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New: "The Flying Inn: A Novel" by G.K. Chesterton

Now available from Ignatius Press: 

The Flying Inn: A Novel

by G.K. Chesterton

Foreword by Robert R. Reilly

The beloved G.K. Chesterton presents a well-crafted and joyous work of political fantasy about a small group of rebels who rail against the government’s attempt to impose prohibition in England.

Humphrey Pump, a pub owner, accompanied by Captain Patrick Dalroy, a flamboyant giant with a tendency to burst into song, take to the road in a donkey cart with a cask of good rum, a large block of cheese, and the signpost from his pub, The Flying Inn. The two men bring good cheer to an increasingly restless populace as they attempt to evade the law. In a journey that becomes a rollicking madcap adventure, the two travel round England, encountering revolution, romance, and a cast of memorable characters.

G. K. Chesterton was one of the most beloved and prolific authors of the twentieth century. He wrote dozens of popular books on a variety of topics and thousands of essays. His works include Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, The Man Who Was Thursday, and the Father Brown mystery stories.

"The Flying Inn is the most rambunctious of Chesterton's novels, a rollicking ramble through the heart of merry England, in which our intrepid heroes stay one step ahead of the enemies of civilization."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton

"Chesterton said The Flying Inn was one of the books he most enjoyed writing, and indeed it is a joyous romp of mirth and mayhem. But it has turned out to be shockingly prophetic as it portrays the modern world turning its back on Christian civilization, giving way to a blur of barbarism, bureaucracy, and Islam. The rich irony is that a story filled with drinking songs and a barrel of rum should be so sobering."
— Dale Ahlquist, Author, G.K Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense

"Chesterton uses the fantastical to reveal the real, and never has he done so in as prescient a way as in The Flying Inn. In fact, there is nothing too absurd in this satirical work for it not to have actually taken place recently. . . . It can be enjoyed simply at the level of a rip-roaring good yarn with some sidesplitting laughter. At a deeper level, he lays bare the corrupt mindset that subverts Western civilization in favor of a future beyond. So grab a cask of rum and draw your sword."
— Robert Reilly, from the Foreword

"When I was young I thought reading books for pleasure was not possible. Then I happened upon Chesterton's The Flying Inn. I could not put the book down, and as soon as I had finished, I turned to page one and began again. Humphry and Patrick and their madcap adventures made a reader out of me, and I've been grateful to them and to G.K. Chesterton ever since."
— John Peterson, Editor, Father Brown and the Ten Commandments

Biography of Michael O’Brien details a creative life full of joys and sorrows

At Catholic World Report:

Over the past century, most Western countries have produced great Catholic fiction writers. The UK may rightly pride itself on Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the U.S. on Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor, France on Georges Bernanos and Paul Claudel, Italy on Eugenio Corti, and so forth. Canada appeared until recently to be the unfortunate exception to this rule. But Canadians may perhaps now boast of one Catholic novelist of international repute: Michael O’Brien. At least that is the view of American philosopher Peter Kreeft, whose endorsement of On the Edge of Infinity, the first biography of O’Brien ever published, describes him as “the greatest living Catholic novelist”.

This being said, two things distinguish O’Brien from other Catholic writers. First, he is also a well-known painter, whose works, mainly icons, are found in churches all over North America. Second, his career as a fiction writer was made possible thanks to a relatively small U.S. publisher who, in 1996, readily accepted to publish what became his best-known novel, Father Elijah. The book had previously been rejected by a slew of Canadian publishers for whom his work reflected a worldview of little interest to the reading public. This worldview, of course, was orthodox Catholicism. Readers of Canadian fiction are thus indebted to San Francisco-based Ignatius Press for having put O’Brien on the world literary map. His novels are now available in 12 languages and are better known in the U.S. and various European countries than in his home country. For example, Father Elijah sold more copies in the Czech Republic and in Croatia than in Canada. In Croatia, the novel even became an instant bestseller when it was published in 2002.

Best known for his series of ten apocalyptic novels collectively titled Children of the Last Days, O’Brien has also written several other books and essays, many of which have been published by Justin Press, a relatively young Canadian publishing house focusing on works of Catholic culture and apologetics.

Clemens Cavallin’s biography tells three stories, that of a painter of religious art, that of a Catholic novelist and that of a husband and father of six children constantly trying to make ends meet. But there is a common thread running through these stories, and it is that of a Christian artist seeking to illustrate the beauty and love of God in a world that has largely chosen to reject Him. As Cavallin points out, the creativity of Michael O’Brien is founded on “his intense, mystical relation to God”. His spirituality, family life, art and imagination should not be seen as separate compartments, as they spring and are nourished from the same source – his Catholic faith. From the latter flow his novels, essays, paintings, family life and moral and political views. In a world marked by dissent and discord, O’Brien embodies unity of life.

Over a five-year period, Cavallin spent numerous hours and days interviewing both O’Brien and his wife, and had continuous contact with them through email.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "Father Brown and the Ten Commandments: Selected Mystery Stories"

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Father Brown and the Ten Commandments: Selected Mystery Stories

by G. K. Chesterton; edited by John Peterson

This unique collection of Father Brown mysteries links tales by G.K. Chesterton with the Ten Commandments. The connection is often surprising, however, for the criminal is not necessarily the worst sinner in the story, nor is his crime necessarily the worst offense.

When Chesterton created the character of Father Brown, he brought a new dimension to mystery stories—the distinction between crime and sin. As the priest-detective applies his powers of observation to solve a case, he picks up clues about other offenses, such as those against the Sabbath or one's parents. Father Brown's main concern is not the laws of the State but the Commandments of God.

As Dorothy Sayers once wrote, G.K. Chesterton was "the first man of our time to introduce the great name of God into a detective story . . . to enlarge the boundaries of the detective story by making it deal with death and real wickedness and real, that is to say, divine judgment."

