The Notre Dame Book of Prayer

By Office of Campus Ministry, Theodore M. Hesburgh CSC, Pete McCormick CSC and 2 more

The Notre Dame Book of Prayer is the collection of prayers and reflections for alumni, parents, and friends of the university. First published in 2010 and now updated with dozens of new prayers, this book shares the vibrant Catholic spiritual life of the University of Notre Dame.

This bestselling book is arranged around twelve stunning, full-color photos of sacred and beloved sites on campus—including the Grotto, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, St. Joseph and St. Mary’s lakes, Touchdown Jesus, and Notre Dame Stadium. These beautiful photos were taken by Matt Cashore, the university’s award-winning senior photographer.

This book contains hundreds of traditional and contemporary prayers written by faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the founding Congregation of Holy Cross. There are prayers for every occasion and season of life, including:

• morning and evening;
• meal times;
• an engagement;
• the birth of a child;
• anxiety and depression;
• birthdays;
• graduations; and
• liturgical seasons. 

 

You’ll also find guidance on how to pray and inspiring testimonies on the power of prayer. Contributors include President Emeritus Fr. Edward “Monk” Malloy, CSC; former head football coach Lou Holtz; writer Brian Doyle; Fr. Ted Hesburgh, CSC; and Lisa M. Hendey, founder of CatholicMom.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ave Maria Press
• Release date: Apr 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781594718045

Book preview

Contents

FOREWORD

Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC

INTRODUCTION

Pete McCormick, CSC

BEST-LOVED PRAYERS

1. IN THE BEGINNING

The Grotto

Daniel J. Allen

Beginning to Pray

Nicholas Ayo, CSC

Prayers for New Beginnings

2. OF THE HOURS

The Halls

Heather Rakoczy Russell

Praying throughout the Day

Carolyn Pirtle

Prayers for Everyday

3. BLESS US, O LORD

South Dining Hall

Colleen Moore

Father, Son, Spirit, Holy

Brian Doyle

Prayers for Meals and Family Experiences

4. GLORY AND PRAISE TO OUR GOD

The Log Chapel

John S. Dunne, CSC

Glorifying God, Sanctifying the World

Timothy P. O’Malley

Prayers of Praise and Celebration

5. WORK OF HUMAN HANDS

The Hesburgh Library

Sonia Gernes

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Lawrence S. Cunningham

Prayers for Work and Study

6. LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYER

Notre Dame Stadium

Lou Holtz

Talking to God

Angela Sienko

Prayers for Times of Struggle

7. NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD

Touchdown Jesus Mosaic

Kristin Shrader-Frechette

God Bless You

Renée LaReau

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Gratitude

8. TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON

St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s Lakes

Edward A. Monk Malloy, CSC

Prayer Directions

Kerry Temple

Prayers for the Seasons

Stations of the Cross

9. THY KINGDOM COME

The Peace Memorial

Nicholas Ayo, CSC

The Voice of Prayer

James B. King, CSC

Prayers for the World

10. UPON THIS ROCK

Basilica of the Sacred Heart

Brian Ching, CSC

Pilgrims in Prayer

Josh Noem and Stacey Noem

Prayers for Parish Life and Sacramental Moments

11. PRAY FOR US

The Golden Dome

Heidi Schlumpf

Devotion to Notre Dame, Our Lady

John C. Cavadini

Prayers to Mary and the Saints

Praying the Rosary

12. IT IS FINISHED

Cedar Grove Cemetery

Kenneth Woodward

Say a Little Prayer for Me

Gregory Ruehlmann

Prayers for Endings and Transitions

AFTERWORD

John I. Jenkins, CSC

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ESSAY CONTRIBUTORS

Foreword

Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

—Luke 11:1

On the Notre Dame campus and throughout the world, I have found that young people have maintained the same deep yearning for a full and profoundly meaningful connection with God that the apostles displayed in their request to Jesus: Lord, teach us to pray. They, in deep communion with people of every place and age, express a hunger for prayer that is often coupled with feelings of dissatisfaction with their present prayer life. I can imagine that our young Notre Dame graduates, sent forth from the prayerful structure of campus, must often wonder how to be holy people when confronted, in the midst of their incredibly busy and demanding lives, with such issues as injustice, racism, and discrimination. How do Notre Dame graduates create communion with God when they are confronted by a worldly emphasis on monetary gain and social status? When they see others being subjected to great poverty and their human rights disregarded? When they watch children struggle to learn in under-resourced or ineffective schools? These obstacles confront all of us in our daily lives, often drawing us away from God and prayer when we are most in need of grace.

