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Piggybacking onto Joe Lindsley’s post, which captures Notre Dame so well, readers might enjoy G.K. Chesterton’s poem about Notre Dame football, reflecting on how the gladiatorial games were transformed by the coming of Christ. You can read the whole thing here , but the final stanzas are the best part:



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.”


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