Basilica of the Sacred Heart
| church, Roman Catholic church
USA /
Indiana /
Argos /
Basilica Drive, 101
World
/ USA
/ Indiana
/ Argos
World / United States / Indiana
church, basilica, Roman Catholic church
101 Basilica Drive
Notre Dame, IN 46556
campusministry.nd.edu/mass-worship/basilica-of-the-sacr...
Located in: University of Notre Dame
Sacred Heart Church's earliest history dates to the last quarter of the 17th century when the French were attempting to establish both a colonial and a Catholic presence in the St. Joseph River Valley in northern Indiana. Rev. Jacques Marquette, S.J., may have been the first European to explore the area as early as 1675, but if not he, then assuredly his countryman, René Robert Cavelier de La Salle, canoed upriver from St. Joseph, Michigan (where he established Fort Miami in 1679), to the southern bend of the St. Joseph, roughly one-half mile west of the present Notre Dame Campus.
La Salle and his 14-man party followed the Indian portage across the marsh to the Kankakee River, on to Illinois, and then down the Mississippi, claiming all the teritory they traversed for God and country.
When Sorin and several of his Holy Cross brothers arrived at the lake site on a snowy, cold afternoon, November 26, 1842, they were continuing a long French Catholic missionary tradition, one involving both evangelism and education. They faced several tasks: Reopen the mission station, establish a novitiate to train brothers to teach in the diocesan parochial schools and explore the possibilities of building a Catholic College.
The one-and-one-half story log chapel-cabin built by Badin in 1830 and that Sorin came to a decade later served as living quarters (ground floor) and house of worship (attic space) for several months until a larger log house was constructed. With the completion of this second structure (located east of Badin's building), Badin's chapel assumed two secular functions: A carpentry shop was set up on the first floor and the second story became a crowded dormitory for the brothers who, by 1843, numbered 18 men. Religious services were then held in a chapel in the larger log structure.
In the summer of 1847, foundations for the church were laid out and dug adjacent to the new (1844) Main Building. On the feast of the Assumption (August 15), Sorin blessed the cornerstone, designating the building as the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and predicting that the new building's nave would quickly be completed. In the autumn all construction stopped due to lack of funds, but by the following spring the University had scraped together enough capital--from the bishop of the diocese, Sorin's various ancillary incomes and a line of credit (not to exceed $1500) from Father Moreau in France--to get the project moving again. Other expenses would be minimized by the University community's own labor force and local building materials: bricks, lime and lumber which would be prepared from the campus' operating kilns and mills.
The church's nave would be built first with its overall dimensions being 24 feet high by 90 feet long by 38 feet wide. A simple structure, executed in what a 1865 Guide to the University of Notre Dame called the "Carpenter Gothic Style," it was a wooden construction. Its double spires were not completed until 1852 with part of the work being done by a local carpenter, Henry Doyle, in payment for his son's college education.
During its history (1847-71) the interior of Sacred Heart Church I also came to be decorated in typical mid-Victorian ornate didacticism. Jacob Ackermann, professor of art, received the commission to do all the necessary wall murals, stations of the cross and other liturgical art. In the apex of the crossing where the nave and the transepts intersected he "inscribed the insignias of the three societies comprising the Congregation of Holy Cross, and in the fourth vault shines forth brightly the sacred emblem--the hope inspiring cross."
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Notre Dame expanded its personnel and purpose. Its student body grew at all levels (elementary, preparatory, manual labor and collegiate) of its educational program. In the year of Appomattox, a new Main Building was erected; by 1867 the University Council of Adminstration began exploring the possibility of expanding the church or, by October 1868, of building a new and much larger campus church. The man most vocal in support of a new church was Edward Sorin who had the power (if not all the money) to make it a reality. With his usual bravado, he predicted it could easily be "completed within two years." Having delegated the office of University president to younger leaders (beginning in 1865), Sorin became chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, a position he used to become the absolute policymaker at Notre Dame for the next three decades. By 1868 he had also been elected Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross around the world. The latter position meant he traveled frequently to Montreal, New York, Jerusalem, Paris and Rome.
