Kevin Burns

Ottawa-based author and editor, Kevin Burns is a frequent contributor to igNation. His latest book, Impressively Free – Henri Nouwen as a Model for a Reformed Priesthood and co-authored with Michael W. Higgins, has just been released by Paulist Press in the United States and by Novalis in Canada.

103 posts

28 May

Keyword: Jesuit, Genre: Fiction. – Judith Rock’s The Rhetoric of Death

If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.This week meeet Charles Matthieu Beuvron du Luc S.J., a character in Judith Rock's The Rhetoric of Death...

21 May

Keyword: Jesuit, Genre: Fiction. – Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda.

If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.This week: Père Christophe, the creation of Canadian novelist Joseph Boyden, is one of the main characters in his highly acclaimed novel "The Orenda."...

04 May

Kino? Chino? Chini?

I've been thinking a lot about saint in the past few weeks in light of the recent spectacle of two live popes sainting two dead popes. Getting "your person" through the system is the name of the game and the stakes are high. I stumbled on to one of the people in the running for sainting when touring Arizona recently....

09 Apr

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week Six – Monty Williams, SJ on the Ignatian Path

This is the final week of the 2014 Lenten exploration of traditions. This week's journey is one "that begins when we realize that we are trapped in a creation – cosmic, human, and personal – that is disordered. The first stage of intimacy carries us to the realization that even here we are loved, protected, and held in God's love." (The Gift of Spiritual Intimacy – Following the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius by Monty Williams S.J. Novalis, 2009, and the basis of this article.)...

02 Apr

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week Five – Edith Stein O.C.D.

In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. This week Kevin looks at the writings of Edith Stein O.C.D. (St. Benedicta of the Cross)...

26 Mar

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week Four – Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.

In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. This week's entry looks at the writings of Timothy Radcliffe O.P. and the challenges of the Dominican path....

19 Mar

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week Three – Dating God

In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. Week Three: Dan P. Horan OFM explores the Franciscan path....

12 Mar

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week Two – Atchison Blue

In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. Week Two: Judith Valente explores the Benedictine path....

05 Mar

A Lenten Bookshelf: A Six-Fold Path: Week One – The Seven Storey Mountain

In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. Week One: Thomas Merton encounters the severity of the Trappist Lent....

09 Feb

Surviving Catastrophe: How Catherine and Frederick Stymied Popes

Kevin Burns responds to Philip Shano's article on The Suppression of the Jesuits in 1773. and raises a challenge to readers. How did the "aged survivors of the catastrophe" manage to capture the hearts of the young men who would so quickly re-establish the restored Jesuit order after 41 years of invisibility?...