St. Philip Neri Feast Day Party Recap!

It was wonderful to see all of you who attended the St. Philip Neri Feast Day Mass and Pizza party last Wednesday night! For those of you who couldn’t make it, after a lovely Mass celebrated by Fr. Mattingly (who has more than a nodding acquaintance with St. Philip!), 60 people gathered for an Ode to Pizza Pie and a few rounds of Chestertoniana. As 18 pizzas were inhaled, sisters Kate and Aly Marin won copies of Dale Ahlquist’s EWTN Chesterton show in a ‘reverse trivia’ contest, Mark Basola’s ‘flying inn’ won him the prize of Chesterton’s book by that title, and drawings were held from among those who had favorite Chesterton quotes to share.

After trivia, partygoers entered their favorite Chesterton quotes in a raffle for a chance to win Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. The lucky winners included Luke Murray (“Drink because you are happy!”), Ezekiel Lee (“White founts falling in the courts of the sun, while the Golden of Byzantium is smiling as they run”), Jeff Shoulta (“A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.”), Justin Janasz (“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”), J.D. Mohundro (“Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything.”), Fr. Mattingly (“Children never tire of repetition. “Again!” they say. “Again!”…I sometimes wonder if Our Father says each morning to the sun, “Again!” and to the moon at night, “Again!” We tire of the repetition, but Our Father is younger than we.”), Michael Ostermann (“Children don’t read fairy tales to learn that dragons are real. They know dragons are real. They read them to learn that dragons can be slain.”).

Fr. Mattingly dedicated this quote to Jorge & Kate as their wedding draws nigh: “The sexes are like two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be joined, they must be joined while they are red hot.” Other contributions were John O’Toole (“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”), Kristen Marquis and Mark Basola (“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”), Max Trossen (“We live in an age of uncommon nonsense!”), Philip Basola (“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”), and Mary Basola (“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.”)

Red wine and musical contributions by Luke Murray, Ezekiel Lee, and Mira Marquis rounded out the evening nicely. Please Save the date for next year’s Founders Club post-Neri-Mass party with honorary member Dale Ahlquist on May 26, 2022!

~Charlotte Ostermann, Board Member of the Chesterton Academy of St. Philip Neri.

PS. If you’d like to test your own GKC trivia knowledge, here are the questions from our contest:

  • How did Chesterton suggest to Oscar Wilde that we might pay for sunsets?

  • What is the date of G.K. Chesterton’s birth?

  • When he was a child, what was Chesterton’s favorite toy?

  • What weapon did Chesterton purchase on his honeymoon?

  • Describe Chesterton’s Fence – a principle of reform.

  • Which Chesterton character is known as a poet and only incidently solves crimes?

  • What geographic feature inspired Chesterton’s essay about the goodness of chalk?

  • Who pinned notes to G.K. Chesterton for his own good?

  • What literary form did Chesterton’s praise of cheese take?

  • Which Chesterton poem includes the line “Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop”?

  • Chesterton’s formal training was not in theology, but in ______________?

  • Chesterton’s character Innocent Smith is in which of his works of fiction?

  • Which of Chesterton’s characters thought like a criminal to catch criminals?

  • Chesterton is connected with what often-misunderstood economic theory?

  • Which Chesterton story is a romp about Prohibition?

  • In which Chesterton story does a duel figure centrally?

  • What masterpiece of Christian apologetics did Chesterton write before he became a Catholic?

  • What is the name of the jewel thief Chesterton made famous?

  • Name two saints whose biographies Chesterton wrote.

  • What was Chesterton’s reply when asked “What’s wrong with the world”?

  • What modernist philosopher was Chesterton’s dear friend and constant opponent?

Luke Murray