest of the intellectual virtues, contemplates all of reality from its highest cause, seeing history, suffering, beauty, and love as St. Thomas saw them: ordered toward God, and made fully intelligible only in the light of the Cross.

Together, these virtues form not merely a well-rounded student, but what the Norbertine tradition has always sought to produce: a person who thinks, chooses, and lives by the light that the Cross alone can give.

In the words of our school’s patron St. Paul: