Timed for the American Chesterton Society Annual Conference

The July/August issue of the St Austin Review is all about Chesterton! It will be perfect reading for those attending the American Chesterton Society Annual Conference the first weekend in August.

My contribution to this issue is not Chestertonian. It's a book review of Southwell's Sphere: The Influence of England's Secret Poet by Gary M. Bouchard. An excerpt:

After studying on the Continent, joining the Society of Jesus in Rome, and being ordained a priest, Englishman Robert Southwell came home secretly to offer Mass and give the other Sacraments to the underground Catholics of England. He also sought to encourage her poets to a better form of art, to turn from “the follies and fayninges of love” and instead “see how well verse and vertue sute together”as he admonished “His Loving Cousin” in the foreword to editions of “St. Peter’s Complaint”.

In Southwell’s Sphere: The Influence of England’s Secret Poet Gary M. Bouchard traces the impact of that foreword and Southwell’s poems on contemporary and later English poets, noting that while Southwell had influence and even some fame—in spite or because of his execution for treason—in the Elizabethan era, his reputation has dwindled to the inclusion of “The Burning Babe” in anthologies. Responding to recent work of Anne R. Sweeney (Robert Southwell: Snow in Arcadia: Redrawing the English Lyric Landscape, 1586-95), Alison Shell (Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558-1660), Gary Kuchar (The Poetry of Religious Sorrow in Early Modern England) and others, Bouchard wants to make his own contribution to exploring Southwell’s underappreciated influence on English literature.

As Bouchard summarizes, Southwell’s call to reform English poetry “instructed William Alabaster, provoked Edmund Spenser, prompted George Herbert, haunted John Donne, inspired Richard Crashaw and consoled Gerard [Manley] Hopkins.” He explores each author’s response to not only Southwell’s martyred Catholicism but his call to change the way they were writing poetry. Except for Spenser, these poets were clergymen. Alabaster converted to Catholicism and relapsed; Donne was raised a Catholic and apostatized; Crashaw and Hopkins were Catholic converts who remained faithful. Herbert and Spenser were Protestants. . . .

I'm looking forward to receiving my complimentary copy.

Surprise! Hemingway, Greene--and Mann?

I was surprised when I got in the mail the other day because there was a copy of the St. Austin Review in the mailbox. Then my surprise turned to delight because my name was on the cover.

In a collection of essays about Catholicism, conversion, Ernest Hemingway, and Graham Greene, Joseph Pearce had included my analysis of the 1955 film adaptation of The End of the Affair, starring (no pun intended) Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson, and Peter Cushing (in a non vampire hunting role). It's titled "Shabby Second Best": Conversion in 1955's The End of the Affair".

I wrote and submitted this piece years ago and I don't even have a saved .doc anymore!

Follow the StAR in January!

On my birthday, I'm pleased to announce that I'll have two pieces published in the January/February 2018 issues of the Saint Austin Review!

There's an article on the movie Green Dolphin Street, offering a Chestertonian interpretation of the vocations of marriage and religious life: “The Pattern of the Cross”. Lana Turner and Donna Reed are two sisters who learn about God's plans for their happiness. I wrote it a few years ago, so I'm eager to see it in print!

This is one of those cases--as a hint for writers or anyone who submits material for publication--of being able to make real, live contact with the publishers or editors who've judged and accepted your material. Joseph Pearce visited Wichita twice this fall: once in October and once in November. I was able to discuss articles that Mr. Pearce had previously accepted and where they'd fit into the themes of his publication.

Voila! There it is--or there it will be! (looking forward to my comp copy).

The second piece is a book review of Philip Campbell's Heroes & Heretics of the Reformation, which I just submitted in November.

More about the issue here and how to subscribe (including on-line access) here!

Three Things for Friday

Happy St. Patrick's Day! The real St. Patrick, bishop and evangelist, was not focused on green beer, corned beef and cabbage, parades, and just being Irish. He was focused on Jesus Christ:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom. . . .

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

When Blessed John Henry Newman paid tribute in The Idea of the University to how much Catholics in England and Ireland owed to the care of the various popes--since it was Pope Pius IX who was encouraging the foundation of a Catholic University of Ireland--he highlighted St. Patrick's achievement:

I cannot forget how it was from Rome that the glorious St. Patrick was sent to Ireland, and did a work so great that he could not have a successor in it, the sanctity and learning and zeal and charity which followed on his death being but the result of the one impulse which he gave. I cannot forget how, in no long time, under the fostering breath of the Vicar of Christ, a country of heathen superstitions became the very wonder and asylum of all people,—the wonder by reason of its knowledge, sacred and profane, and the asylum of religion, literature and science, when chased away from the continent by the barbarian invaders. I recollect its hospitality, freely accorded to the pilgrim; its volumes munificently presented to the foreign student; and the prayers, the blessings, the holy rites, the solemn chants, which sanctified the while both giver and receiver.

