Notre Dame Vision Program
Summer Conferences for High School Students
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Our Mission

Notre Dame Vision invites young people to explore God's call in their lives, and to respond to that call with courage and faith through daily choices as well as life-long commitments.

Notre Dame Vision is a program of the University of Notre Dame committed to serving teenagers. Taking as its theological starting point the ecclesiological emphasis of Lumen Gentium - the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church produced at Vatican II - Notre Dame Vision strives to introduce young people to the deeply Christian notion of the "universal call to holiness." Each person, regardless of age, race, state of life, or any other factor, is directly, personally, and uniquely called by God to live a life marked with faith and service. It is with this understanding that Notre Dame Vision explores the theological concept of "vocation" in its richest, most robust sense - that is, as it applies to each and every Christian who, in virtue of his or her Baptism, is called to holiness.

The Notre Dame Vision syllabus was designed and is maintained by faculty in Notre Dame's world-renowned Theology Department, as well as professional lay ecclesial ministers in the Institute for Church Life, where Notre Dame Vision finds its home within the University's infrastructure.

Overview of Sessions

Theological Bases of Notre Dame Vision Sessions

God's Call for Us - God calls. This simple truth encounters us in our complex realities. To believe that God creates, commissions, and perfects each of us in love is a transformative belief. The heart of the Gospel is that God is for us, with us, and given to us in the Son and through the Spirit. This gift of Godself is a call to fullness of life. The exploration of this call is an adventure with no boundaries: every aspect of our lives is set against the ultimate context of God's call, and our whole lives are, ultimately, our response.

The Call to Discipleship - In the Incarnation, God enters fully into human life. In our discipleship, we journey to enter fully into God's life, with all parts of ourselves. We are called to live this unique relationship with God as disciples of Jesus Christ through the abiding power of the Holy Spirit. Our discipleship is a growing relationship with a Person (Jesus), in addition to an invitation to follow him. This life of discipleship is a call that we share with others - no one lives out their discipleship alone. Our relationship with Jesus Christ includes an invitation to go where he goes, love as he loves, give as he gives, and become fully who he is: the child of God.

The Challenges of Discipleship - As disciples of Jesus, we believe that God is fully with us through the mystery of the Incarnation. In the Paschal Mystery, we believe in the triumph of life over death as we bear witness to the depth and breadth of God's love for us. We live out this hope in the midst of trials and challenges, some of which we are called to endure, while others we must oppose.

The Call to Conversion - Discipleship always requires conversion. At times, conversion is episodic, pertaining to a specific experience. More generally, conversion is part of the process of Christian life where God calls us to turn more towards Godself and in love to our neighbor. Each of us is at once sinner and saint, straining to leave the former behind for the sake of the latter. With God's grace, assured to us in Easter joy, we find the strength to return again and again to God whenever and wherever we wander.

The Call to Love Ourselves as God Does - We are created in the Image and Likeness of God - or, as some would express it, we are created in the Image and destined for the Likeness. Either way, there is indescribable beauty and indisputable dignity in each one of us, especially in virtue of our Baptism, by which we are configured to Christ. We are called to love ourselves as reflections of and participants in God's love. We are because God loves us.

The Call to Relationship and Communion - We are created in relationship, by relationship, and for relationship: this is the heart of our creation in the Image and toward the Likeness of God. Our relationship with God is manifested in our relationships with others. We are who we are because of the self-giving love of God, which comes to us in myriad ways; we become who we are as we ourselves actively and graciously participate in this self-giving. Gratitude and response are dual modes of our lives as disciples.

The Call to Prayer and Sacrament - We hear and act on God's call in and with others. As Catholic-Christians, we recognize and celebrate our ecclesial communion as the sign and instrument as God's life with us and our life with one another. In this communion and through the grace of the sacraments, we listen to, understand, and love God's presence in all creation.

Discerning Our Gifts and Responding in Faith - The Spirit gives each of us gifts. We recognize these gifts through prayer, reflection on our experiences, and in relationship with others. Using our gifts in response to God's call facilitates our growth in God's life. The calls we answer now - the ways we love, serve, and share - lead us to new and perhaps greater calls in the future, all of which are aspects of our one universal call to holiness.

Key Components of Notre Dame Vision

Notre Dame Vision Keynote Speakers

Some of the very best speakers from Notre Dame's own community and from across the country deliver the more significant and substantive presentations at Notre Dame Vision. These speakers are selected on the basis of their ability to craft and articulate compelling messages that accord with the mission of Notre Dame Vision, as well as their aptitude for making such messages accessible to high school students. Notre Dame Vision speakers are generally dynamic, engaging, and faith-filled people who practice what they preach. Speakers change annually - and in fact weekly on occasion - so Notre Dame Vision does not typically advertise its speakers.

Notre Dame Vision Mentors-in-Faith

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Notre Dame Vision is the group of 60+ Notre Dame undergraduates who annually lead the program. These students - known collectively as "Mentors-in-Faith" - facilitate small faith sharing groups, serve as resident counselors in the dormitories, lead prayer throughout the week, and share part of their stories of faith with high school students in hopes of inspiring the high school students to do the same. The Mentors make Notre Dame Vision an experience-based endeavor wherein the high school participants look deeply into their own lives for signs of God's grace.

Small Groups - It is essential to the week at Notre Dame Vision, which is rich in Sacramental celebration and shared wisdom, that the participants have ample opportunities to share their faith with one another, ask questions, and tell stories. Each Notre Dame Vision participant is assigned to a small group of six to eight participants and one or two Mentors-in-Faith that meet together regularly for prayer, conversation, and community. This is the place where the messages of the Christian faith as expressed through Notre Dame Vision meet the real life experiences of the high school participants.

Music - St. Augustine once said that when we sing our praise, we pray twice. Building from this, Notre Dame Vision places music right at the heart of its program. A group of 15-20 well-trained, faith-filled, and talented musicians taken from among the group of Mentors-in-Faith lead music in a variety of settings throughout each week. In addition to liturgical music and other opportunities for prayer through music, these musicians perform three mini-musicals based on Gospel parables that have been prepared specifically for Notre Dame Vision.

Notre Dame Vision Models-of-Faith

Knowing that no one walks the Christian way alone, Notre Dame Vision gathers another important group of companions to accompany participants in their journey: 74 holy men and women from our Christian heritage, a group that is shared with the Notre Dame Vision CYM program. These witnesses to the faith include Old Testament figures, apostles, other disciples of Jesus, Church Fathers, martyrs, other ancient and modern canonized saints, as well as more contemporary figures who have expressed the beautiful life of God in the Church with their own lives. Each small group takes one or more of the models as their patron with whom they pray and learn.

334 Geddes Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 631-7425
ndvi@nd.edu
http://vision.nd.edu