On any given Sunday at Notre Dame, guys’ dorm masses bask in the glow of “brotherhood,” but also in an exodus of ladies from the girls’ dorms. The girls’ dorm masses, on the other hand, are more sparsely populated, and any guy present is usually somebody’s nice boyfriend. So what’s the matter with girls’ dorm masses? And what’s so wildly popular about mass with boys?
Judging from responses of dorm rectors and students to The Rover’s queries, three factors can account for the pilgrimage of women to men’s dorms each Sunday : familiarity, routine, and comfort.
According to Fr. Pete McCormick, CSC, rector of Keough Hall, “Women’s dorms do not typically have a consistent presider. As a result, people go where they have a certain familiarity with the priest or rotation of priests.” A look at the residence hall chapels’ mass schedule website shows that most men’s dorms offer masses Monday through Thursday and Sunday, while women’s dorms usually offer mass once during the week and on Sunday.
Students seem to agree with Fr. McCormick. After identifying the lack of priests-in-residence at women’s dorms, an anonymous female RA concluded, “For girls who want to go to daily mass at 10pm on a day that is not offered by their own dorm, they go to the closest, or most familiar, or preferred boys dorm. Sometimes then familiarity/routine/comfort is developed and they just go to that boys’ daily mass all the time.”
Kelly Weber, a senior theology major from Farley, noted that besides not having the same priest every Sunday, which priest says the Mass and the chapel’s design are also important: “The chapel itself matters, as does whether it’s a ‘coffee table Mass’ or an orthodox one…The priest is also a factor.”
Guys’ dorms radiate a sense of “brotherhood” that gives their masses a magnetic appeal. Sophomore civil engineering and PLS major from Knott Hall Jonathan Schommer said, “I think that girls’ dorms definitely offer a different dynamic in mass than guys’ dorm . . . . At Knott, there is definitely a sense of brotherhood. It may just be because it’s a mass of mostly guys and all guy musicians, but it offers a different dynamic than girls’ dorms.”
Mass in Morrissey, on the other hand, is a different story. Fr. Ronald Vierling, MFC, rector of Morrissey Manor, offered traditional liturgy and community as reasons why women are likely to attend mass in Morrissey rather than in their own dorms: “First, they are attracted to a style of liturgy that exercises the more ‘traditional’ options provided in the Sacramentary. Second, with the men of Morrissey and other like-minded attendees, they have formed a community that transcends attendance at Mass.”
Whatever Sunday mass one chooses to attend at Notre Dame, each is unique. As Fr. Vierling identifies so clearly, “The richness of liturgical expressions that exist on campus offer a pastoral service to everyone on Our Lady’s campus on their journey of faith . . . .This is not just the place where the Church does her thinking; it is also a place where the Church does her praying, in a multiplicity of ways.”
LaSandra needs a bodyguard when she bikes. Gabz is eternally grateful to her for writing this. Contact her at slaguert@nd.edu.
