In this episode of College Bound, hosts Catherine O'Leary, Hailey Oppenlander and Tajae Thompson discuss faith and spirituality at Notre Dame. They share how faith and spirituality play a role in classes, in the community and in campus life, and they discuss what it's like to be both Catholic and a non-denominational Christian at Notre Dame.
In this episode of College Bound, hosts Catherine O'Leary, Hailey Oppenlander and Tajae Thompson discuss faith and spirituality at Notre Dame. They share how faith and spirituality play a role in classes, in the community and in campus life, and they discuss what it's like to be both Catholic and a non-denominational Christian at Notre Dame.
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Welcome to College Bound: Intern Edition. We're your hosts! I'm Catherine O'Leary.
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I'm Tajae Thompson.
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And I'm Hailey Oppenlander!
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We are here to give you the student take on Notre Dame.
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And we have a special episode for you today because it's just us. And we want to talk to you about faith and spirituality at Notre Dame. So as some of you may know, the University of Notre Dame is a Catholic university. The Catholic faith seeps into a lot of different areas of both the campus life and academic life, but you don't have to be Catholic to go here. I'm not Catholic, but it adds an extra sense of community to this campus. So I just want to ask Hayley and Catherine, what are some of the aspects of the Catholic faith that you see in your daily life here on campus?
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Yeah, I think one of the big things is that students are required to take two theology courses throughout their time at Notre Dame, no matter what their major is or their other areas of study. I'm currently taking my second theology right now. It's called God, Slavery and the Americas. And it's been really interesting so far to have more a contextual view of theology, and it's kind of a little bit like a history class looking into the conquistadors and colonization, but more from the perspective of theology, and what does this mean that sort of the same system of beliefs have been used by both oppressors and the oppressed to justify their actions and beliefs? So it's been a really exciting class so far, and it's something that I probably wouldn't have taken of my own accord, but it is nice that I get to explore it from that theology lens due to the requirements that we have.
00:01:51;25 - 00:02:29;21
Yeah, no, Notre Dame really offers some great options for your second Theo. Just last semester for my second theology, I took a Christianity and Buddhism class and it was really great to see like where the crossover is between the two religions that we think are so different actually happen. And like just generally, ten out of ten would recommend for any upperclassmen who has to take a second class. It's a great option. So now we can like move on to kind of this community aspect. I mentioned it in like the beginning, but how does the Catholicism here at Notre Dame like impact the community? Catherine, do you have anything to say on that?
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Yeah, I think that there are obvious ways that you can't ignore that Notre Dame is a Catholic school. I mean, we have Jesus on our library, most classrooms have crucifixes in them, every dorm has a chapel and whatnot. But if you are interested in diving into the Catholic side of these university, there is so much and and just a lot of different things offered. But since that I've kind of tapped into recently is that there's confession offered like at least three times a day every day of the year, and I think that that's super cool. You know, I'm also a theology major, so I love you guys talking about second theos.
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Like I think I talked about this maybe on our first episode, but yeah, my second theo was the Theology of Nature, and that was incredible. But I also know people who are not theology majors have taken God and the Good Life. That actually might count as a philosophy. I don't know. It's kind of like maybe the intersection of the two fields, but, we just passed Ash Wednesday, so there were, you know, at least like six Ash Wednesday masses, and that was just in the Basilica alone. Every dorm had one, too.
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Another thing I can think of is during Lent, and this could be a good thing or a bad thing, but there is no meat in the dining hall on Fridays. So you're going to have to get ready for fish tacos and some nice shrimp or something. It's not bad.
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They brought back the Jerusalem Salad, which is very good. I highly recommend.
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Wow, I don't think I have had that. What is in that?
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Uh, I literally don't know food things, but it's like falafel.
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Yeah, I think there was olives in it.
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Yeah. Don't ask me anything about food.
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Yeah. Those are my reflections on the community aspect. It's just, it's quite multifaceted. But again, like it's, I think it is, it's kind of like what you make of it. I think Catholicism and can be a big part of your Notre Dame experience, or it can be relatively minor, kind of depending on your interest level.
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Yeah, definitely so kind of want to stay in the same area, unlike aspects in which the Catholicism seeps into like this campus life, Campus Ministry is obviously a big deal here on campus. Father Pete, you know, all that good stuff. So have you guys had any experiences with Campus Ministry? Like, I'm not sure. Maybe Hailey, do you want to talk something about that?
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Yeah. So my freshman year I joined what's called a Compass group, and it's kind of just like a faith-sharing group for first years. And it's usually led by two sophomores. And it was really great just to get to know other people my freshman year and build connections and relationships, and also just to have the advice of sophomores who had been through the ropes before and could help us navigate our first year at Notre Dame.