This edition includes footnotes not available in other versions, which help to clarify the literary and historical allusions made by Father Brown. It is based on the texts of Chesterton's original editions, for assurance of authenticity, and is set in easily readable type.

G. K. Chesterton was one of the most beloved writers of the 20th century, quoted more often than any other writer. He wrote dozens of popular books on numerous topics, as well as thousands of essays. His books include Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, The Man Who Was Thursday, Father Brown Stories and many more.

"John Peterson is the world's greatest expert on Chesterton's famous priest-detective. His presentation of these particular Father Brown stories only adds to their craftiness and profundity."
— Dale Ahlquist, President, American Chesterton Society

"Chesterton wore many hats—as an apologist, a biographer, a critic, a journalist and more. For many he is best known and loved as the inventor of the incomparable Father Brown. It is, therefore, a joy to see this new vintage collection of Father Brown stories brought together by the venerable and veteran Chestertonian John Peterson."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Wisdom and Innocence: The Life of G.K. Chesterton

"This is an excellent edition of selected Father Brown stories and a fitting tribute to Chesterton's lovable sleuth and saver of souls. Using the Ten Commandments as a template, the stories are carefully annotated for the modern reader, introducing Chesterton's sparkling English wit, charm and insight to a new generation of fans."
— Fiorella De Maria, Author, The Sleeping Witness: A Father Gabriel Mystery

"Father Brown stories stand in stark contrast to twenty-first century mysteries that portray a hopelessly disordered world. For Chesterton, the world is messy because of sin, but its Creator is actively engaged in it."
— T.M. Doran, Author,Toward the Gleam

First novel in series of post –WWII murder mysteries debuts detective priest “Father Gabriel”

San Francisco, February 15, 2017 – Catholic author Fiorella de Maria is a masterful story-teller, often weaving in history – and its impact on current events – into her novels. An exciting new series of books follows this path, beginning with The Sleeping Witness: A Father Gabriel Mystery. The story opens when the tranquility of Saint Mary’s Abbey is shattered by the discovery of a gruesome crime in a cottage on the abbey grounds. A foreign artist and war hero seeking refuge from the world has been murdered. Marie Paige, the frail, sickly wife of the village doctor, lies beside him beaten into a coma.
 
The police arrest Marie’s husband, convinced that they are looking at a crime of passion. But Dr. Paige finds himself with an unlikely champion: Fr. Gabriel, a blundering but brilliant Benedictine priest who believes in his innocence and feels compelled to search for the truth.
 
In a country struggling to come to terms with the devastation of the Second World War, even a secluded English village has its share of secrets and broken lives. It is not long before Fr. Gabriel and his companions find themselves embarking on a dangerous journey into the victims’ troubled war histories and a chapter of Europe’s bloodiest conflict that is almost too terrible to be acknowledged.
 
Publishers Weekly claims, “Catholic writer De Maria deserves a wide audience.”
 
Lucy Beckett, author of A Postcard from the Volcano, says, “This exciting murder mystery set in a peaceful English village has a satisfyingly tangled story, and its uncannily perceptive detective, an aging Benedictine monk, is always one step ahead of the police.”
 
“This marvelous mystery is not a formulaic reworking of an established genre but a wonderful work of detective fiction in its own right. I hope that this lovable Benedictine detective might have many more mysteries to solve in the future. More of the same please!” says Joseph Pearce, author of Literary Converts.
 
Michael Richard, author of Tobit’s Dog, says, “De Maria’s clear and confident writing produces a ‘can’t put it down’ effect. This story will stay with you for a long time.”

Author Fiorella de Maria explains her inspiration for this book and series, “The Fr. Gabriel Mysteries are set in rural England at a time of uncertainty and austerity, as a nation struggles to rebuild following the carnage of the Second World War. For those whose lives are shattered by wars, the conflict never truly ends. The sense of loss, of dislocation, may be felt for many years. The characters Fr. Gabriel meets and the crimes they commit, are all shaped by recent events and the key to the mysteries are almost all to be found in the past.”
 
About the Author:
Fiorella de Maria was born in Italy of Maltese parents. She grew up in Wiltshire, England, and attended Cambridge, receiving a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Renaissance Literature. She lives in Surrey with her husband and four children.  A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, she has published three other novels with Ignatius Press: Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm and We’ll Never Tell Them.
 
Fiorella de Maria, the author of The Sleeping Witness, is available for interviews. To request a review copy or an interview with Fiorella de Maria, please contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]

New: "The Sleeping Witness: A Father Gabriel Mystery" by Fiorella De Maria

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Sleeping Witness: A Father Gabriel Mystery

by Fiorella De Maria

In this unusual murder mystery, the tranquility of Saint Mary's Abbey is shattered by the discovery of a gruesome crime in a cottage on the abbey grounds. A foreign artist and war hero seeking refuge from the world has been murdered. Marie Paige, the frail, sickly wife of the village doctor, lies beside him beaten into a coma.

The police arrest Marie's husband, convinced that they are looking at a crime of passion. But Dr. Paige finds himself with an unlikely champion: Fr. Gabriel, a blundering but brilliant Benedictine priest who believes in his innocence and feels compelled to search for the truth.

In a country struggling to come to terms with the devastation of the Second World War, even a secluded English village has its share of secrets and broken lives. It is not long before Fr. Gabriel and his companions find themselves embarking on a dangerous journey into the victims' troubled war histories and a chapter of Europe's bloodiest conflict that is almost too terrible to be acknowledged.

Fiorella De Maria was born in Italy of Maltese parents. She grew up in Wiltshire, England, and attended Cambridge, receiving a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Renaissance Literature. She lives in Surrey with her husband and four children.  A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, she has published three other novels with Ignatius Press: Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm and We'll Never Tell Them.

