This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley talk about Catholic wisdom from Jane Austen, how a cardinal was arrested in Hong Kong, and what it’s like altar serving as an adult.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
From poetry to Catholicism, Muriel Spark did nothing halfway
No list of brilliant Catholic novelists would be complete without Dame Muriel Spark.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
John L’Heureux: Prolific novelist, former Jesuit and author of an alternative Eucharistic prayer
John L’Heureux was rightly praised for his novels, short stories, poetry and memoir. But how many other writers do you know also once wrote an experimental eucharistic prayer?
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The hallmarks of Black Catholic spirituality in the work of Toni Morrison
The reader can see God in all areas of Toni Morrison’s characters’ circumstances—in the “magic,” in the pain and suffering, and in the call to healing and wholeness that leads to life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Catholics and religious liberty in early American history
If Catholics wanted to be tolerated in the early years of the Maryland Colony, they had to prove their loyalty—first to the Stuarts, then to Parliament, then the House of Hanover and then the fledgling American republic.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the vocation of the poet
Neeli Cherkovski’s expanded edition of his biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a book by “a poet who set out to celebrate another poet.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Hip-hop’s divine blend of poetry, song and story
Alejandro Nava begins his formal analysis by situating hip-hop as something that “recovers the oral, rhythmic, and melodic nature of ancient scriptural transmission.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Should a priest serve in Congress? Jesuit Robert Drinan did — until Pope John Paul II asked him not to.
Robert F. Drinan, S.J., was a prominent U.S. politician and a longtime law professor—but he found his identity in his priesthood and his Jesuit life more than under the Speaker’s rostrum.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Why prayer comes easy to a backpacker on a hike
Obituaries for Drew Christiansen, S.J., mentioned his extensive writings on foreign policy issues and the Middle East, but he was also a talented and lyrical nature writer.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Kelly Cherry: A poetic voice for the atomic age
Was Kelly Cherry a novelist? A poet? An essayist? A literary critic? Depending on one’s point of view, she was one or all of these things.