My startle response kicks in whenever someone characterizes me as a "Catholic writer." Moi? Sometimes I think so. At other times I totally don't understand what the characterization even means.
Fortunately, I have this quote from a reflection titled, "The Apostolate of the Pen" to read and re-read for solace and comfort. It first showed up in the May 24, 1952 issue of
America magazine, and I'm grateful it was reprinted by
America editors in 2008.
...It's not easy to be a Catholic, and it is not easy to be a writer. To be a Catholic writer is doubly difficult. There is, on the one hand, the danger of yielding to the spell of art or human knowledge so as to fail in the requirements of the supreme truth. And there is, on the other hand, the danger of using divine truth...to compensate for possible failure in our fidelity to the requirements of art or human knowledge.
─ Jacques Maritain
