A Chesterton Poem and Other "ND" Game Prep

Pre-Game Report

On January 20, when ESPN anchors retell Notre Dame’s journey to the 2025 College Football Championship battle with Ohio State, it’s unlikely they will show film from the game that occurred Saturday, Oct. 11, 1930.

Too bad, because the telecast will neglect one character in the long saga’s subplot about finding hope through the Catholic faith.

This historical figure would have been thrilled to cheer alongside the current spiritual protagonists—Fighting Irish Coach Marcus Freeman, a new convert to the Church, and Riley Leonard, the Catholic quarterback whose avid trust and gratitude toward Jesus shine brightly in his TV interviews.

The missing character is Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), a legendary British writer who attended and immortalized that 1930 game at Notre Dame Stadium. Chesterton is beloved for his brilliant evangelization in nonfiction, novels, and various other genres.

He wrote “The Arena,” a poem dedicated to the University of Notre Dame (“Our Lady’s University”), after the football contest stirred his soul during his visit to America.

There was a lot of history going on at that game.

Knute Rockne was near the end of 13 years of coaching, which brought Notre Dame three national championships, including one for the team Chesterton saw play.

The brand-new stadium had been solemnly dedicated in a ceremony on the prior evening, October 10.

Several days earlier, Chesterton had arrived on campus to begin a six-week series of lectures. This was a rare departure from his English homeland.

At the game, he was struck not only by the skills employed in this American football, but by the sight of the nearby administration building looming over the field. There, a golden statue of the mother of Jesus stood atop the famed Golden Dome.

His poem portrayed the ND athletes as gladiators nobly dedicating their talents and hearts to Jesus Christ through His mother. She had been with the team during tougher times, but, he believed, “she whose names are Seven Sorrows and the Cause of All Our Joy” was also with them in the October 11 romp over Navy, 26-2.

He observed the jubilance of “youth untroubled, youth untutored; hateless war and harmless mirth.” They played for the valiant spirit of the school and for “Our Lady of the Victories—the Mother of the Master of the Masterers of the World.”

He said to the Queen that those Fighting Irish were “the men that live forever, who are free of all things living but a Child, and He was thine.”

The University of Notre Dame is, by tradition, a place that aims to evince the heavenly on earth and the earthly raised to heavenly grace.

We can hear that intersectionality in the “Alma Mater” (“Notre Dame, Our Mother”), which is sung together by the team and their fans after each game—if ESPN will cover that postlude this time.

There’s a quip about this: Someone asks, “Is the Alma Mater a school song or a hymn?” His interlocutor answers, “Yes.”

It has been 37 years since Notre Dame won a national championship. That was in 1988 under Coach Lou Holtz, another enduring force for Catholic evangelization.

In the spirit of resilient, transcendent joy, whether January 20 brings good or ill, we should recall Coach Freeman’s comment in a 2022 interview with National Catholic Register regarding the team and its ongoing encounters with fans and critics across the nation.

“It’s extremely difficult to be a college student-athlete right now, in terms of the social media, in terms of mental health,” he said.

“They’re normal human beings, but the problem is that on social media there’s a lot of power given to different people’s opinions, in [the player’s] eyes. And I try to encourage them all the time to not be overly concerned with that. But I think it’s a lot easier said than done.”

When asked for his message to Notre Dame fans everywhere, Freeman said:

“Support our players, the good and the bad. Blame the coaches, you know what I mean? … Those players, man, they give us everything they’ve got, so continue to support them.”

Meanwhile, QB Riley Leonard has made his message of loyalty clear on many occasions. It’s his earnest call, “Jesus Bless.”

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The Arena

by GK Chesterton

(Dedicated to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana)

There uprose a golden giant
On the gilded house of Nero
Even his far-flung flaming shadow and his image swollen large
Looking down on the dry whirlpool
Of the round Arena spinning
As a chariot-wheel goes spinning; and the chariots at the charge.

And the molten monstrous visage
Saw the pageants, saw the torments,
Down the golden dust undazzled saw the gladiators go,
Heard the cry in the closed desert
Te salutant morituri,
As the slaves of doom went stumbling, shuddering, to the shades below.

"Lord of Life, of lyres and laughter,
Those about to die salute thee,
At thy godlike fancy feeding men with bread and beasts with men,
But for us the Fates point deathward
In a thousand thumbs thrust downward,
And the Dog of Hell is roaring through the lions in their den."

I have seen, where a strange country
Opened its secret plains about me,
One great golden dome stand lonely with its golden image, one
Seen afar, in strange fulfillment,
Through the sunlit Indian summer
That Apocalyptic portent that has clothed her with the Sun.

She too looks on the Arena
Sees the gladiators grapple,
She whose names are Seven Sorrows and the Cause of All Our Joy,
Sees the pit that stank with slaughter
Scoured to make the courts of morning
For the cheers of jesting kindred and the scampering of a boy.

"Queen of Death and deadly weeping
Those about to live salute thee,
Youth untroubled; youth untutored; hateless war and harmless mirth
And the New Lord's larger largesse
Holier bread and happier circus,
Since the Queen of Sevenfold Sorrow has brought joy upon the earth."

Burns above the broad arena
Where the whirling centuries circle,
Burns the Sun-clothed on the summit, golden-sheeted, golden shod,
Like a sun-burst on the mountains,
Like the flames upon the forest
Of the sunbeams of the sword-blades of the Gladiators of God.

And I saw them shock the whirlwind
Of the World of dust and dazzle:
And thrice they stamped, a thunderclap; and thrice the sand-wheel swirled;
And thrice they cried like thunder
On Our Lady of the Victories,
The Mother of the Master of the Masterers of the World.

"Queen of Death and Life undying
Those about to live salute thee;
Not the crawlers with the cattle; looking deathward with the swine,
But the shout upon the mountains
Of the men that live for ever
Who are free of all things living but a Child; and He was thine."

--G.K. Chesterton (1930)

Image from AI designer function of Microsoft Bing Co-Pilot.

Find more information from the Society of GK Chesterton at chesterton.org

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