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Le Jongleur de Notre Dame (The Juggler
of Our Lady)
Undoubtedly many fans of the area are convinced that the
Notre Dame nickname, the Jugglers, derives from our team’s
ability in handling the ball on the football fields and/or
the basketball courts. This however, is not so.
When Brother Hilary, the school’s first Principal, and the
other brothers were considering possible nicknames for the
new school in the late fifties, althletic ability was of secondary
concern. Instead, what they were seeking was a name that they
hoped would typify and exemplify all that they desired a Notre
Dame student to be. Many names were pondered until, ultimately,
their attention was brought to the French Medieval legend
of “Le Jongleur de Notre Dame”.
The story went as follows:
“Once there was a very talented juggler named Barnabe who
had tired of wandering up and down the roads of France and
decided that it would be better if he were to dedicate his
life to God, as a monk. He entered the monastery with which
he was familiar and quite happy. Now, it was the custom of
the monastery to do things in honor of the Blessed Mother.
One monk would write poetry, another would sculpt statues,
another would paint, and so on. The Juggler could do nothing
like this and became quite despondent. Then suddenly he was
happy again. Soon the Prior began to notice that Barnabe would
disappear every day for about an hour. He wondered what the
Juggler was doing and followed him. The Juggler went into
the chapel and proceeded to do all of his juggling tricks
in front of the statue of Our Lady and before the horrified
eyes of the Prior. He ran and got the Abbot to see the sacrilege
that was being committed in the chapel. But when they both
started up the aisle to stop the Juggler they saw the statue
come to life and Our Lady wipe the sweat off the brow of the
Juggler”.
The moral of this story is quite simple:
If you do the best you can, God will be pleased. In choosing this
as our nickname, we hope that all of Our Lady’s Jugglers here at
Notre Dame will have the same inspiration to do their best.
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