In Rome, Sorin thought he knew the appropriate model for the new Church of the Sacred Heart; it was the Church of the Gesù in Rome, the mother church of the Society of Jesus designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in 1568. The monumental interior, laid out in the form of a Latin cross, housed in the left transept the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and a role model that Sorin would have depicted in a west chancel mural in the new Sacred Heart Church. Sorin and his colleagues contracted a well-known east coast architect, Patrick Charles Keeley. Keeley drew up a plan in the form of a cruciform, 200 feet long the ambitious project would (be estimated to) cost over one hundred thousand dollars. Even the expansionist Sorin thought the plans too grandiose for the University's limited budget. He decided instead to have Father Alexis Granger, longtime pastor of Sacred Heart parish (1858-92), and Brother Charles Harding, a talented amateur architect and builder, collaborate with him in a more modest design.
During the winter and spring of 1870, the Council of Adminstration approved purchases of stone, sand and mortar as well as debated the appropriate (and affordable) size of a new church. Sacred Heart Church II went through three major building phases--1868-75, 1876-86 and 1887-92. During these three periods the church was expanded further northward.
While the primary reason for halting progress of construction was the University's strapped budget (The Scholastic, the University's student weekly news-magazine, reported on February 15, 1872: "$20,000 has been raised and spent on the new church; $40,000 more is needed to render it fit for service"), another factor was the position of the first Sacred Heart Church. It was located approximately on the site now occupied by the present church's chancel and Lady Chapel. Only in 1875 did demolition of the old church begin in order to clear the area for the northern expansion of the new one and the present presbytery.
When Sorin died October 31, 1893, Sacred Heart Church had reached its 19th century epitome. In the 20th century, however, its taste (but not its style) was found wanting. Over a 60 year period it would be renovated, remodeled or restored (depending upon who was doing the re-doing) at least three times.
By the mid-1980s another aesthetic appeared as did art and artifacts (for example, stations, confessionals, side pews) banished in the 1960s by the previous renovation. Part of the impetus for this third re-doing came about because of the deteriorating (and dirty) condition of the church's wall murals and stained-glass windows--a situation embarassingly revealed by the bright lights of television cameras when a Palm Sunday Mass was broadcast live from the church in Lent, 1985. Ellerbe Becket, Architects, the Conrad Schmitt Studios , University Executive Vice President, Rev. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., and the rector of Sacred Heart, Rev. Daniel Jenky, C.S.C. are responsible for the third restoration. The most striking feature of this restoration is the result of the washing, priming, painting, stencilling, gold sizing and gilding of the Church's interior.
Christians believe that from the sacraments flow grace. Rev. Thomas O'Meara, O.P. sees grace --"divine force that contacts the will and emotions as well as the intellect"-- appearing throughout Sacred Heart Church's architecture and art, activities and artifacts.
Notre Dame's spire of faith aspires to promote such epiphanies. It, together with the neighboring Main Building, symbolizes part of the University's dual mission. They have much in common. Their construction histories are parallel. Each shares the same landscape in the center of the historic campus. Both face outward, beyond campus, to the wider world. Edward Sorin controlled their architectural design, Charles Harding oversaw their contruction, and Luigi Gregori painted their walls and ceilings. A statue of the Blessed Virgin presides over their precincts.
Under their respective bases are the foundations of earlier churches and colleges. A short distance to the west stand their progenitors--a simple log chapel and a small Old College. Since their completion over a century ago, each has welcomed thousands of students, faculty, staff and visitors. As the warp and weft of the University's purpose, Sacred Heart Church and the Main Building encapsulate much of Notre Dame's past. Considering them together, we have two ancient architectural icons, a spire and a dome, each representing more dramatically than any other of the University's buildings the institution's historical aspiration to expand knowledge and to deepen belief.
Notre Dame, IN 46556
campusministry.nd.edu/mass-worship/basilica-of-the-sacr...
Located in: University of Notre Dame
Sacred Heart Church's earliest history dates to the last quarter of the 17th century when the French were attempting to establish both a colonial and a Catholic presence in the St. Joseph River Valley in northern Indiana. Rev. Jacques Marquette, S.J., may have been the first European to explore the area as early as 1675, but if not he, then assuredly his countryman, René Robert Cavelier de La Salle, canoed upriver from St. Joseph, Michigan (where he established Fort Miami in 1679), to the southern bend of the St. Joseph, roughly one-half mile west of the present Notre Dame Campus.
