Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Also known as G. K. Chesterton · GK Chesterton
Life
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English journalist, novelist, poet, lay theologian and literary critic — universally known by his initials, G. K. Chesterton. Born in Kensington and raised in a freethinking Unitarian household, he studied at the Slade School of Art before turning to journalism, where his prose grew at a rate equal to his famous girth: some eighty books, several hundred poems, two hundred short stories, four thousand essays and several plays.
Christianity captured him slowly, through argument and gratitude rather than crisis. He embraced Anglicanism in his thirties; in 1922, at the urging of his wife Frances and his friend Hilaire Belloc, he entered the Catholic Church. His best-loved books include Orthodoxy (1908), The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), The Everlasting Man (1925), and the Father Brown detective stories beginning with The Innocence of Father Brown (1911).
He defended joy, common sense, the unborn, the small farmer, and the obvious; he wrote about heresies as a man defending his own house. He died at Beaconsfield on 14 June 1936. A cause for his canonization was opened by the Diocese of Northampton in 2013 and declined in 2014, though devotees continue to pray for its reopening.
Patronage
- writers
- journalists
- Catholic apologists
- converts to Catholicism
Suggested prayer
God our Father, You filled the life of your servant Gilbert Keith Chesterton with a sense of wonder and joy, and gave him a faith which was the foundation of his ceaseless work, a charity towards all men, particularly his opponents, and a hope which sprang from his lifelong gratitude for the gift of human life.
May his innocence and his laughter, his constancy in fighting for the Christian faith in a world losing belief, his lifelong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his love for all men, especially for the poor, bring cheerfulness to those in despair, conviction and warmth to lukewarm believers and the knowledge of God to those without faith.
We beg you to grant the favors we ask through his intercession, [and especially for…] so that his holiness may be recognized by all and the Church may proclaim him Blessed. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Sources
Questions & answers
Who was G. K. Chesterton?
English journalist, novelist and lay theologian — best known as G. K. Chesterton — who entered the Catholic Church in 1922. A giant of a man whose joyful, paradoxical faith fills books like Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, and The Innocence of Father Brown, where argument becomes hospitality and reason an act of thanksgiving.
When did G. K. Chesterton die?
G. K. Chesterton was born on 29 May 1874 and died on 14 June 1936.
Is G. K. Chesterton a saint?
No. G. K. Chesterton has not been canonised, and no cause for beatification has been opened. MyHolyHero remembers this life as a witness of faith; the prayer here is for private devotion only.
Is there a prayer to G. K. Chesterton?
This page offers a prayer for private devotion only. Because no cause has been opened, G. K. Chesterton may not be invoked in public worship.
