Keough Hall

Rev. Gabriel Griggs, C.S.C., was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He grew up with his two siblings on the south side of town near Saint Matthew’s Cathedral, which he attended through 6th grade, and he graduated from Trinity School at Greenlawn. He then graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BA from the Program of Liberal Studies and Applied Mathematics, where he was also a member of the Men’s Rowing Club for three years. He attended Purdue University for one year, doing graduate work in Statistics, before discerning a call to enter the Congregation of Holy Cross. Throughout his time in formation, he has been fortunate to serve in various capacities: as a counselor for grade school and high school children grieving the deaths of loved ones, as a teacher at Holy Cross College, as a hospital chaplain and a chaplain in Lourdes (France), and most recently as an Assistant Rector in Dillon Hall. In each of these places, and with the various people whom he has encountered in these places, he has witnessed the truth of the statement made in the Constitutions of the Congregation: “we find that we ourselves stand to learn much from those whom we are called to teach.”

When asked to consider what it means to him to serve as a rector, he had this to say: “Over the course of this past year, I have been learning from men in the Congregation who have served in the capacity of rector with distinction and who have done so, in some cases, for decades. What I have learned from them is that at the heart of being a rector is building relationships with the students — relationships that, not infrequently, extend to two or three generations — and that these relationships provide the loving context in which genuine human goodness, virtue, and excellence develop. I pray that I might display the same self-sacrificing charity and patience with my students as has been shown to me throughout my time in the Congregation by such men and by the many people, especially my parents, who have taught and formed me over my lifetime. My hope for each of my students is that they may discover the unique vocation that God has in mind for them and that their education at Notre Dame may be a work of the resurrection — that is, a transformative event in their lives in which they encounter Christ and God's grace and, in some sense, become new persons as a result of this encounter.