University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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II What Notre Dame really is ... The University, present and futureby Theodore M. Hesburgh, C .S.C. One need only page through the Dome to realize that the University is a very exciting place, where young men spend the four best years of their life. When I say best, I mean spiritually, intellectually, culturally, and physically too. The strange thing about all of this is that most Notre Dame men, at one time or another, gripe might- ily about these four years while they live through them, and then spend the rest of their lives fondly re-living these years in nostalgic recollection. Even Notre Dame ' s famous Dr. Tom Dooley wrote these lines while dying of cancer in a Chinese hospital: Notre Dame is always in my heart. That Grotto is the rock to which my life is anchored. Do the students ever appreciate what they have while they have it? I know I never did. Spent most of my time being angry at the clergy at school ... 10 p.m. bed check, absurd for a 19 year old veteran, etc., etc., etc. I imagine that only a Notre Dame man can really appreciate the Dome, for all the things that Notre Dame is are only faintly evoked in the pictures and captions that fill this book. What Notre Dame really is, what it evokes in the mind and heart of those of us who have lived here, all this cannot be captured in pictures, brief captions, or in my words either. Nonetheless, I would like to say something about the spirit of the place. First may I say that to me, and I am sure, to most Notre Dame men, it is unlike any other place on earth. I have visited the great shrines of France, Portugal, Ireland and Mexico, to name a few. But this is for me ever the greatest shrine of Our Lady, in fact a kind of living miracle of the Mother of God. Only each Notre Dame man can say what happened to him here, in the depths of his soul. Again Dr. Tom Dooley put it beautifully from his bed of pain in Hong Kong last December: But just now . . . and just so many times, how I long for the Grotto. Away from the Grotto, Dooley just prays. But at the Grotto, especially now when there must be snow everywhere and the lake is ice glass and that triangular fountain on the left is frozen solid and all the priests are bundled in their too-large, too-long old black coats and the students wear snow boots ... if I could go to the Grotto now, then I think I could sing inside. I could be full of faith and poetry and loveliness and know more beauty, tenderness and compassion. This is soggy senti- mentalism I know. Cold prayers from a hospital bed are just as pleasing to God as more youthful prayers from a Grotto on the lid of night. But like telling a mother in labor ' It ' s okay; millions have endured the labor pains and survived happy . . . you will too. ' It ' s consoling . . . but doesn ' t lessen the pain. Accordingly, knowing that prayers from here are just as good as from the Grotto EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT: Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. doesn ' t lessen my gnawing, yearning passion to be there. To be there. How many thousands of Notre Dame men have shared in this miracle of inner trans- formation by being here: the broader vision of what life really means and what it offers to him who will serve; the flowering of the mind as it opens to new and broad vistas and begins to realize its innate power of analysis, expression and appreciation of all that is good and true and beautiful; the youthful generosity and idealism and strength of character that come from daily contact with Our Lord and His Blessed Mother: in the Mass and Holy Communion, at the Grotto, in the quiet shadows of a hall chapel, under the vaulted ceiling of Sacred Heart Church, glancing up at that golden vision above the Dome, silhouetted against the blue of the heavens by day and the dark of sky by night. Who can tell of the miracles of grace wrought here in the inner depths of the human spirit. Again Dr. Dooley touches the responsive chord: Whenever my cancer acts up ... and it is certainly acting up now, I turn inward a bit ... more do I think of one Divine Doctor, and my CONTINUED 19

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PRESIDENT: Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. 18

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STUDENT CHAPLAIN: Rev. Glenn R. Boarman, C.S.C. VICE-PRESIDENT, STUDENT AFFAIRS: Rev. George Bernard, C.S.C. personal fund of grace. Is it enough? I have mon- strous phantoms ... as all men do. But I try to exorcise them with all the fury of the Middle Ages. And inside and outside the wind blows. But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does not matter. The winds within me do not matter. Nothing human or earthly can touch me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my heart. What seems unpossessable, I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I can fathom. What is unutterable, I can utter. Because I can pray. Be- cause I can communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God. Maybe this gives us the clue as to why Notre Dame is a very special place. Many universities have grown too large and too famous to keep a place for God on their campus, in their classrooms, in their residence halls, in their inner lire. He may still figure in their motto or on their Coat of Arms, but no one is shocked at this because it is expressed in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew which few understand. Be this as it may, we make no apology for the large and central place for God at Notre Dame and in the lives of Notre Dame men. Nor for His Mother either, since Her name graces this place and all of its sons. Somehow this more than earthly presence gives this place a special peace, a vital spirit, a rendezvous with a destiny of a high order. When all of this is said, there is still much unsaid and even unsayable. One might brag a little and say that here there are more full-time students and faculty in residence than at any Catholic university on earth; that here more national and international awards are won; that the plant and endowment are larger than any other Catholic university in history; that our alumni contribute more and in higher proportion to keep us growing; that we have the oldest Law School, the only Mediaeval Institute, one of the very few schools of Engineering and Architecture, the most outstanding Catholic College of Science. But even after such a display of immodesty, there is still much unsaid. I haven ' t even mentioned that our football record is the best in the land over the years that the game has been played. Why say it? Everybody knows it. But some will say that this is glory of years gone by since the fencing and swimming teams are the true champ- ions today. Well, I still have hopes, and I suspect that Notre Dame still has some good football games left in her system, yet to be played. The last crowd has not yet been thrilled. The spirit still is phenomenal here. Blood still races in the Fall of the year, but let us see evrything here in proper proportion -- missing no reality, slighting no contributions. Football has contributed to Notre Dame, and may yet well con- tribute more. But we are more than football. We are a university, committed to the pursuit of excellence CONTINUED 20