"There has never been a newer, bolder thinker than Coventry Patmore (or one who was a greater artist at the same time), and he has done more than anyone else to open, finally, the immense domains of Religion to Art."--Paul Claudel

Published just a year before his death, these essays and aphorisms were the final flowering of Coventry Patmore's extraordinary vision.

The writers of the 19th-century Catholic Literary Revival, of whom Patmore was an outstanding representative, were in search of the whole of reality, and awoke a renewed appreciation of the importance of symbols as a vehicle...

The Radiance of Being offers nothing less than a portrayal of the full glory of Catholic tradition. From an initial engagement with the insights of the natural sciences emerges a spiritual vision of the metaphysical depth and dimension of mystery to the cosmos, allowing the reader's mind to awaken to the coherence, beauty, intensity of life, and depth of structure of the natural world--the holiness of creation and all contained therein.

Conversant with Islam, Buddhism, non-dualist traditions, as well as myriad mystical elements and esoteric currents within Christianity, the author builds a...

"We need a new kind of mystic," writes Fr. Robert Wild; and in The Tumbler of God, he presents a spiritual portrait of G.K. Chesterton that convincingly shows why he is precisely the kind of new mystic we need. Chesterton's mysticism was grounded in an experiential knowledge that existence is a gift from God, and that the only response is a spirituality of gratitude and praise for the unveiled beauty of creation. "What was his 'secret'? It was to love the splendor of the real, and to live in adulthood the innocence and wonder of the child who sees everything for the first time. The Gospel...

As an aspect of civic humanism, the liberal arts comprehended the skills necessary to realize the common good of free citizens within a free society, the mental habits basic to citizenship as preached and taught in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance worlds. The liberal arts formed people with the virtues proper to civic life. The Church has never been quiet about these issues. In every age Christians have addressed themselves to what the human animal is that such a being can be trained in civic virtue, and how this can best be done, why Christians should care, and what Faith has to say...