Poems Every Catholic Should Know

by Joseph Pearce

Carefully curated and beautifully bound. An uplifting gift! This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity. All of the great ones are Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier; late nineteenth-century mystics like Dickenson and Hopkins, as well the great converts of that period like Newman and Chesterton; and, T. S. Eliot speaking out of and into our own times. A conscious attempt was made to meet both the standards of academia and the tastes and sensibilities of the faithful. The selections are arranged chronologically to serve also as a history of verse. Brief biographical and anecdotal introductions reveal the varied relationships of the poets with each other and with the trials and tribulations of their day. This magnificent collection is essential for all poetry lovers for those who respond to the beauty of the written word penned in the service of spiritual truth.

Genres: Poetry, Catholic, Religion, Christianity, Fiction, Christian

303 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 1, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Joseph Pearce (born 1961) is an English-born writer, and as of 2004 Writer in Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida; previously he had a comparable position, from 2001, at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is known for a number of literary biographies, many of Catholic figures. Formerly aligned with the National Front, a white nationalist political party, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1989, repudiated his earlier views, and now writes from a Catholic perspective. He is a co-editor of the St. Austin Review and editor-in-chief of Sapientia Press.

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I am not Catholic, I appreciate good, meaty devotional poetry and decided to give this book a try. In addition to classics like "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins and sonnets by John Donne, the book contains many obscure poems. I didn't lower my rating because they were too Catholic, but because most were not readily accessible to the average reader.

I appreciated discovering poet Robert Hugh Benson. (1871-1914) Here is an excerpt from his poem "The Invitation" -

Lord take Thine ease within my heart,
Rest here and count Thyself at home;
Do as Thou wilt; rise, set, depart;
My master, not my guest, Thou art;
Come as thou wilt, but come, Lord, come.

[Rosey Fetherston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t *actually* finished this book, I’m not sure poetry books are ever finished though. In terms of the poems it is exactly what it says on the cover and I will continue to dip in and out as often as I can. Very few books inspire immediate, concrete change in your life, this one had me deactivating and deleting my social media accounts before I even finished the introduction. Genuinely inspiring.

[Peter Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of poetry and came across many, many poems that I hadn't been familiar with before. My main critique is with the title of the book which I think is mis-titled for this collection of poems. While the title is catchy and good for marketing for a homeschool/self-educated Catholic audience, a more accurate title would be "Mostly Secular Poems that would be good for Catholics to at least be aware of and somewhat familiar with" but of course that wouldn't do. My main gripe is that a collection of poems that every Catholic should know should be thoroughly grounded in (or at least least include a fair number of) the wide repertoire of liturgical poetry. Why are there no Sequences in this book? The "Dies Irae" should have a prominent place as well as the liturgical poetry of Thomas Aquinas. And liturgical hymns are completely overlooked. Longfellow's rhyming translation of the Veni Creator Spiritus is a masterpiece and is definitely a poem that Catholics should not just know but memorize. I am glad that some old "modern" hymns were included, though the famous "Lead, Kindly Light" was curiously missing. I appreciated the few hymns that this book included but it would certainly have been enriched by the inclusion of many more glorious hymns that easily reside in the memory through their connection with song.

All in all, it is a good collection of poetry, but not quite good at being the collection that it claims to be. It is something else, and once I accepted that I could appreciate it for being what it is.

[Prince Cad Ali Cad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great selection (crowned by one of Pearce's own excellent poems), though failing to include Fr Abram J Ryan when including many others (even some non-Catholic who could not be called of a Catholic persuasion) is a travesty.

[Joseph Maimone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of lovely words with layered meaning, the common thread being the uplifting of the heart toward home in heaven. The professor's own ''little dandelion'' at the very end is a beautiful composition full of Hope and profundity, a reference to the Euchatastrophy.

[Valerie Kolbinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[VictorianSarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many good poems! My favorite new one I encountered: "Vita Nuova" by Maurice Baring, about his conversion to Catholicism.