Mount Saint Mary's University

founder, John Dubois. According to legend, DuBois was attracted to a light on the mountain and found a blessed spot and sat down at the foot of a large oak tree beside a stream. He made a cross of twigs and fixed it to the tree to be the symbol of the holy work he was undertaking. This was the original grotto. Simon Bruté was an early steward of the grotto. He created pathways throughout the grounds and attached crosses to the trees that now line the Stations of the Cross along the entrance. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton attended Sunday Mass at the Grotto chapel. The 1911 book The Story of the Mountain tells how Mother Seton would sit on her favorite rock at the Grotto and "invoke the divine blessing by reciting the Canticle of the Three Children, and none that heard her could ever forget the tones of that voice and the fervor of that heart, which in the midst of the wild scenery of nature called upon all creatures to bless and magnify their Creator." Her rosary walks around the grotto were re-enacted in 2005 to …