G.K. Chesterton spent his life writing about Our Lady, and the poems are still doing their work. Maria Romine, drama teacher at Chesterton Academy of St. Louis, traces her entry into the Catholic Church to a rosary handed to her in a gift shop, and her love of Chesterton to a poem about the Mother of God. On Our Lady's birthday, the conversation covers the Frances Chesterton Rosary League, saints on the high school stage, and Gilbert and Frances Chesterton as a model for married life.
In this Episode:
- Chesterton's Marian poems, "A Little Litany" above all, did what no argument had: they sent one Presbyterian convert on a years-long search to understand how a man comes to write that way about the Mother of God.
- A Chesterton reading group in St. Louis began praying the rosary together, and within a few years an eager parent group had opened a Chesterton Academy there—a sequence the guest describes as the Holy Family finally getting its mother.
- Chesterton built a theater inside his own house and wrote plays for the neighborhood children; his play The Surprise dramatizes the idea that human makers work under God as subcreators.
- Memorizing a saint's words changes the actor who speaks them—the argument behind a Catholic high school's practice of building each year's production around a single saint.
- Freshmen learn two lines before they learn any steps: "May I have this dance" and "I would be delighted." Nobody can be rejected, so nobody has to be nervous.
Resources:
- G.K. Chesterton and Our Lady, edited by Nancy Carpentier Brown, with an essay by Maria Romine
- The Surprise, G.K. Chesterton's play adapted for television by Dale Ahlquist
- The Frances Chesterton Rosary League
- Chesterton Academy of St. Louis on Instagram
- Chesterton Academy of St. Louis on Facebook
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Chapters:
- 00:00: Welcome, and a guest on Our Lady's birthday
- 01:25: A convert, a gift-shop rosary, and Our Lady's last nudge
- 03:47: Three strangers, one question: are you consecrated?
- 05:33: Chesterton's Marian poems, and the quest they started
- 09:20: A rosary league first, then a Chesterton school in St. Louis
- 12:40: The stage as an incarnational art, and Chesterton's play The Surprise
- 14:28: Playing saints, and what memorized words do to a student
- 19:07: Teaching English country dance to freshmen
- 21:19: "May I have this dance": two lines that end the awkwardness
- 23:57: Daily Mass, and becoming small versions of Gilbert and Frances
- 27:32: The Society as the Chestertons' extended godchildren
- 31:41: The Legion of Mary, and a Marian plan for October
Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios