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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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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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Book Release: "Questions to Antiochos and Other Theological Questions" by Pseudo-Athanasius

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 Questions to Antiochos and Other Theological Questions  Pseudo-Athanasius Buy the Kindle Edition Here Buy the Kobo Edition Here    It was Luther who made the question-and-answer format popular for catechisms, but it had been used for teaching for centuries before him.  Often, the curious would prepare lists of questions and send them to authorities to answer: so we have a set of  Solution to Thirty-Eight Questions  from St. Hildegard of Bingen, or the set of detailed questions that the Khan of Bulgaria sent to the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople to decide whether he would become Catholic or Orthodox.  (One question queried the sinfulness of wearing trousers.)   This volume consists of a variety of sets of questions, all falsely ascribed to St. Athanasius, but instead probably written in the 7th century.  The sets included are the  Questions to Antiochos , the  Sequential Questions on the Gospels , the  Scrip...
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Pseudo-Athanasius: The Sun As An Image of the Trinity

 Introduction I am finishing up a translation of a series of Greek questions-and-answers falsely ascribed to St. Athanasius; at the least the main group of questions (the  Questions to Antiochos ) seem to date from the 7th century.  One group of questions, simply named "Other Questions," goes into detail about the metaphysics of the Trinity and the Incarnation.  Below is an excerpt from Q. 4 of the  Other Questions , discussing how man can understand the Trinity.  I hope to release the full translation of these works soon.      The Sun As An Image of the Trinity Pseudo-Athanasius (c. 7th c.)  Listen with understanding, and you will know the Holy Trinity’s mystery, as far as the mind of men is able to know.  Or, rather, it seems to me, insofar as our words are able to tell.  For God is unexplainable, and, therefore, we cannot comprehend His nature, nor is He, like us, one-personed.  For if He were one-personed, we would kno...
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