"Catholic writer De Maria deserves a wide audience."
— Publishers Weekly

"This exciting murder mystery set in a peaceful English village has a satisfyingly tangled story, and its uncannily perceptive detective, an aging Benedictine monk, is always one step ahead of the police."
— Lucy Beckett, Author,  A Postcard from the Volcano

"This marvelous mystery is not a formulaic reworking of an established genre but a wonderful work of detective fiction in its own right. I hope that this lovable Benedictine detective might have many more mysteries to solve in the future. More of the same please!"
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Literary Converts

"De Maria's clear and confident writing produces a 'can’t put it down' effect. This story will stay with you for a long time."
— Michael Richard, Author, Tobit’' Dog

New: "General Escobar's War: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War" by José Luis Olaizola

Now available from Ignatius Press:

General Escobar's War: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War

by José Luis Olaizola

Appearing here in English translation for the first time, General Escobar's War won Spain's prestigious Planeta Prize for fiction. The historical novel takes the form of an imagined diary by General Antonio Escobar, the highest-ranking officer of the Republican Army remaining in Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War, while he awaited trial and execution.

Besides being a vivid reminder of how destructive political passions can be, General Escobar's War is also a profoundly intimate portrait of an inspiring man. By his decisive action on July 19, 1936, Escobar, then a Civil Guard colonel and a man of profound religious conviction, succeeded in thwarting the military uprising in Barcelona.

Although his father was a hero of the Spanish-American War in Cuba, his daughter was a nun, and one of his sons was a Falangist fighter, Escobar freely chose to defend the Republic in accordance with his oath to support the legally constituted government.

The author gives a rare perspective of the Spanish Civil War, free of partisanship and ideology, through a soldier who, in Spain's great historic schism, chose to take a deeply uncomfortable stance because he believed his duty called him to do so.

José Luis Olaizola is an award-winning Spanish author of more than 70 books. He is known throughout the Spanish-speaking world for his works on great historical figures such as El Cid, Hernán Cortés, and Bartolomé de las Casas. Fire of Love, his novel about Saint John of the Cross, is also published by Ignatius Press.

"A wonderful book that explores the experience of a brave and honorable soldier, a faithful Catholic. His true story, here fluently translated, is told with moving sensitivity and an admirable lightness of touch."
— Lucy Beckett, Author, Postcard from the Volcano, and winner of the Aquinas Award for Fiction

"Many books are called 'brave' without cause, but this one is the genuine article-a truly courageous and insightful work. The reader is forced to consider the heartbreaking choices faced by anyone who has lived to see his country so cruelly divided."
— Fiorella De Maria , Author, We'll Never Tell Them

"Like all good historical fiction, this novel brings the past to graphic and disturbing light. It also shows the dignity of the human person in the midst of the ugliness of war."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton

"The fatalistic first person narrative is haunted by Escobar's resigned courage as he clings to his honor and his faith in a time when both were dangerous."
— Michael Richard, Author, Tobit's Dog

Michael O’Brien to receive Aquinas Award for Fiction

by John Herreid | IPNovels.com

The 2016 Aquinas Award for Fiction will be given to Michael D. O’Brien for his novel Elijah in Jerusalem at Aquinas College’s Second Annual Tolkien & Lewis Celebration in Nashville, Tennessee. Joseph Pearce, the acclaimed literary biographer and director of the Center for Faith and Culture, will present the award to Mr. O’Brien, who will be at the event to accept.

The Aquinas Award for Fiction is judged by a panel of five judges appointed by Mr. Pearce. Last year’s award went to Ignatius Press author Lucy Beckett for her historical novel The Leaves are Falling.

“I was looking for ways in which the Center could serve as a catalyst for a new Catholic literary revival. It seemed that launching the Aquinas Award for Fiction would serve in this way as a means of encouraging Catholic novelists and their publishers,” explained Joseph Pearce in an interview with Ignatius Press Novels last year.

Apart from the presentation of the Aquinas Award for Fiction, the Second Annual Tolkien & Lewis Celebration will include talks and presentations from authors such as Joseph Pearce, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Michael Ward, Devin Brown, and Hal Poe, and a performance by Kevin O’Brien and the Theatre of the Word.

The event takes place at Aquinas College in Nashville on Saturday, September 17, 2016.

To learn more or RSVP for the event, click here.

New from Ignatius Press: E-book of "Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ"

Now available from Ignatius Press as an Electronic Book Download:

Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ

by Lewis Wallace

With Introduction by Mark Brumley

Ben-Hur is the classic, best-selling book behind the many famous film versions.  The author, Lew Wallace, created a literary biblical epic in this exciting and inspirational story of friendship betrayed, revenge, and, ultimately forgiveness and redemption.

Subtitled "A Tale of the Christ", Ben-Hur is the story of the fictional main character's life encounter Jesus of Nazareth. Wrongly condemned for attempted assasination and sedition, the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur is betrayed by his erstwhile childhood Roman friend, Messala, and is sentenced to the galleys while his family is cruely imprisoned. 

A providential turn of events brings Ben-Hur to a fierce chariot race with Messala and, ultimately, back to Jerusalem, during the ministry of Jesus.  Ben-Hur's faith in Jesus as the Messiah is challenged by his crucifixion at the hands of both the Romans and Jewish authorities. But neither Ben-Hur's story nor Jesus' story ends there.  

Bibliography included.

Coming soon from Michael O'Brien: "The Fool of New York City: A Novel"

 Available now for pre-order from Ignatius Press:

The Fool of New York City: A Novel

by Michael O'Brien

Set in present day Manhattan, The Fool of New York City is the tale of two souls who are considered to be "fools" and "idiots" in the eyes of most people they encounter.

One is a literal giant, the other an amnesiac who believes he is the 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, hundreds of years old, aging more slowly than the rest of the human race. Billy the giant has also briefly suffered from amnesia years ago, and he understands the anguish of those who have lost their identity. He is an apparently simple person, a failed basketball player with an enormous good heart who takes Francisco under his wing after they meet through a seeming coincidence. Together they undertake a laborious search to discover Francisco's true past.

