A LOVE STORY FOR THE AGES . . Joseph Mary Plunkett and The Gifford Girl ISBN 1-930278-79-9 A hero and a soldier, too, they buried him in lime. Upon his wedding-morn they slew, a lover in his prime. Into a burning ditch they threw, a poet and his rhyme. The almost unbearable beauty of the love story of Joseph and Grace which encompasses not only their own love for each other, but also their love of God and of Ireland, has fascinated me for many years. The story of that love is told most succinctly and beautifully in the poem by Father Feeney at the beginning of this book. But there is much more to the story than that. Plunge yourself into the beauty and mysticism of the poems of Joseph Plunkett, the Military Commander of the Easter Rising and youngest signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic who stood with Pearse, McDonagh, and Connolly as they cast their fates upon the cause of freedom for Ireland. A famous priest once said that other than those committed to the life of religion, the two types of persons most likely to save their souls were poets and soldiers. Joseph Mary Plunkett was both.

Dr. Bruce Walters, M.D. - PB 408 pages

This book By Bruce W. Walters, M.D.,  set in the years 2015 to 2017, is a future fiction novel that explores what magnificent world-changing events might take place if Russia were to be miraculously converted, becoming the modern world's next powerful Catholic Confessional State.

A compelling historical novel about England’s patron, and an evocative picture of 3rd-century Christianity and Roman life in general.

An English translation by Olga Marx of Gertrud von Le Fort’s Die Letzte am Schafott. A gifted writer and convert to the Catholic Faith, Le Fort focuses her historical novel on one of the final episodes from the horrific French Revolution. Based on the true story of the sixteen Carmelite nuns whose martyrdoms consummated the Reign of Terror this beautifully written tale of triumph was composed around the character of a frail and timid young novice, the daughter of a cynical Jacobin sympathizer, the Marquis de la Force. Blanche de la Force entered Carmel at sixteen, however, her superior deemed her unsuited for the rigorous life of the cloister. Nevertheless, she was tolerated; that is, until the Prioress received death threats from a rabid revolutionary. Thenceforward the story intensifies as Sister Blanche’s strives inwardly to stay “loyal to fear” in her vow never to abandon Christ in His Gethsemani. The psychological pressure coming not only from her superior, but from her heroic fellow sisters in Christ, to dissuade the “weak one” from the coming trial mounts to the breaking point. She flees the convent, only to complete shortly thereafter the song of the scaffold. Here is a novel that is truly a channel of grace.

Staff Sergeant Eugene DeLalla 

88 pages - Small book format

 

Air power was a key to the American war strategy throughout the Vietnam war. Numerous air bases were constructed throughout Southeast Asia for the use of our Air Forces during the war. The protection of the personnel, planes, and other materiels of war housed at those air bases was essential, and the task fell to the Air Force Security Police. They did their job well and had a hard earned reputation on both sides of the conflict. They were considered “hard nuts to crack”.
This is a fictionalized account of how some of those airbase perimeter defenders kept that reputation during one tough encounter shortly after the famous “Tet” offensive in the winter and early spring of 1968. The Battle for Oscar Six takes place at Tuy Hoa air base in the II Corps theater of the war, but it could have been at any air base, and the men depicted here who fought that skirmish could have been any of the hundreds of thousands of American boys who gave their youth, their blood, and oftentimes their lives in that protracted struggle known as “The Vietnam War."

 

Father Leonard Feeney

Hardcover $34.95    PB $19.95

This collection  of poems and other literary works of Father Feeney is not a complete collection, but a large one nonetheless. It includes almost all of four of his best books: Survival Till Seventeen, Fish on Friday, In Towns and Little Towns, and You’d Better Come Quietly, as well as some of his other works. You will rarely encounter another modern Catholic poet and writer with such depth of faith and dramatic power with words as Father Leonard Feeney. Frank Sheed, of Sheed & Ward, his original publisher and a well-known Catholic writer himself, once labeled him “America’s Chesterton”. Coming from a Catholic Englishman, that is a grand compliment indeed for an American Irishman!

“The priest more than a member of any other profession, understands human nature profoundly, and when this is coupled with literary ability, wittily and tolerantly presented, the product is truly delightful.”   —Commonweal
“Father Feeney has… revealed the playfulness of his wit, the keenness of his observing eyes, the tenderness of his Irish heart . . .
and above all the dramatic power which is his…”      —America
“We need   more like him. His laughter is as light as his faith is deep.”      —Boston Evening Transcript: under the heading “Favorite Poet”

 

PREFACE

This book contains the things I like best of all I have written up til 1943. It does not contain the things I hope to write from now
on. And so, though it is called an “omnibus,” it is not to be taken as an “obituary.”
 My publishers have been very kind in letting me make my own choices. A number of things have been omitted, over protest of my friends. But a poet—if such I be—must ultimately be his own critic, his own chooser. It is one of the few freedoms left a man in this merciless age.
 I am not, as one critic has kindly suggested, “a poet of many personalities.” I am a poet of one personality who has had many moods. I realize I could have made a much greater reputation for myself if I had written everything in one groove. But in this matter I took a cue from God the Father—who is the poet, the maker, in God—and who could have made a much greater reputation for Himself if He had made the lion and omitted the mosquito.
 Other than this, I offer no apologies.
L. F.           August 6th, 1943.

 

Father Leonard Feeney

Hardcover $34.95    PB $19.95

This collection  of poems and other literary works of Father Feeney is not a complete collection, but a large one nonetheless. It includes almost all of four of his best books: Survival Till Seventeen, Fish on Friday, In Towns and Little Towns, and You’d Better Come Quietly, as well as some of his other works. You will rarely encounter another modern Catholic poet and writer with such depth of faith and dramatic power with words as Father Leonard Feeney. Frank Sheed, of Sheed & Ward, his original publisher and a well-known Catholic writer himself, once labeled him “America’s Chesterton”. Coming from a Catholic Englishman, that is a grand compliment indeed for an American Irishman!

“The priest more than a member of any other profession, understands human nature profoundly, and when this is coupled with literary ability, wittily and tolerantly presented, the product is truly delightful.”   —Commonweal
“Father Feeney has… revealed the playfulness of his wit, the keenness of his observing eyes, the tenderness of his Irish heart . . .
and above all the dramatic power which is his…”      —America
“We need   more like him. His laughter is as light as his faith is deep.”      —Boston Evening Transcript: under the heading “Favorite Poet”

 

PREFACE

This book contains the things I like best of all I have written up til 1943. It does not contain the things I hope to write from now
on. And so, though it is called an “omnibus,” it is not to be taken as an “obituary.”
 My publishers have been very kind in letting me make my own choices. A number of things have been omitted, over protest of my friends. But a poet—if such I be—must ultimately be his own critic, his own chooser. It is one of the few freedoms left a man in this merciless age.
 I am not, as one critic has kindly suggested, “a poet of many personalities.” I am a poet of one personality who has had many moods. I realize I could have made a much greater reputation for myself if I had written everything in one groove. But in this matter I took a cue from God the Father—who is the poet, the maker, in God—and who could have made a much greater reputation for Himself if He had made the lion and omitted the mosquito.
 Other than this, I offer no apologies.
L. F.           August 6th, 1943.

Twelve Types is a collection of short biographical essays, by one of 20th-century England's greatest essayists. In keeping with the spirit of IHS Press, that there is a Catholic way to look at everything, this book evaluates the place of such figures as Tolstoy, St. Francis, Savonarola, William Morris, and others, in the history of the West and from an unabashedly Catholic perspective. With typical wit and flair, Chesterton accomplishes what modern biography most often fails to do: discuss the important and central elements of the characters it presumes to examine, while omitting tedious discussion on matters of little import. Chesterton looks at the souls, the characters, and the lives of some of the West's most important figures, providing modern readers with a sane and Catholic orientation to their approach to these great individuals. Originally published: London, 1905.

IHS Press is pleased to present a new Preface to this edition by Dr. Malcolm Brennan. Malcolm Brennan is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the Citadel, South Carolina, and is the author of numerous works, including a collection of essays on the history of the English martyrs. The social doctrine isn't just about economics. Make this slim volume part of your Catholic cultural library today!