A Christmas Message from Fr. Hesburgh

This Christmas message was written by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., and first appeared in a Notre Dame publication for alumni in the winter of 1962.

Christmas is family time, so I thought I would say something about the “Notre Dame Family,” a phrase that comes often to my lips and is very much in my heart.

Notre Dame is, of course, many things besides being primarily a university. One thinks of spirit, and this leads to football, and then back to four wonderful years spent here. To many who didn’t have these four years, the words “Notre Dame” bring up many other associations of friendship, pride, and joy. However, at this season of the year that is wintry and cold for many of us, but filled with human warmth and affection, I like to think most of Notre Dame as a family.

It certainly is a large family, with thousands of alumni and many times more that number of friends and associates. These, too, come to us in a family way, because a large bulk of this larger family is made up of parents of students and alumni, their brothers and sisters, and old friends of many years standing who have taken Notre Dame into their hearts.

The seasons come and go, our athletic fortunes rise and fall, new students enter and graduate by the thousands, buildings seem to multiply like rabbits, and national academic honors even more rapidly, but beneath all of this change there is the living and changeless benediction upon all that transpires beneath the Golden Dome, blessed as all of us are by the smile of Our Lady.

I hope that this permanent reality of Our Lady’s blessing and her Son’s kind providence draws all of us closer together at Christmas time, united in this great reality that all of us have been blessed to share. The word most commonly seen in the liturgy at Christmas time is “peace” and perhaps that best describes the atmosphere that seems to enfold this campus in spring and summer, autumn and winter. Through sunshine and snow, light and shadow, there is a permanence to the real values that all of us have cherished here. The University community gives as best it can, and receives far more than it deserves of your own true loyalty, boundless generosity, and constant dedication. And as we are strengthened by your strength, I do hope that a very real benediction goes out from this place into all of your lives, to gladden your homes, to warm your hearts, to uphold your values, and to bring all of you, especially at Christmas time, the peace and benediction of the Christ child held in the arms of his dear mother, our own Notre Dame.

Christmas began with a family, and without that family there never would have been a Notre Dame to love and cherish, both as a person and as an institution. May all of your families enjoy during this Christmas time the peace and family joy that stretches across the years from Bethlehem, and may the New Year bring all of you continued blessings.

Ever devotedly yours in Notre Dame,

Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C.
University President Emeritus