The trail leads them to numerous adventures, into the shrouded realm of hidden memories, the ironies and complexities of human character and destiny, of catastrophic evil and of redemption. It is a journey into the mysterious dimensions of the mind. It is about trauma and remembrance in America.

Michael D. O'Brien, iconographer, painter, and writer, is the popular author of many best-selling novels including Father Elijah, Elijah in Jerusalem, The Father's Tale, Eclipse of the Sun, Sophia House, Theophilos, and Island of the World. His novels have been translated into twelve languages and widely reviewed in both secular and religious media in North America and Europe.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Dan Brown dumbs down an already dumb novel

by Carl E. Olson | The Dispatch at Catholic World Report

The best-selling novelist, who has made a fortune out of writing pseudo-history for pseudo-readers, wants to spread "the joys of history". Right.

I confess to having a love/hate relationship with Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. On one hand, I love bashi—er, critiquing it. On the other hand, I hate saying the same things over and over about one of the best-selling, boring, and banal books of all time. As many readers know, I co-authored (with Sandra Miesel) The Da Vinci Hoax back in 2004. At the time, some folks—including not a few Catholics—thought that taking a novel (a novel!) seriously as a pulpy swipe at Christian belief and Church history was simply stupid.

Sandra and I disagreed with that perspective for three basic reasons. First, Brown pointedly and aggressively promoted his book as a historically accurate work that was (he claimed) based on endless hours of research, study, and travel. Secondly, an astounding number of critics and writers took Brown and the novel seriously as a work of alternative history, even lauding it in glowing terms usually reserved for actual works of scholarship. Third, most fans of the novel were enamored, first and foremost, with the historical claims and conspiracy theories posited in the novel, and they were tossing them about as if they had discovered the Holy Grail of Suppressed Historical Knowledge.

This phenomenon was addressed, of course, in our book, and I later write an essay "The 'It's Just Fiction!' Doctrine: Reading Too Little Into The Da Vinci Code" in which I stated:

If the Code, as "just fiction," is merely entertaining, we should ask: How and why do people find it entertaining? In what way, for example, is it entertaining to think that Jesus was married and that the Catholic Church is a violent, nasty, woman-hating institution? If it's because you enjoy the possibility of that being the case, we are back to the question of historical and theological truth. If it's because you enjoy asking "What if?", we are again back to the question of historical and theological truth.

It is, then, a matter of truth. Is truth revealed or defiled in the Code? Since these questions are so important and since twenty-five million copies of the Code have been sold, is it not reasonable to examine the historical and theological claims, questions, and issues contained within the Code? Is it really so ridiculous, or unfair, or unprecedented to critique the style and substance of a novel that makes bold claims–and has so obviously influence many readers?

All of this to preface the news that Brown will soon be releasing a new edition of The Da Vinci Code that is aimed at young adults. Publisher's Weekly reports:

The Da Vinci Code (Young Adult Adaptation) will feature a new cover design and be abridged in length from the original. It will nonetheless, the publisher said, "maintain Brown’s original plot."

A YA edition of the novel is a project that Brown has wanted to do for sometime. Brown, whose parents were teachers and who believes he himself would have been an educator had he not become an author, said his goal with the YA edition is to inspire younger readers about the joys of history. "It is my sincere hope that this adaptation of The Da Vinci Code sparks in young adults the same thrill of discovery that I feel while exploring hidden history and the mysteries of the world we live in.” The changes planned for the new edition will be aimed at making The Da Vinci Code more appropriate for readers in their early teens.

Ah, yes, the "joys of history." Never mind that Brown's most famous novel—which has apparently sold over 80 millions copies so far—is about as historically sound and meaningful as a Disney movie about Peter Pan. No, it based on a scrambled and incoherent mashing together of conspiracy theories yanked from Holy Blood, Holy Grail (to the degree that Brown was sued by the authors of that book), the additional wing-nut theories posited by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, authors of The Templar Revelation (who acknowledge their own debt to Holy Blood, Holy Grail), and the whacky New Age, feminist notions spun into the cosmos by a former Catholic catechist named Margaret Starbird. And, as I noted in a 2006 essay, Starbird herself was a disciple of the Holy Blood, Holy Grail nuttiness:

Starbird admits that she turned her back on orthodox Catholic teachings after reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the 1980s: "The more deeply involved I became with the material, the more obvious it became that there was real substance in the theories set for in reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And gradually I found myself won over to the central tenets of the Grail heresy, the very theory I had originally set out to discredit"...

No, this is simply about money and promoting (as PW notes) "the October 28 release of the movie adaptation of the fourth book in Brown's series featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno." 

That said, the reaction to this news has been interesting.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Reading Flannery O’Connor for the First Time

Reading Flannery O’Connor for the First Time | Dr. Kelly Scott Franklin | CWR

She gleefully maimed and killed off her characters in a million disturbing ways—and she was a devout, daily mass Catholic who read St. Thomas Aquinas in her spare time and made a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Reading Flannery O’Connor requires a stout heart and a strong stomach.

In her short life before she died of terminal lupus, she wrote two novels and roughly two dozen short stories that continue to shock and unsettle us. With a wicked pen, she gleefully maims and kills off her characters in a million disturbing ways: they get drowned, hanged, run over by cars (twice in a row), wrapped in barbed wire and beaten to death. Her characters are prostitutes, pedophiles, arsonists, murderers, nihilists, and (worst of all for O'Connor), salesmen. But if you read her biography, she’s practically the patron saint of Catholic fiction: a devout, daily mass Catholic who read St. Thomas Aquinas in her spare time, and made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.

As readers, we wonder, “Is there something I’m missing?” How should we read O’Connor’s writing, and where is her faith in the pages of such brutal fiction?

Readers of O’Connor will notice that most of her stories follow one basic Biblical narrative: St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Again and again, she depicts an event of searing violence in which divine grace shocks a hard-hearted, wicked, or selfish person into a moment of recognition. In this terrible moment O’Connor offers her characters a choice, a flash of self-knowledge, and an encounter with God that utterly burns away their illusions.

