Episode 54: The Festive School: Prayer, Feasts, and the Recovery of Wonder

Description

Father Nathan Carr, Headmaster of The Academy and often dubbed “the Jack Sparrow of classical education,” joins Christopher Perrin to recount his unexpected path into classical Christian school leadership—and the hard-won lessons of building a flourishing school culture over two decades. Their conversation draws on James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom to argue that “liturgies” (in church and in culture) quietly train our loves and longings. Carr connects that insight to his own work, The Festive School, where he explores how a school’s calendar, habits, and celebrations can become formative—not merely decorative. He also points listeners to his Student Prayer Book as a practical companion for cultivating daily, embodied prayer in the life of a classroom. From The Book of Common Prayer and the daily offices to monastic rhythms like Matins and Compline, he frames education as formation through repeated, prayerful practice. Along the way, they address objections to “rote” ritual, suggesting that repetition can become spiritually alive and deeply consoling over time. The episode closes with concrete snapshots of festivity at The Academy: Lessons & Carols, Stations of the Cross, and campus-wide celebrations of Incarnation and Resurrection. Father Nathan Carr also has a forthcoming course on ClassicalU.com that will release in the early Spring of 2026.

Episode Outline

• Leadership and longevity: building a flourishing school culture over time 
• James K. A. Smith and “cultural liturgies”: how places and routines form desire 
• Formative practices of the church: reimagining “school” with ecclesial inheritance
• A sacramental worldview for education: wonder, gratitude, and formation through loving attention
• The Rule of St. Benedict and the daily offices as a template for student life: Morning prayer / Matins and Lauds, Midday prayer / Sext and remembering Christ’s crucifixion at noon, Night prayer / Compline and the Nunc Dimittis
• Ritual and repetition: responding to the “rote” objection; why repetition can become meaningful over time
• What festivity looks like at The Academy: lessons & carols, stations of the cross, and house feasts, Feast of the Incarnation, and Feast of the Resurrection

Key Topics & Takeaways

• Formation Through Practices: What we repeatedly do shapes what we love.
• Sacramental Imagination Reorients Education: Wonder and gratitude become central virtues of school life.
• Patterns of Church Applied to the School Day: Benedictine patterns and the daily offices provide a humane rhythm for students and faculty.
• Repetition Can Produce Spiritual Resilience: Words learned “by heart” may sustain faith in seasons when feelings fail.
• Festivity as Formative: Shared feasts and rituals can embody the gospel narrative in communal life.
• Healthy Leadership Protects Culture: Sustainable delegation and team-based responsibility are essential for long-term flourishing.

Questions & Discussion

• What “liturgies” are forming your students right now—outside of your intentions?
  Consider the repeated routines, spaces, technologies, and schedules in your school day. Identify one “secular liturgy” you want to counter-form with a Christian practice this term.
• What would change if your school treated reality as sacramental?
  Name one subject or habit you tend to “instrumentalize”. Discuss one concrete practice that helps students love that subject for its own sake—slow attention, gratitude, or wonder.
• How can daily prayer become the architecture of the school day rather than an add-on?
  Draft a simple rhythm (morning prayer, a noon remembrance, end-of-day prayer). Discuss what short forms (collects, call-and-response, sung pieces) would be realistic and faithful for your community.
• How do you respond to the concern that ritual is “rote” or inauthentic?
  Share a time when repetition became meaningful (music, athletics, family traditions, worship). Discuss what repetition can form that spontaneity often cannot—stability, shared language, and spiritual stamina.
• What does “festivity” look like in a way that forms virtue and wonder—not performance or spectacle?
  Choose one season (Advent, Lent, Eastertide, etc.) and design one practice (meal, hymn, reading, procession, art). Discuss how it teaches the gospel story through shared life.
• What leadership habits protect a school’s culture over decades?
  Identify one area where “delegation or death” feels real. Name one next step toward healthy team leadership and sustainable limits.

Suggested Reading

• Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith
• The Festive School by Father Nathan Carr
• Student Prayer Book by Father Nathan Carr
• The Rule of St. Benedict by Saint Benedict
• Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
• The Book of Common Prayer
• Romans 1

Note: Dr. Robert D. Crouse, whom Father Nathan Carr mentions as a professor in Trinity, Halifax, Nova Scotia, actually taught in the Classics Department at King's College and Dalhousie University.