G.K. Chesterton's Devotion to the Mother of God

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 FOLLOW US

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Donate Shop 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 t