Arise Today … The First Blog Post of Saint Patrick Press

This post explains the mission of Saint Patrick Press, and the purpose and function of the blog. It also addresses the question why we create.

You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.

Psalm 40:5

This is the first blog post for Saint Patrick Press, and as usual I’m battling writer’s block. I mean, how do you write the first blog? After all the work of envisioning the press, putting the legal paperwork together for incorporation, getting the website up, and launching its first two books (one of which is an Amazon bestseller), what do you write about?

I’ve gone through several iterations, starts and stops, and restarts. In fact I had an entire post written only to return to it 12 hours later and erase it immediately upon rereading it.

Crap …

Indeed, as I’m writing, I’m reminded of one of my favourite stories about the architect le Corbusier …

Le Corbusier and the Pain of Creating

Le Corbusier was working with his team on some architectural drawings. Suddenly he threw down his pencil, stood up and said, “L’architecture–c’est difficile!” and left the office.

For those of you who create, I’m sure you resonate with le Corbusier’s comment as much as I do. It’s difficult to stare down at a blank screen and conjure up sentences, let alone something meaningful to read. But as one of my writing coaches–who doesn’t know he’s my writing coach–says, the worst thing to do is give in to Resistance and do nothing.

Indeed, the first victory step in the war of art is to sit down and let the fingers punch keys–the rest is none of your business.

But writing goes beyond that, right? Beyond just pushing keys to creating something of meaning and value to the reader; to share an experience, to hold up a mirror, to paint a picture of something that casts the reader’s gaze beyond him or herself to something transcendent, to something beyond, perhaps to something redemptive …

The Mission of Saint Patrick Press

And when stripped to its essence, when peeled to its pith, that’s the reason for Saint Patrick Press: to publish books and other materials that are true and good and beautiful; to create literary images that can be doorways to Heaven–yes, like literary icons–that take the reader to higher places, to other realms of being, to places of transcendence, to the realm of Love.

I’m not talking about fantasy here–no. What I’m talking about is writing what is real–or better put, really real.

Maybe you’re reading this and you know what I’m talking about.

Maybe you’ve been reading books and listening to podcasts that leave you dissatisfied.

Maybe you’ve come to the end of a book, folded it back up, and breathed a sigh of ennui.

Or conversely, maybe you’ve read something that has lifted you up, changed your life, and pushed you to turn the book back over and begin again on page one. I love books like that. Writing that points you to something ‘other’, something bigger than you; books that stand for something, that stand for Love, for the best of what humans are capable of, of what they have been created to become, that stand for that tension between living in a fallen world and being created for the bounties of Heaven. That tension that is the truly poetic …

That’s what I’m talking about …

Do you feel where I’m coming from?

Do you catch my drift?

Now about this blog …

What this Blog Is For

This blog is going to do a couple of things. First, it’s going to update readers on newly published books. For instance, we have two books out right now.

Our debut book is entitled The Bridegroom: Pascha Sermons by Father Antony Paul. Bridegroom is a book of sermons during Holy Week 2020. The Bridegroom is an Amazon.ca Bestseller for Christian Orthodoxy.

The second book we just published is a novella called Hunger Strike by Patrick Gregory. Hunger Strike is about a senior executive who gives up food to protest his meaningless absurd life and the world that he finds himself suffering in. Will he find himself again? And, if so, what will be the ultimate cost?

If you haven’t yet, check them out and see what you think by clicking on the titles above. There will be more books coming soon.

Second, there are going to be book reviews and other entries on philosophy, literature, art, poetry, famous writers, saints, and love and hope and faith. So the blog isn’t going to be merely a promotional tool, but a forum for commenting on the cultural milieu that Saint Patrick Press is working in and responding to.

So back to the blank page,

Back to creating something out of nothing,

Pushing back Resistance,

And pushing through to Faith,

Hope,

and Love …

A Piece of Saint Patrick’s Breastplate

To this end, I invoke the opening line of the prayer of Saint Patrick, known as Saint Patrick’s Breastplate; a prayer that anchors this press and the work and writers therein …

I arise today through a mighty strength:
The invocation of the Trinity,
Through believe in the threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

What an opening line! We arise each day through a mighty strength; a strength that flows through us, that gives us all we need to shape the world.

And this mighty strength comes from the Creator of what is seen and unseen–indeed, the entire cosmos. That strength to create comes from God. This relates to John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word … The world was create through God speaking out from the Word Himself, Jesus Christ. He is our strength to create. When we create words and invoke Christ, we create through the One who has created the entire cosmos, and holds it and sustains it–who in the words of the Trisagion Prayer is everywhere filling all things. We create through the very Logos, the Way all things follow; the very logic, the first Principle of all things.

And that’s where Saint Patrick Press is an offering: an offering to our readers, yes indeed; but more importantly, an offering to the One whose name we invoke, and for whose glory and honour we ultimately create.

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