“The Chesterton party arrived at Notre Dame on the evening of October 4th, 1930. The lectures began on the following Monday. On Friday, the 10th, in the evening, the stadium was solemnly dedicated. Navy had come on for the dedicatory game, and Father O'Donnell was busy with them. He had told Johnny Mangan, the University chauffeur, to look after the Chestertons, and to see that they got into the stadium and that Mr. Chesterton had a seat on the platform from which the speeches were to be made, There were about twenty thousand people present, and when the students saw the magnificent bulk of Chesterton going toward the platform, they cheered wildly: "He's a man! Who's a man? He's a Notre Dame man!" Chesterton turned nervously to Mangan, saying: "My, they're angry!" "Angry!" exclaimed Johnny, "golly man, they're cheerin' you!" Whereat Chesterton began such a fit of laughing and sputtering as almost to choke himself.”
On Saturday, Oct. 11, 1930, the Irish beat Navy, 26-2 Irish victory.
The Arena
Causa Nostrae Laetitiae
(Dedicated to the
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)