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Book Anouncement: "Seeking the Heart of Christ: Christian Reflections on the Interior Life" by St. Claude La Colombière

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  My most recent traditionally-published book is now available for pre-order : Seeking the Heart of Christ: Christian Reflections on the Interior Life , by St. Claude La Colombière (1641-1682).  See the publisher's blurb below: "Discover the wisdom of St. Claude La Colombière (1641–1682), the Jesuit saint who was the confessor to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and championed devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In Seeking the Heart of Christ: Christian Reflections on the Interior Life , you will find a treasury of spiritual reflections that inspire deeper faith, encourage virtue, and guide the soul toward holiness. This remarkable collection of sermons explores essential topics of Christian living, including the sweetness of virtue and the humble submission to the will of God. La Colombière also offers profound meditations on the need for repentance, the benefits of frequent Communion, and the transformative power of the Mass. He addresses the practical struggles of li...
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Pierre de Bérulle on the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts

 Introduction Though St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) is often considered the founder of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she was not the first to praise the Heart (though she fought to gain the Heart a feast).  Hints of this devotion can be found in earlier writers, such as St. Gertrude (1256-1302), but the best formulator of the devotion was St. John Eudes (1601-1680).  (St. John also wrote the texts of the Offices of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, which were celebrated in a few areas; it was St. Margaret Mary's demand that the Feast of the Sacred Heart be a universal feast, set on the first Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, as was eventually done.)  Hints of devotion to the Sacred Heart were already arising in France, such as in the writings of Jean de Bernières-Louvigny , but it was St. John who theologically fleshed out the devotion and its rationale.  Among earlier writers he points to is Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629), wit...
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Gregory Telepneff: The Egyptian Desert in the Irish Bogs

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I recently ran across a video on a topic that I've been somewhat interested in for a while: the influence of the Desert Fathers on Celtic Christianity.  Below is a talk from Orthodox scholar Fr. Gregory Telepneff on this topic:     Fr. Telepneff also wrote a book on the same theme:  The Egyptian Desert in the Irish Bogs: The Byzantine Character of Early Celtic Monasticism . Other resources on this topic include Connie Marshner's  Monastery and High Cross: The Forgotten Eastern Roots of Irish Christianity  and Robert K. Ritner, Jr.'s "Egyptians in Ireland: A Question of Coptic Peregrinations."
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Jean de Bernières-Louvigny: "The Heart of Jesus Is a Rich Treasury for the Christian Soul"

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   Introduction The Sacred Heart was not a new concept when it was revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), though the official consecration and liturgical feast requested through those revelations was new.  A number of St. Margaret Mary's near-contemporaries wrote about the devotion, such as St. John Eudes (1601-1680) and Jean de Bernières-Louvigny (1602-1659).  Bernières was a lay Third Order Franciscan who founded a hermitage in Caen; he also served as a treasurer for the same region, and he provided financial support to the still-young Church in Canada, particularly through his relationship with St. Marie of the Incarnation (1599-1672).  Among his writers, the greatest is the  Interior Christian , published posthumously in 1661.  It was a great favorite of St. Claude La Colombière and others; however, its influence among Catholics fell drastically when Bernières was posthumously condemned as a Quietist in 1689, and his writings placed on...
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St. Claude La Colombière: "Offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ"

Introduction One of the requests found in the revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) was that of a consecration to the Sacred Heart.  Though devotion to the Sacred Heart existed before St. Margaret Mary—perhaps most prominently in her older contemporary, St. John Eudes (1601-1680)—this request for consecration was new.  Even her confessor and spiritual director, St. Claude La Colombière (1641-1682), who was inclined to this devotion, and who came to accept her revelations, seemed to be wary of this consecration at first; yet he did, in time, come to fulfill Our Lord's request.  He probably did not do so in June 1675, when he was with St. Margaret Mary in Paray-le-Monial—at that time, he may have only made the act of reparations, or "honorable amends" ( amende honorable ), also requested by the Lord—but he most likely made his consecration sometime before a spiritual retreat in London in 1677, though it is at the end of his notes from this retreat that his f...
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Repack: "The Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph" by Jean Gerson

 For ease of reading, I have consolidated three prior posts from Jean Gerson ( Letters on the Espousals of Mary and Joseph , Office of the Espousals , and Matins Readings for the Espousals ) into a single PDF.       Direct Download  
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Francis Jammes: "The Poet and Inspiration"

 Francis Jammes (1868-1938) was a French poet and author; I previously published a translation of one of his novels,  The Rosary in the Sun .  Now I have translation an essay of his on poetic theory:  The Poet and Inspiration  (1922).  As an appendix, I have also translated a short manifesto from his early days, "Jammism" (1897).     Direct Download
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Paul Verlaine: "O My God, You Have Wounded Me With Love"

 Introduction Even a cursed poet can write a holy poem.  Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was such a poet.  Though much of his life was spent in violence, debauchery, alcoholism, and addiction, he had a brief time when he experienced a return to the faith, while in prison for shooting his lover in the wrist (deemed by the courts "attempted murder").  Most of the poems from this time were published in his 1880 collection  Sagesse (Wisdom) .  The following poem is one such poem, from the time when Verlaine had "prostrated before the long-unknown Altar...adores the All-Good and invokes the Almighty, sworn son of the Church, the last in merits, but full of good will" (Preface to  Sagesse ).  The poem is made of tercets in which lines 1 and 3 are identical, and line 2 unique.  Other than the identical rhymes of lines 1 and 3 of each tercet, no rhyme scheme is involved.  My translation aims at accuracy of meaning rather than any attempt to replicate ...
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