O’Connor does this best in one of my favorite tales, titled “Good Country People,” where she tells the story of Hulga, a nihilist with a Ph.D. in philosophy and a wooden leg.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The Image of Man Has Been Raised Up: On the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

"The Ascension" (1305) by Giotto [WikiArt.org]

by Carl E. Olson 

"You ascended into glory, O Christ our God, and You delighted the disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Through this blessing, they were assured that You are the Son of God, the Redeemer of the World."
—Troparion for the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ 

"Christ's Ascension is therefore not a spectacle for the disciples but an event into which they themselves are included. It is a sursum corda, a movement toward the above into which we are all called. It tells us that man can live toward the above, that he is capable of attaining heights. More: the altitude that alone is suited to the dimensions of being human is the altitude of God himself. Man can live at this height, and only from this height do we properly understand him. The image of man has been raised up, but we have the freedom to tear it down or to let ourselves be raised." 
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, from Images of Hope: Meditations On Major Feasts (Ignatius Press, 2006) 

Readings: 
• Acts 1:1-11
• Psa. 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9
• Eph. 1:17-23 or Heb. 9:24-28; 10:19-23
• Lk 24:46-53

"As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven." (Lk 24:51)

With these simple, matter-of-fact words, Luke describes the Ascension of Jesus, expressed even more concisely in the Creed: "He ascended into heaven." This event is so important for Luke that the Acts of the Apostles opens with a description of the same event. As the disciples looked on, Luke records, Jesus "was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight" (Acts 1:9). Mark's account, heard today, is equally direct and succinct: "So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God" (Mk. 16:19).

This dramatic moment has been celebrated in the Church on the fortieth day after Easter since the earliest centuries. Some of the Church Fathers, including Augustine, said that the feast had been observed since the time of the apostles, although the earliest evidence of its celebration dates to the fifth century. In the Latin Rite in the United States the Feast of the Ascension is one of six solemnities, the others being the solemnities of Mary, Mother of God (January 1); the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15); All Saints (November 1), the Immaculate Conception (December 8), and the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ (December 25). 

Despite being a solemnity and a holy day of obligation, the Feast of the Ascension is sometimes completely overlooked or not given much attention. Ask Catholics what is the significance of the Feast and answers aren't always immediate. The rather mysterious nature of the Feast is heightened in some ecclesiastical provinces by its transference from the sixth Thursday of Easter to the following Sunday. In a way, the Solemnity bears a resemblance to the sacrament of Confirmation, the exact meaning of which is not always understood well and suffers for not being more clearly explained and comprehended. 

This occasional murkiness is unfortunate because the Ascension is such a joyful event in the work and life of Jesus Christ, as well as being a vital reality in the ongoing life and mission of the Church. To appreciate this joy and vitality we should keep in mind what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states about the liturgical calendar: The Church, "in the course of the year, . . . unfolds the whole mystery of Christ from his Incarnation and Nativity through his Ascension, to Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord" (CCC, 1194).

Hinted at here are revealing parallels between the Incarnation and the Ascension and between the Nativity and Pentecost. In the Incarnation the eternal Son of God took on human nature in order to save mankind. By the power of the Holy Spirit, divinity and humanity were united in one Person; the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14) and lowered Himself to the level of dust and death. The Nativity is the physical, outward revelation of this reality: the Christ Child is born and history and the world are never the same.

At the Ascension the crucified, risen Son of God returns to His Father. Having descended to dusty earth, He now returns to heavenly glory. Having conquered death, He ascends to eternal life. But He returns to the right hand of the Father not just as the Word, but as the Incarnate Word. The doors of heaven are now open and humanity can now approach the throne room of God, the way having been paved by the life, death, and resurrection of the God-man. Pentecost, finally, is the manifestation of the God-man's Church, which is both human and divine. The Church was revealed to the world on that day—fifty days after Easter—by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this theology is nice enough, but what does it mean for us? It means the Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of salvation won. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "in the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, the taking up, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory Christ completed the work of our redemption." The tendency is often to think of the Resurrection as the culmination of Jesus' salvific work, but it is the Ascension that places the final stamp of approval on the sacrificial and victorious work of our Savior. This is beautifully expressed in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens ... (Eph. 1:17-20).

Now that the Incarnate Son of God has ascended into heaven and sits in the throne room of God, mankind can follow. United to the Son through baptism and deepening communion with Him through reception of the Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments, the hope of heaven is ours. 

"The ascension of Christ is our elevation," declared Leo the Great in a sermon on the Ascension, "Hope for the body is also invited where the glory of the Head preceded us. Let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we not only are established as possessors of paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ." Where the sin of the first Adam closed the gates of Paradise, the righteousness of the new Adam has opened them wide. 

Jesus promised His disciples that He would prepare a place for them (Jn. 14). Because of the Ascension, we know He has prepared a place for those who are His. Because of the Ascension, we have the hope of His return and of our future passage into glory. "The Ascension, then," Pope John Paul II explained in May 2000, "is a Trinitarian epiphany which indicates the goal to which personal and universal history is hastening. Even if our mortal body dissolves into the dust of the earth, our whole redeemed self is directed on high to God, following Christ as our guide."

Our Guide has come, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Let us celebrate the Feast!

(This article was originally published in 2004 in Our Sunday Visitor in a slightly different form.)

New Ignatius Press novel Barely a Crime “is what all first-rate thrillers should be...."

"... terrifying, fast-paced and impossible to put down”
 
San Francisco, March 29, 2016 – In this new gripping thriller by novelist Robert Ovies, Barely a Crime, two men from the Northern Irish underworld are recruited by an enigmatic stranger for a shadowy operation. Promising to make them very rich without involving them in theft or murder, the job seems too good to be true; in fact, it seems to be barely a crime.
 