La Salle and his 14-man party followed the Indian portage across the marsh to the Kankakee River, on to Illinois, and then down the Mississippi, claiming all the teritory they traversed for God and country.
When Sorin and several of his Holy Cross brothers arrived at the lake site on a snowy, cold afternoon, November 26, 1842, they were continuing a long French Catholic missionary tradition, one involving both evangelism and education. They faced several tasks: Reopen the mission station, establish a novitiate to train brothers to teach in the diocesan parochial schools and explore the possibilities of building a Catholic College.
The one-and-one-half story log chapel-cabin built by Badin in 1830 and that Sorin came to a decade later served as living quarters (ground floor) and house of worship (attic space) for several months until a larger log house was constructed. With the completion of this second structure (located east of Badin's building), Badin's chapel assumed two secular functions: A carpentry shop was set up on the first floor and the second story became a crowded dormitory for the brothers who, by 1843, numbered 18 men. Religious services were then held in a chapel in the larger log structure.
In the summer of 1847, foundations for the church were laid out and dug adjacent to the new (1844) Main Building. On the feast of the Assumption (August 15), Sorin blessed the cornerstone, designating the building as the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and predicting that the new building's nave would quickly be completed. In the autumn all construction stopped due to lack of funds, but by the following spring the University had scraped together enough capital--from the bishop of the diocese, Sorin's various ancillary incomes and a line of credit (not to exceed $1500) from Father Moreau in France--to get the project moving again. Other expenses would be minimized by the University community's own labor force and local building materials: bricks, lime and lumber which would be prepared from the campus' operating kilns and mills.
The church's nave would be built first with its overall dimensions being 24 feet high by 90 feet long by 38 feet wide. A simple structure, executed in what a 1865 Guide to the University of Notre Dame called the "Carpenter Gothic Style," it was a wooden construction. Its double spires were not completed until 1852 with part of the work being done by a local carpenter, Henry Doyle, in payment for his son's college education.
During its history (1847-71) the interior of Sacred Heart Church I also came to be decorated in typical mid-Victorian ornate didacticism. Jacob Ackermann, professor of art, received the commission to do all the necessary wall murals, stations of the cross and other liturgical art. In the apex of the crossing where the nave and the transepts intersected he "inscribed the insignias of the three societies comprising the Congregation of Holy Cross, and in the fourth vault shines forth brightly the sacred emblem--the hope inspiring cross."
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Notre Dame expanded its personnel and purpose. Its student body grew at all levels (elementary, preparatory, manual labor and collegiate) of its educational program. In the year of Appomattox, a new Main Building was erected; by 1867 the University Council of Adminstration began exploring the possibility of expanding the church or, by October 1868, of building a new and much larger campus church. The man most vocal in support of a new church was Edward Sorin who had the power (if not all the money) to make it a reality. With his usual bravado, he predicted it could easily be "completed within two years." Having delegated the office of University president to younger leaders (beginning in 1865), Sorin became chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, a position he used to become the absolute policymaker at Notre Dame for the next three decades. By 1868 he had also been elected Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross around the world. The latter position meant he traveled frequently to Montreal, New York, Jerusalem, Paris and Rome.
In Rome, Sorin thought he knew the appropriate model for the new Church of the Sacred Heart; it was the Church of the Gesù in Rome, the mother church of the Society of Jesus designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in 1568. The monumental interior, laid out in the form of a Latin cross, housed in the left transept the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and a role model that Sorin would have depicted in a west chancel mural in the new Sacred Heart Church. Sorin and his colleagues contracted a well-known east coast architect, Patrick Charles Keeley. Keeley drew up a plan in the form of a cruciform, 200 feet long the ambitious project would (be estimated to) cost over one hundred thousand dollars. Even the expansionist Sorin thought the plans too grandiose for the University's limited budget. He decided instead to have Father Alexis Granger, longtime pastor of Sacred Heart parish (1858-92), and Brother Charles Harding, a talented amateur architect and builder, collaborate with him in a more modest design.
