SOUTH BEND, Ind. —They turn toward the Notre Dame Stadium video board at the end of the third quarter, knowing what’s coming and hopeful for it all the same. Atop the south end zone, a video rolls, a priest facing his congregation in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, just across campus. Only his green vestments show. A 90-second sermon begins, both an advertisement for Notre Dame and an invitation to Mass.

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On its own, this call is not a new tradition. The stadium has been welcoming fans to become postgame parishioners for years, long before the video board changed the medium. But those bygone invitations, played over the stadium’s public address system, were met with the enthusiasm of a flight attendant asking passengers to review the safety instructions card in the seat pocket in front of them. They were background noise.

Reverend Pete McCormick helped change all that.

Thirty seconds into the video, the camera shows Father Pete — to call him anything else is to barely know him — striding into the Basilica. He’s as identifiable by his buzz cut and black-rimmed glasses as he is by his perpetual smile. Sunlight follows him through the doors.

That’s when the student section loses its collective mind, cheering as if running back Jeremiyah Love just went for another 98-yard touchdown. This is the recent tradition at Notre Dame, an embrace of the school’s assistant vice president for campus ministry. From the confessional to the DJ booth, he seems to be everywhere all the time, exactly when he’s needed. The invitation to Mass doesn’t interrupt the football game that’s still got a quarter to go; it’s organically become part of the ceremony.

When he welcomes 77,622 souls in this football cathedral to offer one another the sign of peace, the students erupt again.