St, Patrick, pray for us!

Also, I wanted to let you know that my review of God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England (by Jessie Childs) was published in the March/April 2017 issue of the Saint Austin Review. The cover is a beautiful painting of the Crucifixion by Philippe de Champaigne, the 17th century French artist and portraitist.

And, my latest for the National Catholic Register blog roll is on the use of Latin in Latin Rite English Masses during Lent!

The May/June Issue of the St. Austin Review

There's my name on the cover of the May/June issue of the St. Austin Review, reversed out of one of Monet's studies of the Cathedral in Rouen. I contributed an article about the role of Marian apparitions in France in renewing devotion and faith after the French Revolution: “Revolution and Private Revelation: Some Notes on Marian Apparitions in France”. As always, I'm looking forward to receiving my comp copy and reading the rest of the articles!

The Next Issue of The St. Austin Review

Publisher Joseph Pearce announces its topic and its contents. If you are interested in the French Revolution and its effects on the Catholic Church in France, this is the issue for you:

The theme of this issue is “Revolution versus Revelation: France & the Faith”.

Highlights:

Stephanie A. Mann compares “Revolution and Private Revelation”, sketching “Some Notes on Marian Apparitions in France”.

Joseph G. Trabbic writes on “Étienne Gilson on Doing Philosophy in the Light of Revelation”.

Fr. Henri Giroux reveals “What everybody seems to have missed” in Pascal’s Wager.

Matthew Chominksi admires the aesthetic of Chateaubriand and Ratzinger as “A Frenchman and a German Walk the Path of Beauty”.

John Beaumont considers “The Case of Adolf Retté: A Great French Convert and Catholic Apologist”.

Lisa Salinas teaches “A Lesson in Trust at the Feet of Millet”.

Ken Clark offers his impressions of “Monet’s Rouen Cathedrals”.

Susan Treacy scales the heights of the “Requiem Aeternam: Gabriel Fauré’s Vision of Rest”.

James M. Wilson follows Raïssa Maritain into the mystical depths.

Brendan D. King translates Rainer Maria Rilke.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker joins C. S. Lewis in condemning the hideous strength of the “N.I.C.E. New World”.

James Bemis praises the classic movie, The Life and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Kevin O’Brien is aghast as “The Germans Invade St. Louis” and recalls when he was Jung at heart!

Fr. Benedict Kiely discusses “The Real Moral Equivalence” with regard to the Islamist slaughter of Christians.

Richard Crashaw's Hymn to "The Name and Honour" of St. Teresa of Avila

As today is her feast, it seems appropriate to post Richard Crashaw's poetic tribute to St. Teresa of Avila. As Robert T. Petersson notes in his book, The Art of Ecstasy: Teresa, Bernini, and Crashaw, St. Teresa was one of many leaders of the Counter Reformation in Spain. Petersson states that Spanish reformers led the way, in fact, from St. Ignatius of Loyola to St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, in the efforts to renew and revive the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation.

LOVE, thou are absolute, sole Lord
Of life and death. To prove the word,
We'll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown:
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud, unto the face of death,
Their great Lord's glorious name; to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne
For love at large to fill. Spare blood and sweat:
We'll see Him take a private seat,
And make His mansion in the mild
And milky soul of a soft child.
Scarce has she learnt to lisp a name
Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which spent can buy so brave a death.
She never undertook to know
What death with love should have to do.
Nor has she e'er yet understood
Why, to show love, she should shed blood;
Yet, though she cannot tell you why,
She can love, and she can die.
Scarce has she blood enough to make
A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has a heart dares hope to prove
How much less strong is death than love....

Since 'tis not to be had at home,
She'll travel for a martyrdom.
No home for her, confesses she,
But where she may a martyr be.
She'll to the Moors, and trade with them
For this unvalued diadem;
She offers them her dearest breath,
With Christ's name in 't, in charge for death:
She'll bargain with them, and will give
Them God, and teach them how to live
In Him; or, if they this deny,
For Him she'll teach them how to die.
So shall she leave amongst them sown
Her Lord's blood, or at least her own.

Farewell then, all the world, adieu!
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys!

Farewell whatever dear may be--
Mother's arms, or father's knee!
Farewell house, and farewell home!
She 's for the Moors and Martyrdom.

Sweet, not so fast; lo! thy fair spouse,
Whom thou seek'st with so swift vows,
Calls thee back, and bids thee come
T' embrace a milder martyrdom....

