Reflections of the Dome

[Editor's note: two of the most essential elements of the Grotto are it's structure, that of a stone cave, and its votive candles. In Herb's Juliano's The Grotto Rosary Booklet, he talks about these elements:]

The word grotto itself means cave. So how did caves evolve into religious sites? In the Middle Ages, when shepherds watched their flocks around the clock, they often were too far up the mountains to attend church in the villages below. So, when they heard the peal of the Sunday church bells, they would retreat to caves to worship God. To create church-like atmosphere, they often carried crosses and statues up the mountains to adorn their caves. On occasion, priests would come to conduct services in these grottoes.

The act of lighting a candle when offering a special prayer has long been a cherished tradition. And, as a way to help advance the works of the Church and to offer a sacrifice to Christ, it has become customary to give an offering for the candle. Thus, the term votive candle. The word votive comes from the Latin verb voveo, meaning to dedicate. It signifies an offering made to God, either in thanksgiving or in support of a request, or simply one's devotion to Him.

Essentially, a votive candle is a sentinel that we leave burning heavenward at a sacred place as a visual sign of our prayer of thanks or request.

When Father Sorin, the founder of Notre Dame, finished his arduous overland jouney and arrived at a spot very near the present day Grotto, he knelt down in the snow, and consecrated the name of his future university.

"This first anival on the spot now called by the blessed name of Notre Dame du Lac ... made on the newcomers an impression which time will never obliterate ...
"At that moment, one most memorable to me, a special consecration was made to the Blessed
numer of Jesus. With my five Brothers and myself, I presented to the Blessed Virgin all those generous souls whom Heaven should be pleased to call around me on this spot, or who should come after me."        
-Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C.

Here is Damaine Vonada's description of the Grotto from her Notre Dame guidebook:

Notre Dame's former president, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., once observed that all universities have libraries, sports fields, and places to socialize. "But," he asked, 'how many have a place to pray?" The Grotto is Notre Dame's praying place.

It was built in 1896 and is a replica of the internationally known cave near Lourdes, France, where the Virgin Mary appeared several times to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, a peasant girl who was later canonized. Father Sorin had visited the French shrine several times and was very impressed with it. He reportedly even brought back bottles of the miraculous Lourdes water, and they were distributed nationally to anyone contributing to the construction of Sacred Heart Church. A few years after Sorin's death, a former Notre Dame student, Rev. Thomas Carroll of Oil City, Pennsylvania, donated much of the money needed to build the Grotto. Holy Cross provincial superior Rev. William Corby quickly approved its construction, and Notre Dame's Grotto-a one-seventh scale model of its French prototype-was built in only three months from boulders dug out of farm fields near the university. Its primary elements, like faith itself, are simple and direct: statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Bernadette, devotional candles, and a wrought iron railing for kneeling in prayer.

The wonder of the Grotto is not that people come to pray here, but that they come constantly. From the very day it was dedicated-August 5, the same providential date that Father Sorin left France for America-the Grotto has been the site of prayers, pilgrimages, and petitions to Mary. Its special solitude and sheer spirituality have made the Grotto a major American shrine, attracting not only the university's students, faculty, staff, and alumni, but also visitors from around the world. Day or night, no matter how late or early the hour, you can go to the Grotto and find folks young and old lighting candles and saying prayers. And every evening, come rain, shine, or one of South Bend's fearsome blizzards, the rosary is recited here, religiously, at 6:45.

Like all Notre Dame landmarks, the Grotto has its own set of customs and traditions. Before big games and final exams, the Grotto glows with candles lit by students, and in 1985, they lit so many prior to the Notre Dame-Michigan game that the shrine actually caught fire when the candles ignited their plastic holders. The Grotto is a favorite place for marriage proposals, and flowers are frequently left here-bridal bouquets, corsages worn by mothers at JPW [Junior Parents Weekend] , sprays freshly cut from backyard gardens. Every year, members of the senior class gather at the Grotto for a 'Last Visit" of songs and prayers, and for many alumni, it's the first place they go when they arrive at Notre Dame and the last place they visit before they leave.

The power of the Grotto was poignantly expressed by Dr. Tom Dooley, a member of the class of 1948 who posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his medical work among the people of Southeast Asia. >From his deathbed in 1960, the St. Louis native wrote a now-famous letter to Father Theodore Hesburgh [Editor's note: See Campus Life section for full text of the letter.] expressing his feelings about the Grotto, where today a sculpture by Rudolph Torrini, class of 1959, memorializes him. The statue depicts Dr. Dooley caring for two Laotian children, and a copy of his letter is displayed nearby. This is a bit of what he had to say: "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 sentimentalism, I know. Cold prayers from the hospital bed are just as pleasing to God as more youthful prayers from a Grotto on the lid of  night."
 
The largest tree on campus-and in surrounding St. Joseph County-is the almost 100 foot-high sycamore growing on the Grotto lawn. It's also believed to be Notre Dame's oldest tree, for the sycamore probably sprouted even before the university was started in 1842. Legend has it that the tree's low, wide-spread limbs represent the outstretched hand of a Potawatomi Indian who died on the very spot where it now flourishes.