This selection of prayers and devotions reminds us of the many and always beautiful opportunities we have had for prayer at Notre Dame. Whether it be quiet, individual reflection at the Grotto, small community Mass in the intimate friendship of the dorm, or the gathering of the entire Notre Dame family at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame students have always strived to strengthen their relationship with God. We remember times spent in communion with others—engaging with the intellectual dilemmas of our day in the classroom, helping the marginalized through activities of service, enjoying the gift of leisure with one another at the dining hall or on our teams’ sport fields. In all these sacred places on the Notre Dame campus, we have felt God’s intimate presence—within ourselves, our activities, our relationships with others.

This Notre Dame Book of Prayer offers us a way to rediscover those sacred spaces, in the midst of our daily lives, wherever God has called us, where we can be filled with the knowledge of God in every minute, no matter how insignificant or momentous the time may appear to us. With memories of the sacred spaces of our beloved Notre Dame campus as a touchstone, our desire to pray is renewed, despite ever-present obstacles. We recall perhaps the greatest lesson that our time beneath Our Lady’s Dome taught us: that the places and people of our everyday lives are filled with God’s response to our request, Lord, teach us to pray. May Notre Dame Our Mother—Mary, the Mother of God—always nourish within each of us the deepest thirst to remain close to her Son, Jesus, through our lives of prayer. May this Notre Dame Book of Prayer keep us connected to Notre Dame and, through her, to her Son.

Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC

President of the University of Notre Dame, 1952–1987

Introduction

Prayer is at the heart of the Christian life, but the practice of prayer requires guidance and direction. Without instruction, we may wonder: How should I pray? When should I pray? How often should I pray?

As a Holy Cross priest and the director of Campus Ministry at the University of Notre Dame, I am—before all other things—a child of God, one who is called to spend time with Our Lord in prayer just as the early disciples did. This gift of prayer, for which I am grateful, grounds my vocation in God’s grace and creates space for the work of the Holy Spirit.

In the previous edition of The Notre Dame Book of Prayer, my predecessor, Fr. Richard V. Warner, CSC, wrote, I hope that this book of prayers will be a source of inspiration that brings together traditional and liturgical prayer with personal reflections often based on the many places that for each of us represent the best of Notre Dame spirituality and the Holy Cross tradition. I’m excited to share that with this revised edition, our desire remains the same.

Rooted in the Catholic, Holy Cross tradition, the updated Notre Dame Book of Prayer not only provides new prayers but also offers meaningful insights into the very love of God, a love that pushes out to the margins in service to the hungry, the thirsty, those without shelter, those who are imprisoned, and those who mourn. This love calls out, Come, follow me, and, Be not afraid.

The guiding rule of life of the Congregation of Holy Cross is that prayer is our faith attending to the Lord, and in that faith we meet Him individually, yet we also stand in the company of others who know God as their Father (Constitution 3, Prayer).

I find this passage on prayer to be an important reminder that although our encounters with God are often personal in nature, they are also privileged moments that are intended to fortify us for the journey ahead. Through prayer, the unity we encounter with the very love of God then sends us forward to reflect that same tenderness with each and every person that we encounter.

My hope is that this book will help students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends of the University live out our vocations as beloved children of God. I also trust that the pages ahead may help answer the questions that invariably arise over a lifetime and that they will allow us to trust in the certainty of God’s love and mercy.

Members of the Notre Dame family, our commitment to prayer sustains us in all that we do. Prayer gives us courage in moments of fear, provides us with hope in moments of doubt, and offers us peace in moments of hardship.

Pete McCormick, CSC

Director, Campus Ministry

We Are ND

Lord, as we look out at the Notre Dame family—

our students, alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends—

we marvel at the beautiful tapestry you have created.

We come from every corner of the world,

dedicated to the ideals of faith, service, community, and learning.

Help us to be true to our mission and to our common call.

In our many vocations and stages of life,

give us the strength to do what we must

to be a force for good in the world,

to advocate for peace and justice,

to love one another in Christlike ways,

and to serve our neighbor,

even when doing so demands great sacrifice.

Conform our hearts to be more like Mary, our Mother,

she who so lovingly accepted your will in all things.

May we, like her, be tender, strong, and true,

sharing the Good News in our time,

and thereby living as loyal sons and daughters

of our beloved University of Notre Dame.

Dolly Duffy, ’84

Executive Director, Notre Dame Alumni Association

Best-Loved Prayers

Our Father

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary

Hail Mary,

full of grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,

and blessed is the fruit

of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary,

Mother of God,

pray for us sinners now

and at the hour of death. Amen.

Glory Be

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now,

and will be for ever. Amen.