When Crawl and Kieran discover the identity of the man who has hired them for the break-in of the century, they realize they might be involving themselves in a high-stakes technological breakthrough, leading them to devise a scheme for demanding a bigger payout. As the law of unintended consequences kicks in, so do life-and-death consequences, not only for themselves, not only for many others, but for the whole world.
 
When asked if the novel addressed any particularly significant contemporary issue, author Robert Ovies answered, “If Barely a Crime has a moral, I’d vote for: ‘Trying to play God is a dangerous, dangerous game.’”
 
Piers Paul Read, author of The Death of a Pope, says, “Based on an intriguing premise, Barely a Crime holds the reader from start to finish.”

“Ovies paints a disturbingly compelling snapshot of a criminal underworld. With a strong narrative replete with startling twists and turns, a taut plot and believable characters, Barely a Crime is what all first-rate thrillers should be: terrifying, fast-paced and impossible to put down,” explains Fiorella de Maria, author of Do No Harm.
 
Lucy Beckett, author of A Postcard from the Volcano, says, “Robert Ovies is an excellent thriller writer. Barely a Crime moves at a cracking pace, has a complicated and ingenious plot and sustains tension through some hair-raising scenes. A gripping read, with a thoroughly scary scientific fantasy at its core.”

“Barely a Crime is Christ-haunted in the same manner that the novels and stories of Flannery O'Connor are, and it is a gripping and cliff-hanging story, glowing with doom-laden gravitas in the gloom of sin and prideful passion,” says Joseph Pearce, author of Catholic Literary Giants.
 
“From the very beginning this book will grab you by the lapel and drag you into a story of thrilling mystery, madness and thought-provoking grace. It weaves a tale of incremental depravity and redemption with characters who struggle to escape the impetus of their wounded past, and the fears, doubts and latent anger that has come to define them,” says Michael Richards, author of Tobit’s Dog.
 
About the Author:
Robert Ovies, a former advertising executive, is a Catholic deacon. He has a master’s in social work, and with his wife he served as a mission worker on Arizona’s Navajo Reservation. For ten years, they were live-in directors of a communal halfway house in the Detroit area. His first novel was The Rising.
 
Robert Ovies, the author of Barely a Crime, is available for interviews about this book.

To request a review copy or an interview with Robert Ovies, please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]
 
Product Facts:
Title: BARELY A CRIME
A Novel
Editor: Robert Ovies
Release Date: March 2016
Length: 222 pages
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-62164-089-9 • Softcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com

Read the first chapter of "Barely a Crime: A Novel"

Read the first chapters of the novel Barely a Crime by Robert Ovies. If you like what you’re reading, visit the novel’s page to learn more or order!

PROLOGUE

Kieran Lynch was born in a pine bed in his parents’ lower flat in West Belfast, Ireland, on a night that was, for the middle of summer, unusually cold.

His mother, Maureen, cried and laughed out loud when she saw her new son wailing in the Widow Shea’s fat hands, free of his umbilical cord and his purple coloring, his hair already as black as pitch.

Kieran’s father, who was called Thomas rather than Tom and who had stayed downstairs in the kitchen with Kieran’s four-year-old sister, Colleen, let out a whoop at the sound of his firstborn son crying and his wife laughing. With little Colleen bouncing in his arms, he danced like the sailor he had been for more than ten of his forty-seven years, wheeling in tight little circles toward the stairs leading to the upstairs bedroom, where he knew that everything was surely better than fine.

A sharp knock at the back door interrupted his dance and his momentum; a knock at the back door meant friends or relatives, for sure.

Thomas hesitated, undecided about the moment’s highest priority.

A second knock sounded as the Widow Shea rushed red-faced and beaming down the stairs and fairly shouted to the proud new father, “Well, for heaven’s sake, you’d better come see your own handsome son, man!” She rushed to gather up Colleen as Thomas’ wife called his name from upstairs and laughed out loud again, bright as a bell.

But the knock sounded again, this time more insistent than before, so Thomas exclaimed, “God’s breath. This’d better be good!” and took four quick steps to open the door.

Continue reading at IPNovels.com.

Addicted to Escape: A Review of Tim Power's "Medusa's Web"

Addicted to Escape: A Review of Tim Power's Medusa's Web | John Herreid | CWR's The Dispatch

Powers' new novel is a heady mix of Hollywood ghost story—describing long-lost neighborhoods and places as well as people—and an inventive revisionist take on familiar myths.

Fear is underrated by most people. Fearlessness is what gets lauded. But fear is an essential part of a healthy perspective on life. If we don't fear a hot stove, we may get burned; if we don't fear wild animals, we may end up like one of those sentimental wilderness lovers eaten by Alaskan bears.

But nowhere is fear more absent these days than in regard to spirituality. Current writers and filmmakers (with rare exceptions) depict demonic and occult themes as being fascinating topics for fiction, but with no bearing on reality. This means that many of their efforts come off as curiously lightweight, if not dangerously blasé. But apart from the seriousness of evil on a moral plane, this lack of regard for spiritual danger results in works that are often artistically inert.

This is what makes the works of Tim Powers stand out. As a believing Catholic, his fiction straddles the eerie line between the real and unreal. Most of his books involve the occult, and the message is always the same: here be dragons. Do not touch. In Powers’ novels the unknown chaos of the occult may be seductive at first, but it always exacts a price, and often consumes what is human about those who are attracted to it.

His newest novel, Medusa’s Web, is a heady mix of Hollywood ghost story—describing long-lost neighborhoods and places as well as people—and an inventive revisionist take on familiar myths. Powers’ historical research is, as always, impeccable. As when I’ve read his other books, I occasionally came across some factoid or another that seemed just too far-fetched. “Oh come on, Powers is making stuff up now,” I think, and pull up the web to search for the incident—which invariably really happened.