O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet and subtle pain!
Of intolerable joys!
Of a death, in which who dies
Loves his death, and dies again,
And would for ever so be slain;
And lives and dies, and knows not why
To live, but that he still may die!
How kindly will thy gentle heart
Kiss the sweetly-killing dart!
And close in his embraces keep
Those delicious wounds, that weep
Balsam, to heal themselves with thus,
When these thy deaths, so numerous,
Shall all at once die into one,
And melt thy soul's sweet mansion;
Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hot a fire, and wasted
Into perfuming clouds, so fast
Shalt thou exhale to heaven at last
In a resolving sigh, and then,--
O what? Ask not the tongues of men.

Read the rest here.

Richard Crashaw was a Catholic convert from Anglicanism at a dangerous time--during the English Civil War. After being born the son of a most anti-Catholic, Puritan, father, William Crashaw, he had attended Pembroke College at Cambridge, a High-Church Anglican college and been a fellow at Peterhouse College, but was too Catholic for that oldest of Cambridge colleges. He fled to the Continent in 1644 and, destitute, was introduced to Queen Henrietta Maria in exile at St. Germain-en-Laye by a friend Abraham Cowley. From St. Germain he went to Rome and died soon after becoming sub-canon the Cathedral of Santa Casa in Loretto. He is  not only one of the Metaphysical Poets, but he is a Baroque poet. The St. Austin Review featured Crashaw in the September/October 2013 issue as "English Poet; Catholic Exile"; the cover is pictured above.

English Recusant Composers in StAR

I mentioned that I would share the cover of the September/October issue of the Saint Austin Review as soon as it was available, and here it is!

But I can do even more, because Joseph Pearce (I presume) chose my article as the one to represent the issue on the StAR website and you may read the article here! What a nice surprise (to me at least).

BTW, please see my updated Other Publications tab.

Preview of StAR's September/October Issue

 

The William Byrd Festival is in progress in Portland, Oregon with its concluding events coming up this weekend. The reason I lead off with this notice is that I have an article about Byrd and other recusant composers coming out in the September/October issue of the St. Austin Review (plus a book review).

According to Joseph Pearce, who ought to know:

The theme of the next issue of the St. Austin Review is “Recusants and Martyrs: English Resistance to the Tudor Terror”.

Highlights:
 

-Shaun Blanchard views St. Thomas More as the Ideal Christian

-Joseph Pearce connects Shakespeare and St. Thomas More

-Mark Amorose waxes poetical about Recusants

-Anne Barbeau Gardiner discovers Secret Hiding Places: Recusant Houses and Priest-Holes Made by a Saint

• Stephanie A. Mann reads between the lines in her survey of Tudor Church Music and Revisionist History

-T. Renee Kozinski looks iconically at St. Edmund Campion and the Tyburn Tree

-John Beaumont tells the tale of A Remarkable Convert Priest, Resisting the Tudor Terror

-Stephen Brady condemns The Murder of Merrie England

-Brendan King admires The Picture that Painted a Poem, explaining How an Italian Masterpiece Inspired an English Saint

-Trevor Lipscombe elegizes Our Lady’s Dowry

-Susan Treacy muses on William Byrd’s Gradualia

-M. J. Needham praises the Art of Katie Schmid in the full colour art feature

-Kevin O’Brien tackles Modern Persecution and the Catholic Church

-James Bemis checks off Schindler’s List in his ongoing survey of the Vatican’s List of “great films”

-Fr. Benedict Kiely contemplates the meaning of the priesthood

-Donald DeMarco spies A Ray of Hope for the Family in Quebec

-Michael Lichens remembers Stratford Caldecott

-Carol Anne Jones reviews Was Shakespeare Catholic? by Peter Milward

• Stephanie A. Mann reviews Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony by Aidan Nicholls

-Carol Anne Jones reviews Anne Line: Shakespeare’s Tragic Muse by Martin Dodwell

-Mark Newcomb reviews The One Thomas More by Travis Curtright

I'll post the cover as soon as it is available!

St. Robert Southwell in StAR

I have not received my comp copy yet, but the July/August 2014 issue of the St. Austin Review (StAR), with my poem about William Byrd and St. Robert Southwell is out!  You may find the Table of Contents here and the sample article, by Gary M. Bouchard of Saint Anselm College, here, "A Powerful Silence: The Enduring Legacy of Robert Southwell".

Bouchard writes about why Southwell has not received his due in the history of English literature, with only "The Burning Babe" being included in anthologies. He cites the work of Allison Shell, Scott Pilarz, SJ, Anne R. Sweeney, and John Klause to demonstrate that Southwell is beginning to receive his due, both for the quality of his work and for the influence he had on numerous poets. Bouchard opines that "Southwell's life and writings instructed Alabaster, provoked Spenser, prompted Herbert, haunted Donne, inspired Crashaw and consoled Hopkins" (p. 16). That's William Alabaster, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, John Donne, Richard Crashaw, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. StAR devoted the September/October 2013 issue to Richard Crashaw, who was a Catholic convert and poet in exile during the reign of Charles I.

