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Students create 'St Olaf Ice Chapel' for campus mass

by James Lewis
notredame-icechapel.png - Banner image
Notre Dame/Instagram

Notre Dame students have built a chapel out of snow and ice, hosting a community mass attended by more than a thousand people. 

St. Olaf Ice Chapel, a replica of the university’s basilica, has become a meeting point for students after heavy snowfall. 

Student Liam Devine started the project, which grew into a multi-room igloo with its own stained glass windows made of ice and a crucifix.  

Father Pete McCormick, the basketball team’s chaplain, led Mass at the chapel on Sunday evening.

Sharing videos on social media, the university said more than 1,600 students braved the cold to attend. 

Attendees were singing while holding each other's shoulders, some with candles.

A senior student told Indiana TV station WNDU: “We also saw it as angelization. That’s why we’re having this big mass tonight. We’re hoping it will appeal to a much larger part of the student body that normally don’t go to mass and give them an encounter with Christ.” 

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