Powers is known for this. In constructing his novels, he becomes a human Wikipedia: stumbling across some interesting incident or person from history and then cross-referencing it with other events and people.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "Barely a Crime: A Novel" by Robert Ovies

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Barely a Crime: A Novel

by Robert Ovies

In this gripping thriller, two men from the Northern Irish underworld are recruited by an enigmatic stranger for a shadowy operation. Promising to make them very rich without involving them in theft or murder, the job seems too good to be true; in fact, it seems to be barely a crime.

When Crawl and Kieran discover the identity of the man who has hired them for the break-in of the century, they realize they might be involving themselves in a high-stakes technological breakthrough. And they devise a scheme for demanding a bigger payout. As the law of unintended consequences kicks in, so do life-and-death consequences, not only for themselves, not only for many others, but for the whole world.

Robert Ovies, a former advertising executive, is a Catholic deacon. He has a master's in social work, and with his wife he served as a mission worker on Arizona's Navajo Reservation. For ten years, they were live-in directors of a communal halfway house in the Detroit area. His first novel was The Rising.

"Based on an intriguing premise, Barely a Crime holds the reader from start to finish."
— Piers Paul Read, Author, The Death of a Pope

"Ovies paints a disturbingly compelling snapshot of a criminal underworld. With a strong narrative replete with startling twists and turns, a taut plot and believable characters, Barely a Crime is what all first-rate thrillers should be: terrifying, fast-paced and impossible to put down."
— Fiorella de Maria, Author, Do No Harm

"Robert Ovies is an excellent thriller writer. Barely a Crime moves at a cracking pace, has a complicated and ingenious plot and sustains tension through some hair-raising scenes. A gripping read, with a thoroughly scary scientific fantasy at its core."
— Lucy Beckett, Author, A Postcard from the Volcano

"Barely a Crime is Christ-haunted in the same manner that the novels and stories of Flannery O'Connor are, and it is a gripping and cliff-hanging story, glowing with doom-laden gravitas in the gloom of sin and prideful passion."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Catholic Literary Giants

"From the very beginning this book will grab you by the lapel and drag you into a story of thrilling mystery, madness and thought-provoking grace. It weaves a tale of incremental depravity and redemption with characters who struggle to escape the impetus of their wounded past, and the fears, doubts and latent anger that has come to define them."
— Michael Richards, Author, Tobit's Dog

 

The Catholic Novelist As Peddler in Bleak Midwinter

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.

—T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi

Outside the church after Mass, beyond perfunctory handshakes, breaths can be seen in the chill Advent air. Wintry Minnesota weather becomes sequel to empty pews and creaky heating systems. To love and serve the Lord distorts into straight-lipped disputes in café and tavern, wherever people gather and where people mumble to themselves.

This is a far cry from my boyhood hometown where Protestant and Catholic kids would throw snowballs at each other from church lawns across the street. Their parents gathered by parked cars teasing each other about who had slept through the longer sermon. A kind of ecumenism flourished long before Vatican II; it was in small town America before Pope John arrived there.

For today’s writer of novels with Catholic content, refuge may be found in a distant past and a faraway time and place, but almost nowhere close to home. Anti-Catholicism lurking in byways and ever present, matters less than Catholic against Catholic fire fights in an internal ‘holy war’ complicated by Church politics, Church scandals, and laity side-taking.  At home there is nowhere to hide, and little in the way of middle ground.

Woe to any author standing between, attempting to douse the flames on his book’s cover.

This holds enormous implications for writers of Catholic novels in a clogged book market seeming to have many more books than readers. Only Shakespeare is said to have succeeded in pleasing almost everyone, from rabble on the Globe Theater floor to the privileged aristocrats in the galleries in all seasons of climate and spirited soul-searching.

Shakespeare was enormously successful in complex, deeply divided times, much of it having to do with religion. Fellow dramatic genius, Kit Marlowe is a better example of what can happen—possibly assassinated amid webs of intrigue, stabbed in the eye in a tavern brawl, so the story goes.

Standing outside after Mass, I glance at my wife for reassurance somewhere between presumption and despair. Was I an idiot to write this novel in times like these? Is my Everywhere in Chains Macbeth’s tale told by an idiot signifying nothing? Have we come here to explain the inexplicable?

Continue reading at IPNovels.com.

Top posts! Top sellers! An Ignatius Press Novels Review of 2015

2015 is almost over, and it’s time to look back over the past year in novels and in posts here at the Novel Thoughts blog. First off, here’s a list of the top-selling novels from the year:

1. Elijah in Jerusalem: The long-awaited sequel to Father Elijah takes the top spot this year.
2. Joan of Arc: The classic novel by Mark Twain remains a favorite among our readers.
3. Father Elijah: The first novel by Michael O’Brien remains in the top ten!
4. Dear and Glorious Physician: Taylor Caldwell’s novel on the life of Saint Luke.
5. Ida Elisabeth: Sigrid Undset’s insightful novel saw a boost in sales this year.
6. Island of the World: Michael O’Brien’s epic novel set in the Balkans.
7. Tobit’s Dog: Michael N. Richards’ retelling of the Book of Tobit, set in the Depression-era south.
8. Song of Bernadette: Franz Werfel’s classic novel was the basis of the famous film.
9. The Spear: Louis de Wohl’s novel about Saint Longinus.
10. We’ll Never Tell Them: The latest novel by Fiorella De Maria is a must-read!

In the Ignatius Critical Editions, which feature classic works of literature along with insightful essays, the top-selling five novels were:

Continue reading at IPNovels.com.

A Deeper Vision: Catholicism and the Past Century

A Deeper Vision: Catholicism and the Past Century | Robert Royal | CWR

Most people – even most Catholics – don’t realize it, but the twentieth century, or at least the first two-thirds of it, were a kind of golden age for Catholic intellectual and cultural life.

