Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, Notre Dame

The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes is located at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States, and is a reproduction of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France. The current Grotto was built in 1896, replacing a wooden grotto built on August 22, 1878. An artificial rock cave, the Grotto is used by its visitors as a sacred space for prayer, meditation, and outdoor Mass.

Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the French Holy Cross priest who founded the University of Notre Dame in 1842 on a tract of land in Northern Indiana, had a lifelong devotion to Mary. He named several structures on the nascent campus after the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, seeking to attract Catholic pilgrims to Notre Dame, he constructed a replica of the Portiuncula—a Marian chapel located in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi.