We walked the campus like pilgrims with phones in our hands, guided not by incense or bells but by the glow of a mobile screen directing us from landmark to landmark. Notre Dame was a planned stop from the beginning—one of those places you pencil in not just for what you’ll see but for how it might feel to see it. And it did feel like something. It felt like walking through a myth made of limestone and gold.
The tour began with the Dome. Gilded and glinting in the soft afternoon light, it’s less a building than a proclamation. Mary stands atop it, casting her serene gaze over a campus that has been Catholic almost as long as it's been American. The stories go that she turns her back to the football stadium in protest of the violence below. I don’t know if it’s true, but I liked it enough not to ask.
The university’s origins trace back to 1842, when a French priest named Father Edward Sorin and a group of Holy Cross brothers arrived in the Indiana wilderness with a dream to build a school that would be “one of the most powerful means for doing good in this country.” What began as a small mission has grown into one of the most iconic Catholic institutions in the world—equal parts monastery, museum, and machine for memory-making.
We passed dorms named for saints and founders, buildings that looked more like abbeys than lecture halls, and fountains flowing as if consecrated. The wedding parties flitted around us—three scheduled that afternoon, all in the Basilica. We weren’t part of any of them. We weren’t alumni or Catholics. We were observers—welcomed enough, but clearly not the reason this place breathes.
As we walked the quad, the looming figure of the library came into view—its entire southern face covered by a mural officially titled The Word of Life. But no one calls it that. Around here, it’s just Touchdown Jesus. With arms raised high above the stadium, Christ seems to signal a divine approval of every pass completed beneath his gaze. It’s ridiculous. And perfect. And utterly Notre Dame.
The stadium itself is something closer to a shrine than a sports arena. This is where Rockne led, where the Four Horsemen galloped into legend, where Rudy ran out of the tunnel. It’s not just a field—it’s a cathedral of American mythmaking, consecrated every fall Saturday in gold helmets and fight songs. Even if you didn’t grow up a fan, even if you never watched a snap, it’s hard not to feel something there.
But it was the Grotto that held me. Tucked behind the Basilica, carved into the earth like a wound that glows. Even with people around, it felt hushed. A space outside of noise. I lit a candle. Not because I’m a person of faith—not in the spiritual sense—but because I am a person of ritual. A person of history. Of acts done with intention.
From my pocket I pulled a green rosary I had just bought at the bookstore. Not plastic, not cheap. Stone beads, cool to the touch, each one carved with tiny shamrocks. It wasn’t an impulse buy. It was a recognition. This one will hang with the others in my collection: a rosary from Saint Gregory’s Abbey where the silence is its own kind of prayer; one from Marian Days in Carthage, bought beneath a white tent where incense mingled with a language I couldn’t speak but somehow understood; another with beads made from baseballs in honor of Pope Leo XIII—yes, really. And the one my brother brought me from the other Notre Dame, in Paris, folding his journey into mine.
I prayed a quiet decade of Hail Marys—each bead a name, a memory, a hope. My students. My coworkers. My friends. My family—living, gone, and those still lingering in the in-between. And yes, myself. You can’t light a candle for others without realizing you need some light of your own.
Notre Dame’s beauty isn’t just in its stones or stained glass. It’s in its discipline. The order of it. The way it frames belief—religious, intellectual, ancestral. It doesn’t demand your faith. It simply asks for your attention.
As we ended the tour, I turned back toward the Dome. It was still shining. Still watching. And I thought—this is why we come. Not for proof or photos. But to walk where others have walked. To carry something away with us that we didn’t have when we arrived. A prayer. A stone. A memory.