As a foreigner, one of the first things you notice when you visit the Notre Dame campus is the huge amount of opportunities for Catholics to spend time with God.

In 1842, Father Sorin and the Brothers of Holy Cross founded the University of Notre Dame.  During that same year, Catholics in my country of Denmark still had 7 years to go until they could legally practice their religion.  Catholic culture has had a bit of a head start at Notre Dame, compared to where I come from.

This October I had the opportunity to spend 10 days at Notre Dame, and although it was not my first time on this campus, it was my first time since I started the process of converting from atheism to Catholicism.  On this trip, I noticed how many opportunities Catholics have to practice their religion on the Notre Dame campus.

Back at home, I study in Denmark’s second largest town, Aarhus.  We only have one Catholic church in Aarhus, even though more than 250,000 people live there.  At Notre Dame, there are 57 chapels and a basilica on campus.  I bike about 5 miles to my church, whereas every Notre Dame student who lives on campus has a chapel in the same building in which they sleep and study.  That must be a blessing.

But there is more to Catholicism than chapels.  Sharing your faith with your community is vital, and I have never before seen anything like the community of faith here at Notre Dame.  During my stay I attended three Masses.  I first went to the  Basilica 10 a.m. Mass the Sunday after the win against the University of North Carolina.  I assumed it would be well-attended, but the congregation was bigger than any I had ever seen in a church before, even on Christmas Eve, which is the one day each year many Danes actually go to Mass.  Although I arrived 15 minutes early, I stood with my back against the back door.

My second Mass during my stay is one that I wish we had in Denmark too: the Badin Hall Pancake Mass.  That is cool!  God and pancakes—what more could you wish for?  Well, one of the best things about it is still the community—you get to share your love of God with your fellow students and friends.  I only knew one Catholic (and only very few Christians) in all of Denmark until I started RCIA.  Notre Dame and Denmark seem like two different worlds.

I do not want to make this a list of Masses that I have attended, but I have to mention the Mass I went to on the Saturday of the Florida State game.  My fiancée told me that it would be a small crowd, since most students had gone home for fall break.  And even though there was no one to be seen on campus that day, somehow the Basilica was packed.

Faith is dead without works, though, so I was very excited to see how the Notre Dame trip to the March for Life in Washington D.C. is already being heavily promoted.  I am sure that many Notre Dame students will step up once again and go to D.C. to make it clear that all human life is precious—in Denmark, where almost everyone is pro-abortion, that is very rare.

I have mentioned some of the major events, but smaller things stood out as well.  For example, you can always find a priest.  The day after we got engaged, my fiancée and I wanted to get our rings blessed—no problem!  We were spoiled for choice of where to find a priest.

This next thing might be too big to put under the “smaller things,” but the Grotto is great!  We went there one evening, and it was so beautiful.  And once again the Catholic community at Notre Dame had proven itself: There were no more lights left because they had all been lit.  My fiancée’s solution was to “hijack” a candle by looking at it very hard and praying—I hope this is okay with whomever lit the candle, and that the candle had room for two prayers.

I am aware that the Catholic culture at Notre Dame has been threatened lately.  Do I need to say more than “contraception”?  But yours is the most involved and blessed Catholic community I have ever seen.  I am confident that you will be successful in defending it.  I really just want to thank you for showing me what a Catholic community can be.

Rasmus Schmidt Jørgensen is a Danish journalism major who just succeeded in having a piece in a paper 4,118 miles away from home. If you’d like to learn the Danish word for “booyah,” email him at rasschjor@mail.dmjx.dk.