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And I never would have met the people in my group otherwise because we were from all different dorms and all different majors, but I still keep in touch with them today. And it was just really great to have one day a week to set aside, to just dedicate to you thinking about like spiritual health and kind of reflect on school and stress and faith and bond with others who were going through those same things and kind of had those same questions freshman year.
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Know, that sounds amazing. Campus Ministry is really working overtime for us. They also host those retreats for the first year at the beginning of the year. So there's the African-American student retreat, the Asian-American student retreat, the First Year retreat and the Hispanic American retreat. And it's just well, COVID has changed situation, I believe it's either virtual or just for the day, but you usually go spend two days and a night, and it's just great to speak about your experience and hear upperclassmen's experiences at Notre Dame. And it creates a great sense of community, just being able to talk about issues that might happen on campus that you might not necessarily hear about.
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Just to jump in real quick with Campus Ministry. Retreats are great, spirits are great, but probably the best thing that they contribute to the Notre Dame student life is usually during like reading days right before finals, and they do this big pancake breakfast at midnight in CoMo, which is the Campus Ministry HQ, and I've actually never been. But yeah they just make like pancakes, and it's a nice snack break from your finals week stress. So that that's just something that is worth mentioning. I would say an honorable mention to campus ministry.
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I have never gotten pancakes either. We went to go stand on the line my sophomore year, but it was so ridiculous that we had to leave. maybe one of these, maybe this year, maybe this is this semester is my time.
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Father Pete can make me some pancakes,
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Maybe at the time, sign up for a time slot and then go. Yes, exactly. That's how they need to do it. So, yeah, I kind of want to move on set. Like, how does faith come into residential life? Like where do you see Catholicism, religion in your dorms? And Catherine, we were just I just spoke a little bit about retreats and how those are so much fun. Just like to meet new people, talk to people. And I know you have some cool stories about the BP retreats. Do you want to share?
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Oh, yeah, so I don't think you mentioned it earlier, but every dormn does have a dorm retreat and generally there, you know, like religiously there's a relatively religious theme, but again, everyone's welcome. And so the dorms will generally go just like a stay somewhere overnight, like, you know, within the South Bend area. Some dorms take their children to more exciting places than other dorms, and my dorm actually went to the Sacred Heart Parish Center, which is actually located right across the lake.
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So we got all of our duffel bags and we walked about 15 minutes and bam, we were there for the greatest weekend of our lives. But honestly, it was a ton of fun. And, you know, it's it's great because even though you already live with these people, there's something special about relocating and spending time with, like a smaller group of them and just kind of be able to be vulnerable, be open and have like kind of these important conversations with people you don't talk to you as much. It's always great to grow closer to your dorm community.
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And I think the retreats are a great way to do that.
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Oh, thank you so much. Dorm retreats are a great way to meet people, especially in some of the bigger dorms where there's like 200 plus people, you can't meet everybody sometimes. So the dorm retreats just brings out people you've never seen before. Haley, do you have anything to add to the conversation of just spirituality in dorm life in general?
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Yeah, one thing that I thought was so cool when I was looking at Notre Dame was the different food masses that they have in every dorm. So normally every dorm will have a mass during the week, some dorms have multiple, but for some of those masses, they have special food afterwards that everyone can share together. So one of my favorites is Milkshake Mass, which is for Dillon Hall, and it's been going on for quite some time every Thursday night. And it's just really nice to gather together as a community, and then after mass, everyone gets milkshakes, and they're so delicious.
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That's so like I love it. Like dorm masses are a lot of fun. In JFam, we don't have, like, a special food mass, but Father Tom, who is our in residence priest, is great and he always makes such a fun time. So if you guys you guys can come visit and come have mass in Japan, we have a Spanish mass at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesdays if you want to try something different, because Father Tom is fluent in Spanish and no one expected that. But yeah, so this was a great conversation, talking about faith on campus and just how it comes into being a Notre Dame student.
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And while we don't have another intern here or a special guest to give a piece of advice, I guess I will take on that hat and offer up any wisdom I have. So what I can say is that even though I'm not Catholic and I go to Notre Dame, I've never felt alienated because of it. It's just added an extra aspect of community to life, whether I've been to Mass, even though I'm not Catholic and I always felt comfortable and welcome there, whether it's through the priest-in-residences or my rector just making sure I felt at home.
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And if you're considering applying to Notre Dame and you're worried about the Catholic aspect, worried if you won't fit in, I think it's still great to keep this as an option because I've never experienced any negative experiences with it. And it just adds an extra sense of community that I really appreciate at times, especially since I'm so far from home.
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Thank you so much for listening to College Bound: Intern Edition. It was really great talking about this topic. Thank you so much to Hailey and Catherine.
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Don't forget to follow us on our social media platforms. It's @NDAdmissions on both Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter. And we're also now on TikTok. So go check us out- Nicole is creating some great content over there. Hae a great rest of your week, or whenever you're watching this!