UPDATE: My copy came in today's mail! Looking forward to seeing my poem in print and reading the rest of the articles about this great poet and martyr.

Preview of the July/August Issue of StAR

Joseph Pearce previews the next issue of the St. Austin Review, and you might guess at my interest in the issue by the title (and the list of New poetry at the bottom!):

The next issue of the St. Austin Review will soon be winging its way to the printers. The theme is St. Robert Southwell: Priest, Poet, Martyr.

Highlights include:

   F. W. Brownlow reflects on “A Plaintive Muse: Robert Southwell’s Attack on Elizabethan Terror”.

   Joseph Pearce examines “The Bard and the Jesuit: Robert Southwell’s Influence on William Shakespeare”.

   Joseph Pearce reveals “Shakespeare’s Homage to Robert Southwell” in King Lear.

   Gary M. Bouchard sees “The Enduring Legacy of Robert Southwell” in his influence on a host of other poets from John Donne to Gerard Manley Hopkins.

   Melissa Siik discusses “Robert Southwell and the Formation of English National Identity”.

   Fr. Benedict Kiely rejoices in “The Joyful Witness of the English Martyrs”.

   The full colour art feature focuses on the work of Gwyneth Holston and her perceptions of “The Role of Art and the Vocation of the Artist”.

   Kevin O’Brien sees the use of torture today and in Elizabethan England as “The Destruction of God in Man”.

   Fr. Dwight Longenecker sees the parallels between “Science Fiction and the Metaphysicals”.

   James Bemis’s regular film review focuses on Monsieur Vincent.

   Donald DeMarco vents his justifiable spleen against the blatant bias of the New York Times.

   Regis Martin, Greg Peters, Paula Gallagher, Stephen Mirarchi, Thaddeus Kozinski, Rachel Ronnow, Ken Colston, Mitchell Kalpakgian and Marie Dudzik review eleven new books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

 

New poetry by Pavel Chichikov, Donald DeMarco, Stephanie A. Mann and Lisa Salinas.

  Don't Miss Out! Subscribe On-Line from this Site!

That's really extraordinarily humbling and delightful--to have a poem I wrote published in a magazine issue dedicated to such a great martyr-poet! (St. Robert Southwell is in the poem.) I look forward to seeing it in print next month.

January/February 2014 Articles

In the reverse type on the cover of the January/February 2014 issue of the St. Austin Review, you might discern my name:

 

Then if you access the Table of Contents for the issue, you'll see my article on Pope Benedict's English Catholic Legacy listed "Inter Alia". StAR is a print review with limited on-line access, but I have submitted some texts to supplement the article on the StAR blog.

 

In a way, there's a connection between that StAR article and my article in the January/February 2014 issue of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine:

 

 

"How Can We Hear the "Voice of God"? Blessed John Henry Newman and conscience" is illustrated with a picture from the 2010 beatification of John Henry Newman. OSV recently updated its website and now all the articles I've written for TCA are available on-line!

 

Happy New Year! 

The English Reformation Today's One Year Anniversary

On Saturday, August 4, 2012, I began my 12-week show, "The English Reformation Today" on Radio Maria US. Almost all of the episodes are available as podcasts on the network's website here. I posted regular summaries of each week's topic on this blog, and you can explore those posts here.

As a preview of upcoming events, I'm pleased to announce that the St. Austin Review (StAR) will publish my article on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's legacy for England's Catholics in the September/October issue--but you'll need to be a subscriber to read the article, unless they happen to choose it as the one sample article from the issue on the magazine's website.

Also, the September on-line issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review will include my article on Church History and Apologetics, which is readily accessible for free!

And, finally, don't forget that I'll be presenting at the Kansas Authors Club annual convention here in Wichita, Kansas. I'm scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 5 on “Marketing a Non-Fiction Book to a Niche Audience: It’s Quite a F.E.A.T.” Program description:

Stephanie will describe strategies she has developed and techniques she employs to promote her non-fiction, historical work to a niche audience of readers interesting in the history of religion in England. With humility and humor, Stephanie outlines her successes and failures, offering insights and lessons learned by using the acronym F.E.A.T.: F = Finding a Publisher and an Audience (research and success); E = Establishing a Platform (broadcast, print, and on-line social media); A = Addressing Challenges and Opportunities (current events and limitations); T = Tracking down Contacts and Customers (networking and working).

I'm so disappointed that the pilgrimage to England in honor of the English Martyrs of the Reformation did not work out this year. Corporate Travel Services is still on the lookout for a suitable parish to base the pilgrimage in so they may attract enough participation to make it successful.

Update: I'll also have an article in the September/October issue of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine! "The Cross Triumphant: What are the feasts of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Sorrows?

I am so grateful to these publishers and editors who accept and often improve my submissions for publication!