The Grotto: Place of Hope

Before you begin the next segment, first walk to the Grotto. When you can see the rocks and candles of the Grotto, find a comfortable place to reflect and click on the audio narration link below. When you are finished with this part of the tour, navigate to the next segment using the links below the map and images.

To your left stands the Basilica, a magnificent worship space that deserves its own tour. Visitors are welcome to walk through the church whenever Mass is not being celebrated. Docents inside the church can answer any questions. Feel free to take a few minutes to see the Basilica if it is available for viewing.

To get to the Grotto, walk between the Dome and the Basilica and continue downhill on the wide pathway. Partway down the hill, take the stone stairway on the left that leads to the Grotto. To avoid the stairs, continue to the bottom of the hill and turn to the left--a level sidewalk leads to the Grotto from that direction.

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In 1858, Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous near a riverbank outside of Lourdes, France. Bernadette was a poor, young girl who suffered from ill-health, but her reports of Mary's visits led to the building of an international shrine.





One of the earliest pictures of the Grotto. Built in 1896, Notre Dame's Grotto replicates on a one-seventh scale the place in Lourdes where Mary appeared to Bernadette.





The Grotto has always been a place of pilgrimage and prayer on campus, especially during finals week and home football weekends.





Before commencement every year, graduating seniors gather at the Grotto for a symbolic "last visit" prayer service.

Narrated Text

In his many travels back to Europe in the 1850s, Father Sorin heard the stories that had started coming from a place in France called Lourdes. A young, poor shepherd girl had seen Mary appear to her near a cave there, and a shrine was gathering thousands of pilgrims. He visited Lourdes himself and was moved by the faithfulness that Mary was inspiring in the people there. He had an idea to re-create the Lourdes cave with a Grotto here on campus as a way for students to turn to Mary for her intercession.

In 1896, three years after Sorin’s death, his vision was fulfilled when the Grotto was constructed behind the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It replicates the shrine in France on a one-seventh scale and has become a special place of prayer and reflection on campus.

People continue to stream to the Notre Dame Grotto, where they light candles and offer prayers to God through Mary. The rosary is prayed here every day at 6:45 p.m., rain or shine, and many students seek hope in this quiet corner during exam week.

Mary is an important figure in Christian life because she lived with hope, herself. As a young teenager, the angel of God approached her and asked her to be the mother of Jesus. She was young, unmarried, and poor—she might very well have been the least likely candidate for this role. Yet, she trusted God and had hope that God would see her through. When she said “yes” and accepted this role, she became an example for all Christians who turn their lives over to God in hope.

Catholics honor Mary as a human who was glorified through her willingness to trust God. Mary’s sorrows and joys, her hopes for her child and spouse, and her quiet endurance ring true to the experience of families today. She is easy to identify with, and her faithfulness changed the world. We call her “Our Lady” because she is our mother in faith and our model of holiness.

Mary knew that God is not a remote, impersonal abstraction, like the Olympian gods of antiquity. She knew God was somehow “one of us” and she made room in her life for God to take shape in the world in the person of Jesus. This is an interior movement that all Christians are called to make—to make room for God in our lives and carry Jesus to the world.

The candles you see in the Grotto before you burn with people’s prayers. When someone lights a candle here, they invest it with an intention—an offering of thanksgiving or a request—and the burning flame comes to represent that intention, even after they leave.

These prayers are directed to God, the source of all things, through Mary. We ask for Mary’s intercession with these prayers—we ask her to carry our requests or offerings of thanksgiving to God—and we are confident that Mary will do so in her care for us as our mother in faith.

As it burns, each candle consumes itself and offers warmth and light. In uniting our hearts to God in prayer, we, too, are set aflame by God’s love. The more we allow ourselves to be consumed by that love, the more warmth and light we offer the world.

We invite you to pause on your tour now and approach the Grotto with any prayer requests you might have. Light a candle and offer a prayer here thanking God or asking for God’s presence in some way. Please remember in your prayer those who have walked this tour before you.