A new prayer book for Notre Dame pilgrims

Author: Michael O. Garvey

Notre Dame Book of Prayer

Among the thousands of people who come from all over the world to visit the University of Notre Dame’s campus each year are students, alumni, scholars, sports fans, conventioneers and tourists. Many of these people are also pilgrims, travelers whose journeys and destinations comprise acts of prayer.

“The Notre Dame Book of Prayer”, edited for Notre Dame’s Office of Campus Ministry by 1988 University alumna Heidi Schlumpf and recently published by Ave Maria Press, illustrates the experience of pilgrimage, not only with images provided by University photographer Matt Cashore, but also by a compilation of traditional, contemporary, formal and informal prayers offered by members of the Notre Dame community and evoked by conspicuous features of the campus landscape.

The prayers and reflections in the 301-page book surround twelve such sites including the Grotto, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the lakes, the Log Chapel and even the Notre Dame Stadium.

Among the 26 contributors to the book are Rev. John I. Jenkins., C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, as well as the University’s emeriti presidents Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., and Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C. Others include Lawrence Cunningham, John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology; former head football coach Lou Holtz; Carol Ann Mooney, president of Saint Mary’s College; Colleen Moore, associate director of the Center for Catechetical Initiatives in the Institute for Church Life; and Kerry Temple, editor of Notre Dame Magazine.

“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,” Father Hesburgh wrote in the book’s foreword. “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.”

Contact: Amanda Williams, publicist at Ave Maria Press at 800-282-1865×206 or awilli21@nd.edu