Headmaster Welcome Letter

DEar Families,

Greetings! It is my pleasure to welcome you to Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope. In “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis observes that each of us has an “inconsolable secret,” the “desire for our own far-off country.” This year, our students will read about the “twists and turns” of Odysseus and his inconsolable yearning for his home. They will learn of David hiding among the mountains and dwelling in the strange land of the Philistines to escape the unjust wrath of Saul. They will study the stars and encounter the cosmos as a beautiful whole that points beyond itself. In all these, they will taste the desire of which Lewis speaks.

Ultimately, our inconsolable secret is a longing for Jesus Christ, for whom and through whom all things were made, and in whom all creatures hold together and the fulness of divinity dwells (Col. 1:16). In one story, the Lord said to Aquinas, “You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward will you receive from me for your labor?” St. Thomas replied, Domine, non nisi te. “Nothing but yourself, Lord.” And yet this is the same Lord who is “all in all,” and in whom “are all the riches of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 3:20, 2:3). In saying, “nothing but yourself,” St. Thomas asked for everything.

This longing is already in us. How we order our lives allows it to take root, grow, and mature. This is why, as G. K. Chesterton writes, “Education is not a subject, nor does it deal in subjects. It is instead a transfer of a way of life.” This transfer requires the intentional formation of a community that, in all the details of its life, shapes the longings of its members’ souls. Education presupposes the soul and its inconsolable secret, but it nourishes the ache of that secret and gives it shape by leading students into a way of life that responds to and deepens their longings.

At Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Hope, we will guide students in how they learn, play, compete, share meals, and grow in friendship. In the halls, on the playing field, in the chapel, the classroom, and the lunchroom, they will hear the call to grow in wisdom, virtue, and holiness. Thanks to the labors of their teachers and leaders, every moment of their days will be infused with meaning, with inklings of the full depth and mystery of reality.

Through this labor, we aim to cultivate a community of friends full of wonder and joy who seek to be fully alive in wisdom, virtue, and holiness. We seek to form young men and women whose love for truth makes them guileless and earnest rather than cynical; confident, not insecure; thoughtful, humble, capable of giving themselves fully, and, above all, men and women who are animated by deep, joyful repentance and living faith because they know Jesus Christ and His great love for His Church. I hope you will choose to join us in forming this community and passing on a way of life ordered, like St. Thomas’s, to the Lord, and thus to nothing less than everything. I look forward to partnering with you, their parents, in this mission. 

Gratefully yours in prayer,

 Dr. Robert Duffy