By Janet Platt
Trinity Times Correspondent

As Anna Zimmermann began planning her summer 2023 wedding, she started looking for a Catholic church that would capture the spirit of the celebration she envisioned and was thrilled when she stumbled upon Notre Dame Chapel at Trinity Washington University.

“The chapel is beautiful, and the word chapel doesn’t do it justice because it seems like an old European church,” said Carol Zimmermann of Germantown, Maryland, mother of the soon-to-be bride. “I was only inside it once, but the stained-glass windows, the altar and the ceiling are just gorgeous.”

The Zimmermann family was overjoyed when the Trinity team agreed to let them use Notre Dame Chapel for the marriage of Anna and her fiancé Tareq Albusaidi later this summer, providing them with a beautiful Catholic space and a bit of Trinity history.

Dedicated in 1924 following a two-year construction, Notre Dame Chapel was the second building erected at the university and though it’s a prominent architectural landmark in Washington’s very Catholic neighborhood of Brookland, it largely remains a hidden jewel to Trinity students.

Tunisia Squire walks past the chapel frequently as she makes her way to classes on campus, but like many other students at Trinity, she’s never been inside of the sacred space, built with Kentucky limestone and a red-barrel-tiled roof.

“I think it would be cool to see it, but I feel like it’s closed off to students,” Squire said. “But I would love to see it. Let me in.”

Notre Dame Chapel isn’t necessarily closed off to students, but it’s had limited use in the past several years as a multitude of restoration and modernization projects have been performed.

“Restoring the chapel has been a very long-term project because there is so much to do and the work is quite expensive,” said Trinity President Patricia McGuire. “We had a lovely bequest from Mary Field Goubeau (from the Class of 1927) that helped to do a portion of the restoration and also supported part of the new air conditioning system we had installed in 2021-2022.”

The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur planned for the inside of the chapel to express the glory of God and their beloved Catholic religious traditions.

That is what visitors experience, especially when they go in to worship.

St. Pope John Paul II was able to experience the grandeur of Notre Dame Chapel during his 1979 visit to the U.S., and then blessed the Trinity campus, the faculty, students, alumnae, board members, staff, and friends assembled near Main Hall.

When Michael Wegner – owner of Allied Independent Contracting of Arlington, Virginia – was tasked with the 1997 cleaning and restoration of the artwork in the chapel, he was impressed with the beautiful marble floor, soaring stained-glass windows, statues at the transept altar and a 75-foot-tall mosaic dome over the main altar with a two-foot-long signature of mosaic master Bancel LaFarge.

“He is to mosaics what Tiffany was to stained glass,” Wegner told the Washington Post near the completion of the 1997 restoration. “Walk into this church and you walk into something special.”

The stained-glass windows are bright colors of blue, red and hints of purple, and the lilies crafted onto the glass represent purity.

The dark brown classic pews have opulently crafted wood carving on the outside.

“It always takes my breath away when I come in here,” said Notre Dame Sister Ann Howard, director of Trinity’s campus ministry, during a recent tour of the chapel. “I always feel the presence of God in here.”

Though McGuire said she hopes the university can resume using the chapel for major liturgies and other services in the year ahead, she considers it too large to use every day and weekly ligurgies and quiet prayer will continue to be held in the small chapel on the second floor of Main Hall.

“We do not want to leave Notre Dame Chapel open for casual visits, that would be a security challenge,” McGuire said. “But once the repair work is done, we may provide a weekly schedule when it will be open for visitors.”

The chapel still needs a new sound system, something the university president believes will take most of the upcoming year to accomplish because of supply chain disruptions.

Restoration of the currently non-working organ is another project for future years and the lack of restrooms makes modern use of the space challenging.

“We are working on a plan for providing better walking access between the chapel and the first floor of Main Hall for restroom access in the future,” McGuire said.

The university did, however, hold its 125^th Anniversary liturgy in October 2022 in Notre Dame Chapel, as well as the 125^th Academic Convocation, in which seniors received there cap and gowns, she said, “and it was quite beautiful.”

The meaning of having the picturesque chapel on the grounds of Trinity may be very different today than it was a century ago, when most of the students were Catholic.

“While it’s true that Catholic students are about 20-25% of our total population (today), we do not limit services in the chapel to Catholics only,” McGuire said. “All persons of faith are welcome to worship when we have liturgies or services there.”  

For mother-of-the-bride Carol Zimmermann, who is very familiar with the work of the university, she hopes the guests at her daughter’s wedding will also get a sense of Trinity’s long tradition of Catholic social justice. “My husband Mark and I believe the work that Trinity is doing in educating women in Washington is so important,” she said. “We hope our wedding guests come to realize a little bit of what this university is about and might pay attention to what Trinity is doing in years ahead.”