December 6, 2025

Lou Holtz once famously quipped that “Notre Dame is a place where no explanation is necessary if you’ve been there, but, if you have not, no explanation is possible.”  The campus, indeed, captures the imaginations of visitors and alums alike.  While most universities suffer from concrete sprawl and an architectural identity crisis, Our Lady of the Lake, as she is formally known, has a heart, a basilica and a golden dome, out of which quads and gargoyles and greens and spires unfold endlessly in a coherent and flowing pattern of beauty.  The feeling of hospitality is palpable as the iconic yellow bricks, which were dug from the banks of the lake and molded by the brothers themselves, practically hug passers by, and the dazzling rays that emanate from Our Lady herself, atop the dome, serve as a constant reminder that the founders of the university wanted to build something special for generations of women and men whom they would never meet.  Let’s spend this week examining our own inner campus.  Let’s ask the Lord to give us hearts that are “tender, strong and true.”  Let’s trust the process of beauty that unfolds in us, for others, and “wake up the echoes” the world over in all that we think, say and do.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.