The Grotto

The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, more than any other spot on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, is where our hearts find rest. The decisions and the discernments, the struggles and the triumphs, the laments and the gratitude: all memories flicker here in the tongues of fire and clear, liquid wax.

It is a good reminder for those of us who now live or work here, as I do. We can be energized by the wide eyes of a visitor, drinking in this beautiful place for the first time. Or often it is a pair of wrinkled, tired eyes, viewing the Grotto through a watery and grateful gaze, that remind us of the blessing we dare not take for granted.

My favorite place to pray at the Grotto is where I can see Our Lady on top of the Dome, arrayed in gold just beyond the trees. I ask to be in some way made worthy of the prayers I bear, to honor her Son through the work we do at this beloved institution.

So many long to return to this sacred place, and it is here where we at FaithND and the Alumni Association try to serve. A tall, green candle burns day and night for the countless intentions entrusted to our care. Reading these submitted prayers never ceases to put my own life and problems into perspective.

In the end, it is a comfort to know that someone will always be praying for us at the Grotto. The giants of this place have come and gone, some remembered in statues or paintings, others in the minds and stories of those they graciously touched. But the stones of the Grotto are what remind us of the bedrock of our faith, of things worth clinging to when all else seems passing. They are the keepers of this hallowed ground, of our spiritual home.

Daniel J. Allen, ’07, ’11 MDiv

Notre Dame Alumni Association

Beginning To Pray

Beginning to pray may well have something to do with how one was introduced to prayer.

In grammar school, the Benedictine sisters taught me to say, Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in my heart some six thousand times during Advent (that being the ostensible number of years since creation in the Garden of Eden). I still say that prayer to this day as I walk along the sidewalks of the Notre Dame campus. Walking time is prayer time. So are red lights, elevator waits, even three identical digits on the digital clock. I often make the Sign of the Cross whenever I become aware of one of the million ways our lives could be endangered, given all the things within us and around us that can go wrong and often do.

In high school, Benedictine monks encouraged me to compose my own prayer. It was revelatory of the trials and fears of an adolescent young man: Saint Agnes, virgin martyr, who loved her purity above all else, help me preserve mine; who suffered terrible tortures for the love of God, increase my love; and who suffered martyrdom, strengthen me in time of persecution. I still say that prayer.

On to Notre Dame in the early 1950s, where morning inspection in the residence hall was followed by Mass—unless you turned around and went back to bed, the resident priest watching you scorn the grace of God. I went to Mass.

It was at Old College in my second semester that I was introduced to regular morning and evening prayer. Joining the Congregation of Holy Cross led me to a novitiate year in swampland around Jordan, Minnesota. I learned to write a prayer journal, and writing became a form of praying.

Amid life’s competing demands, I now find early morning is my best prayer time. I love rocking on Sorin Hall’s porch waiting for sunrise, with a cup of coffee sweetened with awe and delight in my Creator. I have by now become well aware of my need for and happiness with contemplative prayer—prayer greatly assisted by the right place and the right time. I ask for my next breath, which I know I cannot draw without God’s constant assistance. I know what matters is not what I do, but what God is doing. Why anything? Why me? I can sit with that every morning and never grow weary of the wonder of it all.

I wish evening prayer would go better than it does. I find myself tired out at the end of the day and prayer is more difficult. I want to be thankful, and I know gratitude is the secret of any happy life. I believe God knows what we need and loves us, so our evening prayer need not inform God of what is going on in the world or plead with God to take care of us. Evening prayer can be simple: Thank you for taking care of all this. I know you are. Goodnight!

Prayer is never my initiative. It is always a response to a prior invitation that turns my mind and heart to God. We must receive before we can give. We must breathe in before we breathe out.

Prayer is an exchange with God. Prayer is attending to what God is doing within us and in the world. Prayer is the recognition that we are but a speck of stardust upon a speck of a planet in a galaxy, itself but a speck in an expanding universe. Our prayer is silent in the big scheme of things, but remains close to the heart of God. The God who wanted nothing so much as to be one of us in the flesh and to love us even unto death.

Prayer is listening to the silence in our hearts, and beginning to pray is a willingness to take our next breath in exchange with God, who is more part of us than we are part of ourselves. Beginning to pray is the beginning of the greatest adventure on earth.

Nicholas Ayo, CSC

Professor Emeritus of Liberal Studies

Prayers For New Beginnings

See, I am making all things new.

—Revelation 21:5

We are always beginning again: new relationships, new homes, new experiences. The crux of our Christian faith—the Resurrection—teaches us that new life always follows death. Whether literal or figurative, new life also calls for blessing. These prayers express gratitude for all the newness of life and ask for God’s presence as we undertake new ventures, make new commitments, and begin new journeys.