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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 Gerson: "How the Child Jesus Is Born and Cared For in the Devoted Mind"

 Introduction I translated a few other writings by Jean Gerson (1363-1429), including a section of a sermon on St. Nicholas and a series of texts relating to the Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph .  The below text is an odd allegorical one, considering various virtues as handmaidens ministering to the Child Jesus in the mind.  The original title reads "How, in the Devoted Mind, the Child Jesus Is Conceived, Bathed, Born, Nourished, etc."; I slightly renamed it for catchiness.  The text, as found in Gerson's collected writings, ends with a bit at first discussing the "wise man" asking what he must do to be saved (Mt 19:16-24), before seguing into a discussion of Lk 17:9-10.  The text, however, cuts off mid-sentence, and this passage seems to have little connection, if any, with the allegorical text.  Therefore, I have not included this final paragraph.  The original text also only had a single paragraph break; I have included many more for eas...
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Jean de La Ceppède: "Love Made HIm From High Olympus Come Down"

 Introduction Jean de La Ceppède (c. 1550-1623) was a French nobleman, judge, and poet, best-known for his sonnet series  Theorems on the Sacred Mystery of Our Redemption , sometimes known as the  Spiritual Theorems  for short.  Below, I have given a translation of one of the best-known of these sonnets. My translation is a poetic one, which matches La Ceppède's rhyme scheme (ABAB BABA CCD EDE); for a more literal translation, see Christopher O. Blum's article on La Ceppède, "A Poet of the Passion of Christ."  To keep a rhythm and to keep the rhyme, I sometimes had to reword some of La Ceppède's lines, or omit phrases.  The last tercet is the oddest in translation, particularly the first line: "Beauty for whom this Beauty dies alove."  A literal translation of the French is "Beautiful woman for whom this beautiful man dies while loving you well."  This is far too wordy for my rhythm, hence my compression.  For the final phrase, and to ma...
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Sketches of Saints

At a thrift store recently, I came across a binder labelled "Sketches of Saints."  Intrigued by the find, I decided to bring it home and scan it to share it with others. Unfortunately, the artist's name appears nowhere in the portfolio.   Based on where I found the sketches and on the saints included (particularly St. Isaac Jogues and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini), I assume the artist was American.  Based on the paper's evident age and on the fact that the descriptions accompanying each sketch were prepared on a typewriter, the portfolio cannot be too new; my best guess is that it was prepared in the 1980s.  The  terminus a quo  seems to be 1982, the date of St. Maximilian Kolbe's canonization; his description classifies him as a "saint."  My only hesitation about this date is the fact that, in an accompanying chart of included saints, Maximilian Kolbe's name has an asterisk next to it, and it is printed in smaller font.  This most likely means...
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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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