In the summer of 1901, Jacques Maritain (who would go on to become the most influential Catholic philosopher of the twentieth century) and his future wife Raïssa Oumançoff (a Jewish refugee from Russia, later a notable mystic and poet) were walking together in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. They were both studying science at the Sorbonne, and the scientific vision of materialism then dominant seemed so cold and superficial to them that they decided, if they couldn’t find something better and deeper to live for, to die together by committing suicide. In short order, they both discovered Catholicism, and the rest is history.

Many people, great and small, over the last 100 years and more have found in Catholicism an answer to life-or-death questions. By the second half of the twentieth century, it even became a kind of joke. Muriel Spark (another convert) describes a desperate character in her 1963 novel The Girls of Slender Means who could “never make up his mind between suicide and an equally drastic course of action known as Father D’Arcy.” (Father Martin D’Arcy S. J. was a real-life priest at Farm Street Church in London who had guided Evelyn Waugh, and many other prominent English men and women into the Church.) Spark even claimed that it was not until she became a Catholic that she could see life whole and, therefore, could be a novelist.

Catholicism, of course, must be a faith for all God’s people, the ordinary and humble, as well the gifted and prominent. It cannot solely be a faith for philosophers, theologians, scripture scholars, historians, or obvious saints. Some people have consequently come to believe that all this intellectual ferment, the interplay of faith and reason that has always been a unique feature of Catholicity, is really unnecessary. As if, like evangelicals, all we need is our “personal relationship with Jesus.” That relationship is, of course, crucial. And it’s a good principle, even found in the early pages of Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, that few people have the gifts, time, or inclination to do serious theology or philosophy. It’s enough if those to whom God has given the responsibility are capable of doing it.

But we should also keep in mind a certain image. Pope Francis has said, with great resonance around the world, that the Church is a kind of “field hospital.” The world is always pretty much a bloody mess in which one of the first tasks is just to stanch the bleeding and keep people from perishing. This is helpful if it’s rightly understood, harmful wrongly understood. As the pope has said on other occasions, there’s a kind of buonismo – roughly “goody-goodyism” – sometimes among Catholics, who pretend that everything is fine when we’ve just covered up, not really treated, wounds. We might take this a step further: without deep and steady Catholic knowledge, we may become like a doctor with a good bedside manner, but who doesn’t have technical medical knowledge. When you’re sick in bed, he can hold your hand and speak comforting words, but, if he doesn’t also know real medicine, can’t really cure what ails you.

Most people – even most Catholics – don’t realize it, but the twentieth century, or at least the first two-thirds of it, were a kind of golden age for Catholic intellectual and cultural life. In philosophy, theology, scripture studies, culture, literature, and music, Catholics produced some of the most remarkable work across a wide variety of fields as they have in virtually any age in the two millennia of the Church’s existence. That now forgotten fertility is the subject of my most recent book: A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, just published by Ignatius Press.

The title, slightly reworked for the publisher’s purposes, is drawn from the concluding lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ great sonnet “God’s Grandeur”:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"Apocalyptic Fiction": An interview with novelist Michael O'Brien

Apocalyptic Fiction | Rose Trabbic | IPNovels.com

An interview with Michael D. O’Brien about his new novel, Elijah in Jerusalem, the sequel to his 1996 debut novel, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

Michael D. O’Brien is a best-selling novelist, an insightful social critic, and an acclaimed painter. In 1996 Ignatius Press published his debut novel, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse, a powerful story of a Carmelite priest’s confrontation with the Antichrist. Since then, Ignatius has published ten more of his novels. His writing has been compared to Dostoevsky by Peter Kreeft, and has been praised by the late Sheldon Vanauken, who said of Father Elijah: “I’ve read thousands of books, and this is one of the great ones. I hope tens of thousands read it, and are shaken as I have been.”

It has been nearly twenty years since the publication of Father Elijah. It’s now that we return to the story of Elijah Schäfer: priest, Holocaust survivor, and witness to the end times. Rose Trabbic interviewed Michael O’Brien about the new novel Elijah in Jerusalem for the Ignatius Press Novels blog.

In the preface to Elijah in Jerusalem you wrote, “To presume that we have received in advance a precise decryption of the symbolic prophecies in the book of Revelation – a route map or survivalist manual, as it were – is to weaken our faculty of discernment and our openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the angels.”  Why did you feel the need to write this warning in the preface?

O’Brien: World-angst is in the very atmosphere we breathe daily. The apocalyptic sense saturates the consciousness, and subconscious, of contemporary mankind. It manifests in a variety of ways, for example in the tsunami of disaster films and also in the neo-horror films which corrupt the meaning of the supernatural. It’s also visible in the proliferation of people claiming to be mouth-pieces for God. My purpose in writing a cautionary introduction to the novel was mainly to warn believing Christians against this particularly dangerous form of apocalypticism. Because my novel deals with apocalyptic themes in an imaginative way, I did not want any readers treating the story as a kind of “prophetic” foretelling of the future, adding it to the thousand voices proclaiming wildly diverse scenarios of the future.

Do you reject private revelation?

O’Brien: No, I surely do not. However, I maintain that in this field of the spiritual life we must always exercise particularly careful discernment. While I respect private revelation that is tested and approved by legitimate religious authority, I am concerned about the way many deeply devout people have fallen into a kind of neo-gnostic consumption of the locutions of seers and visionaries, indiscriminately, and to the degree that it becomes an insatiable appetite. All too easily this leads to displacing the Gospels and the teachings of the Church with a pseudo-Gospel, an End-Times Gospel. In my novel, both authentic and false private revelations play a role; the authentic consoles and strengthens God’s servants, the false sows confusion among the most devout of the Lord’s followers. Both are indeed present in our times—at the very moment in history when we need to be most united in our resistance to evil.

In Elijah in Jerusalem, the Antichrist emerges as the world leader, and Father Elijah is sent to rebuke him and call him to repentance. One of the Antichrist’s important platforms is to erase all differences with religions so that there will be peace. Why is this a dangerous and false illusion?

Continue reading at IPNovels.com.