During the winter and spring of 1870, the Council of Adminstration approved purchases of stone, sand and mortar as well as debated the appropriate (and affordable) size of a new church. Sacred Heart Church II went through three major building phases--1868-75, 1876-86 and 1887-92. During these three periods the church was expanded further northward.
While the primary reason for halting progress of construction was the University's strapped budget (The Scholastic, the University's student weekly news-magazine, reported on February 15, 1872: "$20,000 has been raised and spent on the new church; $40,000 more is needed to render it fit for service"), another factor was the position of the first Sacred Heart Church. It was located approximately on the site now occupied by the present church's chancel and Lady Chapel. Only in 1875 did demolition of the old church begin in order to clear the area for the northern expansion of the new one and the present presbytery.
When Sorin died October 31, 1893, Sacred Heart Church had reached its 19th century epitome. In the 20th century, however, its taste (but not its style) was found wanting. Over a 60 year period it would be renovated, remodeled or restored (depending upon who was doing the re-doing) at least three times.
By the mid-1980s another aesthetic appeared as did art and artifacts (for example, stations, confessionals, side pews) banished in the 1960s by the previous renovation. Part of the impetus for this third re-doing came about because of the deteriorating (and dirty) condition of the church's wall murals and stained-glass windows--a situation embarassingly revealed by the bright lights of television cameras when a Palm Sunday Mass was broadcast live from the church in Lent, 1985. Ellerbe Becket, Architects, the Conrad Schmitt Studios , University Executive Vice President, Rev. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., and the rector of Sacred Heart, Rev. Daniel Jenky, C.S.C. are responsible for the third restoration. The most striking feature of this restoration is the result of the washing, priming, painting, stencilling, gold sizing and gilding of the Church's interior.
Christians believe that from the sacraments flow grace. Rev. Thomas O'Meara, O.P. sees grace --"divine force that contacts the will and emotions as well as the intellect"-- appearing throughout Sacred Heart Church's architecture and art, activities and artifacts.
Notre Dame's spire of faith aspires to promote such epiphanies. It, together with the neighboring Main Building, symbolizes part of the University's dual mission. They have much in common. Their construction histories are parallel. Each shares the same landscape in the center of the historic campus. Both face outward, beyond campus, to the wider world. Edward Sorin controlled their architectural design, Charles Harding oversaw their contruction, and Luigi Gregori painted their walls and ceilings. A statue of the Blessed Virgin presides over their precincts.
Under their respective bases are the foundations of earlier churches and colleges. A short distance to the west stand their progenitors--a simple log chapel and a small Old College. Since their completion over a century ago, each has welcomed thousands of students, faculty, staff and visitors. As the warp and weft of the University's purpose, Sacred Heart Church and the Main Building encapsulate much of Notre Dame's past. Considering them together, we have two ancient architectural icons, a spire and a dome, each representing more dramatically than any other of the University's buildings the institution's historical aspiration to expand knowledge and to deepen belief.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_Sacred_Heart_(Notre_Dame)
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 41°42'9"N 86°14'23"W
- St. John the Baptist Catholic Church Grounds 5.3 km
- Deer Run Church of Chirst & Michiana Christian School Grounds 6.4 km
- Saint Pius X Catholic Church 7.2 km
- Holy Trinity Evagelical Lutheran Church 8.1 km
- Community Baptist Christian School / Church 10 km
- North Liberty Church of Christ 23 km
- Camp Alexander Mack 49 km
- Grace College & Theological Seminary 63 km
- St. Patrick's Catholic Church and School 68 km
- Liberty Bible Church 69 km
- University of Notre Dame 0.3 km
- Notre Dame, Indiana 0.6 km
- Saint Mary's College 1.7 km
- Ignition Park 4.9 km
- Former Bendix Manufacturing Facility 5.2 km
- South Bend International Airport (SBN/KSBN) 6.4 km
- Rum Village Park 6.7 km
- AM General Off Road Testing Facilities 6.9 km
- St. Joseph River 8.3 km
- St. Joseph County, Indiana 13 km