Dedication Day
Open to serve patrons since September 18 of the previous year, the newly constructed Memorial Library (now Hesburgh Library) held its dedication ceremony on May 7, 1964, Ascension Thursday. At the time the South Bend Tribune called it “one of the proudest days in the history of the University of Notre Dame.”
Nearly 4,000 celebrants attended the May 7 Pontifical Mass held on the Library lawn just past the reflecting pool. It began with a processional by the Notre Dame Band and was presided over by Cardinal Tisserant with a sermon by Albert Cardinal Meyer, Archbishop of Chicago. The presence of these two princes of the Church was further elevated by a personal letter of blessing from Pope Paul VI to the university community and to his “beloved son” Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh in which he prays that “this additional repository of wisdom and knowledge may serve as a valuable instrument in the pursuit of truth and the defense and development of faith.”
Joseph Cardinal Ritter of St. Louis performed an additional afternoon blessing during which, echoing the Pope’s prayers, he asked God to “bless and sanctify this Library constructed to collect, preserve, and make available divine and human knowledge contained in books, records, and documents.” The hopes of these men, unified through their participation in the Second Vatican Council, were tied beautifully to the occasion by Cardinal Meyer in his sermon in which he says, “All the words of men, if they are true words, reflect and reproduce the riches of the one eternal Word of Life … our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
These words of encouragement to pursue a more thorough interpretation and fuller living relationship with Christ could not have happened in a more fitting place or time: under Millard Sheets’ massive mural illustrating The Word himself, on the feast day of Christ’s ascension into heaven.
