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Faith in Focus
Maggie Kast
A friend recently said to me, I presume you regard yourself as a liberal Catholic. In response, I asked myself what kind of Catholic I am, and what is liberal? I came into the church 25 years ago at mid-life, without previous religious faith, practice or upbringing. My parents had been secular anthr
Faith in Focus
Laura Sheahen
Please stop being Gnostic. Yes, you, the person reading these words. You’re bringing me downliterally. You see, I had hoped after death to rise. Physically. I hope very much the church’s constant teaching is true: that at the end of time, we’ll be raised bodily. The resurrection of
Faith in Focus
Marie Therese Ruthmann
"Well, he did it.” It has been two years since my brother-in-law’s voice over the phone ended a three-day vigil of what I can only call “hope against hope.” My handsome 34-year-old nephew Rich had hanged himself in a park 20 minutes from his parents’ home. Remembering h
Faith in Focus
Aileen A. O
The steel was cool and smooth under my hand. I was lying atop an X-ray machine, awaiting yet another test for an undiagnosed illness. Slowly, I realized I was taking comfort from the machine’s presence. My first reaction was an amused, Gadzooks, what a geek! Deeper reflection, though, made me
Faith in Focus
Patricia Schnapp

It is an irony that Victorian, Anglican England produced two poetic geniuses who were neither Victorian nor Anglican. Both were quintessentially Catholic, one so avant-garde he has been called the “father of modern poetry” and the other a tardy Romantic. These blazingly gifted men are, of course, the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins and Francis Thompson, author of the great ode “The Hound of Heaven.” But while Hopkins continues to be anthologized and studied as a brilliant poetic pioneer, Thompson has largely been consigned to moldering books on unused library shelves. Today’s readers probably find him too Byzantine and archaic.

 

Yet since 2007 is the centenary year of Thompson’s death at age 47, it seems an appropriate time to reconsider this talented and tragic minstrel. For one thing, his “Hound of Heaven” is one of the great religious odes of modern times, having been praised by such diverse writers as Oscar Wilde, G. K. Chesterton, Eugene O’Neill and James Dickey. For another, his poetry, sensuous and lush as it is, radiates a profound Catholic spirituality. Thompson’s work illustrates the power of a religious vision to permeate the consciousness so intimately that it transforms the natural world into a realm of allegory, symbol and metaphor.

Because of this, Thompson had a profound reverence for the world of nature. He saw it as one of the words of God, as a mystical and, as the Rev. Andrew Greeley might say, enchanted home whose rhythms and contrasts, comforts and terrors, spoke of religious truths. His sacramental sense of God’s creative presence in the material world confirms the intuitions of all who like to wander riverbanks or stroll forest paths as they pray.

On Pain and Loss

But Thompson was not merely a lover of nature, writing rhapsodic lyrics about poppy fields or yew trees. He also addressed pain and loss, which characterize every spiritual journey. He frequently reminds us of the price of discipleship and the necessity of the cross. About suffering Thompson was ever the realist, ending his poem “Daisy” with the following stanza:

 

Nothing begins, and nothing ends,

Faith in Focus
Stephanie Ratcliffe
When my marriage ended, I had no means by which to support my 18-month-old son. I had no job and no hope of child support until the divorce was finalized. I needed to find work, but was reluctant to put my son in day care. Then it occurred to me: maybe I could find a job as a nanny, which would allo