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

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It is not a matter of copying or of imitation, this atmosphere of the Mother Notre Dame here in our American Notre Dame. So far as that is concerned, our church is neither a copy nor an imitation of the great Paris Cathedral. No, it is more than mere physical resemblance; it is a matter of atmosphere. This whole place is pure French. No one who knows Catholic France would need to be told that our Notre Dame was dreamed of, inspired by, built by, a man who loved his ancient mother, Notre Dame. And it is not the Church alone. Walk over from the lake and look up at Sorin Hall as it stands in its slight eminence among the trees — and you are in the land of Norman towers. It is more than an American college hall that you see; it is some old chateau of the French countryside; some antique family house that has given its sons to that other Notre Dame that has stood like a rock in the midst of age ' old tempests of revolution and desecration. Deep slanting roofs and Norman towers, it is France all over, this Sorin Hall, sheltered under the cross ' tipped spire of the Gothic church. Or take the path that winds toward the Grotto — and you are at Lourdes, kneeling with little Bernadette and looking up into the benign face of the Blessed Virgin. Look from the Grotto, then, up toward the Church. The mansards of the Presbytery; the roofs of Corby; the long lowrunning arm of the Vestry; the flying buttresses, the pointed windows, finally the spire of the Church itself; — what does it all make a picture of? Of Catholic France again; the clustered roo ' s of som old French cathedral town gathered around its Gothic mother. Or, still keeping the church in view, approach it from the rear — and you are coming along the rue du Cloitre or turning to cross the Quai de T Archeveche toward the Pont del ' Archeveche, looking straight up at the noble apse of Notre Dame. You can almost see the flight of the angels, those marvelous life ' like brcni es that mount the roof toward the feather ' Stone pinnacle of the Lady Chapel. Wherever I turned, those lirst days at Notre Dame, it was the same; and the illusion has never worn off. It grows, and with it the consciousness of a tradition, a presence, th?t has stamped itself on this singularly beautiful place of ours. Science Hall with its severe formality of facade and its chimneys, is a provincial mairie. The old Engineering Building is as French as the pavillions of that famous market place so musically called the Halles Centrales. And of what was Father Sorin, son of Notre Dame de Paris and Father of Notre Dame du lac — of what was he thinking when the domed Administration Building was planned? Was it of the Pantheon, the ancient Church of Ste. Genevieve, whose nobly swelling dome dominates the whole region around the Luxembourg Gardens, with the antique cloisters of Cluny and lovely

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THERE is a great deal to be said about the earliest traditions of Notre Dame. That which I am privileged to say here is best put in the form of personal impressions. It wiU be a long day before I forget the first hours I spent at Notre Dame, my first Sunday here, my first glimpse of the interior of our beautiful University Church. Where was I? Not in the ordinary American Catholic church! No; but in something quite different, something that strangely and most satisf yingly linked the present with the past, the America of my own tradition with the Europe which I had grown to know. I was transported — I seemed to be literally transported — to another world. And it was a familiar world, the richly colored, meUow toned world of old Gothic fanes; a world, an atmosphere, at once restful and inspiring. High groined ceilings swept their graceful shadows above me from column to column. Nave and transept opened up lofty vistas before me. Around me and over me glowed the softly stained light of gem ' like windows and the storied coloring of richly frescoed walls and ceilings. Central, for every worshipping eye to see, rose a golden ' pinnacled altar — not jammed against the back wall as if it had been almost crowded out, but separately and singly erected, the heart and core of the temple, with spacious sanctuary, carved oak choir stalls, raised levels, the dignity of ascending steps. And beyond, as if pillared with rainbow light, the garnet and violet shadows of a spacious apse that gave forth a vision, literally a vision — Our Lady, advancing, her feet upon a cloud, her arms not so much clasping but offering her Child; and over her crowned head the greater crown, as it were, of her supreme apotheosis, floating in what seemed the dim lustrous air of Heaven itself. A slanting shaft of Tyrian purple sunlight struck across that vision, as if picking out a royal way for that regal Madonna. Now this is neither a fanciful nor an exaggerated picture. It is the impression of that first memorable hour of mine at Notre Dame, put into as simple words as I can command. The point is, as I have already said — I was transported. I was somewhere else besides in prosaic Indiana. I was in a place not alone made beautiful with holiness, but likewise made holy with beauty. And, again, it was a familiar place. I had been often there before; I felt at home. I was in Catholic France. I was in Notre Dame, yes; but I was iij.,.Notr5NPame de Paris. Nowhere else had I seen the vision, stand, and advance as this Madonna; picture, the effect, was complete. The panning arches, the vistas in shadows and half lights, as a sorJ f restoration of the Church as a ship ' -Recording to the manner and 5f old v lbjrld Christianity, of France Daughter ,j lfe , of the Church. crowned Mada nowhere elsi vaulted cei!

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old St. Germain de Pres nearby? Or was it the College de France, across the street from the Sorbonne? Did the golden dome of the Invalids inspire him? He knew them all and loved them all. Surely, they helped to shape his dream of the golden dome of Notre Dame! And who that has visited the Shrine of Ste. Genevieve can see the side altar of Our Lady in the University Church without recalling the golden reliquary of the Patroness of Paris? And who that knows his Paris can hear the deep-toned bell of our church filling the air with sonorous music and not feel himself in France again, in Catholic France; — standing on the Petit Pont, perhaps, looking over the He de la Cite, and listening to the rich bronze music that rolls out from the spire of old Notre Dame? Paris has long been called the Central City of the world; and the centre and heart and core of Paris is Notre Dame. And what does Notre Dame signify? Something like eight centuries have passed since the foundation stones of that great shrine of Our Lady, that ancient house of Christian worship, were laid. They were laid over the stones of a pagan temple of Lutetia, the Roman Paris; and that Roman temple stood on the site of a Gaulish temple of some forgotten god. There, then, over the ruins of vanished heathen shrines Notre Dame de Paris rose up, to lift the Cross of Christ above the ruins of a worn out paganism; a living and vivifying heart of eternal faith rising over a dead past; the centre of national worship, the fountain source of the first learning that was in time to make Paris the intellectual heart of Europe. That is what Notre Dame de Paris means. Not all the onslaughts of old rationalism, of old materialism, of new pagan- isms and newer heathenisms, have been able to destroy that centre of Christian worship. Though they might violate it, not even the cohorts of Hate, storming its inner sanctuary, setting up a shameless naked woman in the niche of Our Lady, could destroy it. Nothing has been able to destroy it, because it houses the Living God, the Son of Mary. So also, according to the vision of its founders our Notre Dame shall be, more and more, as the years pass, a centre of Christian culture in America. The tradition of Notre Dame is clearly and sharply defined: it is the tradition of Culture, of Faith, the tradition of Catholic France, the tradition of the ancient Notre Dame. Its evidence is on every side of us; and, better still, Ave breath i;l yery air of it. As a matter of fact, we breathe hereabout the very air that some of the greatest of the French founders of America breathed — the voyageurs, the adventurers, the missionaries of long ago, when the best blood of the old