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What’s in a Name?
THE MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY OF G.K. CHESTERTON | Volume 26 | Number 4 | March/April 2023
By Anica Taggatz | Anica is part of the core start up team for a new Chesterton Academy in Madison, Wisconsin.
OUR SCHOOL INITIATIVE STARTED after a group of Catholic moms formed a homeschool co-op and started discussing the future education of our children. Each of us had fallen in love with classical education independently and were already following the classical model at home. Although homeschooling in the early years seemed like the right decision, not everyone felt confident about homeschooling all the way up through graduation, particularly those high school years! We started to realize we wanted a place for our kids to create Christ-centered friendships to lean on during a time when peer relationships were going to be more influential. It would be natural for our teens to seek an outlet outside of the home to make sense of the world around them, and we desired a faithful community that could be trusted to guide our children in the fullness of the Truth.
Others joined in on the discussions and our start-up team began to grow. We sent out a small survey to make an initial assessment of our community’s needs, and the survey results came back overwhelmingly in favor of a brick-and-mortar high school that was faithful to the Catholic Church.
A team member had been following the progress of Chesterton Academy of Milwaukee since its inception and brought the idea of the Chesterton Schools Network to the table. Some of us had been unfamiliar with the CSN, but we soon saw their classical curriculum and Christo-centric mission aligned fully with our own. Becoming part of the network would allow us to be an independent school, while having the support and tools of the network at our disposal. In addition, they would be well-equipped to guide us through the daunting process of a school start-up because they had done this successfully many times over. Shockingly, all the boxes were ticked. After visiting Chesterton of Milwaukee a few weeks later, our decision was solidified, and we each came away from that visit confident in our direction.
We began the process of preparing for Discovery Days in February and started to pull together materials we would need for our founding documents. We drafted a working mission statement and began discerning a name for our school. Little did we know how hard it would be!
When deciding our school name, there seemed like a hundred routes we could take. Our first thought was to use our location. From a marketing standpoint, it was simple, easy for others to spell, and it could be identified easily within the larger scope of the network. After some prayer, we each felt a tug of dissatisfaction with that choice. We had concerns that within our community the Chesterton Academy name might not be fully known to all our future families. When parents heard our school name, we wanted them to instantly recognize us as a school whose Catholic faith was front and center. Latin titles appealed to us, but grammatically it made the most sense to put those in the front of the title, and we worried people would abbreviate the name and cut off “Chesterton Academy” in daily conversation. We didn’t like the idea of that either. We all concluded the words Chesterton Academy should come first in the title with our charism or patronage to follow. On our school tour, we had noticed that saints were prevalently woven into the daily life of the students, from the house system to having a patron saint of every room! We were left wondering which patron could possibly encompass all that and bring it all together under one roof. Mary seemed to us the obvious choice, as Queen of all the Saints, and Chesterton himself had a special affection for her. With a lot finessing and even more prayer, we found a way to shorten the name we had been circling around for weeks: Chesterton Academy – Queen of Martyrs.
What drew us to Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs?
She is a strong and bold model for our students in our modern times. As Catholics, we are called to be counter-cultural – to sacrifice the temporal comforts of this life to follow the Divine Life of Christ. While she is no less the queen of the Holy Martyrs of the faith found throughout history, this title of Mary refers to her own martyrdom at the foot of the cross, when a sword pierced her heart. She felt the full weight of her sacrifices and suffering in that moment, united with the sufferings of her Son. We want our students to learn to have a sacrificial heart and embrace the sufferings that God allows to sanctify them. Like Mary, we can sit with others and share in their sufferings so they are not alone as they endure their crosses in life. We want our students to learn to support the community around them with Christian charity.
That moment when the sword pierces her heart brings full-circle Mary’s great Fiat at the Annunciation. She knew she would endure great trials in her lifetime in order to accomplish the Will of God, and she said “yes” to it all. She showed great courage in her fiat, and we want our students to draw courage from her strength and learn to say “yes” to whatever God may ask of them in their own vocations. Much of her martyrdom was likely hidden to the world and less obvious than many of the Great Martyrs of our faith, although it was no less exemplary. Most of us will experience these quieter, hidden sufferings in our lives, and we can look to Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs to show us the way through them. She was the perfect choice for our school.
We now embark on the next steps of our journey as we file for 501c3 status, and we look forward to walking hand-in-hand with the Chesterton Schools Network in our monthly cohort meetings. Looking back, the Holy Spirit has truly walked with us every step of the way. Each time we have been hit with discouraging news or a door has closed, God has cast a light into the darkness and given us new-found hope so quickly we can’t deny his presence in this undertaking. Even looking back on how God walked with us in something so simple as the naming of our school, we press on with confidence knowing he will continue to guide us if we keep listening to that still small voice. As our patroness, Mary will join us on this journey, and teach us to tune our ears to God’s call. We often feel unequipped to take on this huge mission. We are. By ourselves, we are just a group of parents who love our kids and our community. But, let us not forget that “with God, all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). If we give God a mustard seed worth of faith and effort, he will equip the unequipped and the impossible can become a reality.
Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, pray for us!
