NOTRE DAME, Ind. -- The University of Notre Dame held a vigil on Thursday afternoon to honor the New Zealand shooting victims .

The vigil was held in the rotunda and welcomed the community.

The University’s president, along with professors, gave invocation and lead a series of spiritual songs.

"That's the best way of responding to such hatred and evil and barbarism, by compassion and I think what we did today was a wonderful expression of that kind of coming together," Rashied Omar, Research Scholar of Islamic Studies and Peacebuilding at Notre Dame, said.

After the service, bells of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart tolled for fifteen minutes.

Prayers for the mosque shooting victims have been offered at masses on campus since that day in New Zealand.