Seven chapels, a crypt, and the relics

1886 – present · the church in its parts

The chapels: Beyond its sanctuary the Basilica holds seven apsidal chapels, and the tour's floor plan names the ring of them. The Lady Chapel, added in 1886–87 and told in the building entry, was known historically as the Chapel of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, for Gregori's ceiling, and as the Sacred Heart Chapel; its baroque altar was believed — the tour prints it as a belief — to have been built by the studios and workshops of Bernini, and its tabernacle doors contain a fragment of wood believed to be from a table on which St. Peter celebrated Mass in Rome. The St. Joseph Chapel holds the Pietà told below. The St. Mary Chapel is also the Brother André Chapel, with the Rev. Anthony Lauck's 1985 statue of St. André Bessette, canonized 17 October 2010. The Holy Angels Chapel is also the Guadalupe Chapel, holding Maria Tomasula's 2008 painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Our Lady of Victory Chapel is also the Basil Moreau Chapel: Robert Graham's statue of Blessed Basil Moreau, the Congregation's founder, beatified 15 September 2007, itself contains a relic of Moreau. The Stations of the Cross Chapel holds the tomb of John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C. (1888–1960), the university's twelfth president and later Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia. And the east transept and entrance form the World War I Memorial, its vestibule ceiling carrying the insignias of the war — the church's memorial to its own dead of 1917–18, inside the church itself.

The relics: The Reliquary Chapel, on the east side of the Lady Chapel, is the building's treasury of bones. The tour describes its contents: relics of most of the saints in the calendar of the liturgical year; a large wooden cross containing a relic of the True Cross, venerated every Good Friday; and the wax figure of St. Severa, a third-century martyr, with her relics in the cloth-covered boxes at her head and feet; above the relic case hangs a copy of a portion of Raphael's Disputà. The published account adds, at its strength, that the chapel holds relics of the Twelve Apostles, and that the collection came as gifts from more than eighty cardinals, postulators, bishops and abbots, and continues to grow. The altars hold their own: beneath the main altar rest the relics of St. Marcellus, a third-century centurion martyr, and in the altar those of Sts. Stephen and Sebastian, martyrs of the same period — the tour states both. Below the church, the crypt holds the dead the Register's nomination names: Fathers DeSeille and Petit, the missionary priests of the generation before Sorin, lie buried in the crypt of Sacred Heart Church.

The Pietà, at pointer size: In the St. Joseph Chapel stands Ivan Meštrović's Pietà — The Descent from the Cross — of Carrara marble, dated 1942 by the tour, first shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and then loaned to Notre Dame by the artist, the university's former artist-in-residence; a replica stands in the Vatican Art Museum. Meštrović the man — the Croatian sculptor Sorin's successors brought to campus — is the Artists history's whole, and this section carries only the work in its chapel.

The parish distinction: One distinction this record keeps carefully, because the names collide: the Basilica is the university church — the "upstairs" church, in Sacred Heart Parish's own phrase — serving the university's faculty, students and alumni, and it is also the seat of Sacred Heart Parish, which worships in the Crypt Church at the building's basement level and describes itself as the oldest continuous parish founded and staffed by the Congregation of Holy Cross. Neither is the city's Sacred Heart of Jesus parish, a separate diocesan parish carried in the Religion history in this record; the shared name is a coincidence of dedication, and the three are never merged here.

Sources

1. University of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry — Self-Guided Tour of the Basilica: the floor plan and its chapels — St. Joseph (Pietà), St. Mary / Brother André, Reliquary, Lady Chapel, Holy Angels / Guadalupe, Our Lady of Victory / Basil Moreau, Stations of the Cross with Cardinal O'Hara's tomb; the World War I Memorial vestibule; the Reliquary Chapel's contents; the altar relics of Marcellus, Stephen and Sebastian; the Lady Chapel's baroque altar and tabernacle doors, as beliefs; the Meštrović Pietà of 1942, shown at the Metropolitan Museum, with a replica in the Vatican Art Museum.
2. The published history of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame) — the Reliquary Chapel's relics of the Twelve Apostles; the more than eighty donors; the collection still growing.
3. National Register of Historic Places — nomination 78000053 (National Park Service): Fathers DeSeille and Petit buried in the crypt of Sacred Heart Church.
4. Sacred Heart Parish (sacredheartparish.nd.edu) — the parish in the Crypt Church; the oldest continuous parish founded and staffed by the Congregation of Holy Cross; the Basilica as the university church.
5. University of Notre Dame, Facilities Design and Operations — the closure notice of December 2015: liturgies in the Sacred Heart Parish Crypt while the Basilica was closed.
6. The Artists history and the Religion history in this record — Meštrović's biography; the city's Sacred Heart of Jesus parish as a separate house.