Michael Casey

To Love this Earthly Life, reflections on the book of Ecclesiastes, is the latest work by Trappist monk Michael Casey, whose biblical studies bridge the divide between scholarly analysis and prayerful reflection. The title may surprise readers, who regard the author Qoheleth as a gloomy fellow. But as Fr. Casey notes, "His central point is, quite simply: Make the most of your life as it is, because it is the only one you will ever have. . . . If we cannot love the reality we see, any love we profess toward what is unseen must be considered delusional. . . . So, let's get on with it." Examining such themes as vanity, God, wisdom, time, and carpe diem, Fr. Casey shows how they all build to a constant message of hope by living in the present.

"The poems in Millrat are full of blessed and flawed humanity, based on author Michael Casey’s experience working in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1960s. This is a 25th anniversary edition of the book, with additional poems plus commentary by early reviewers and contemporary writers. The book gained national attention when first released in 1996. Poet Michael Casey writes, “My writing about the mills stemmed from the jobs during summers from college, undergrad school at the Lowell Technological Institute (LTI, now University of Massachusetts, Lowell) and then later when on leave from the State University of New York in Buffalo. A friend told me not to give the phony impression that the jobs there were at that time my career. Mention that here in compliance. I did not always work at a textile mill but for a book’s setting in Lowell, the textile mill was appropriate. Lowell was where the other American revolution began. History. The Industrial Revolution. For any writer at any time you are apt to write about what you are doing. I have to say think of Robert Frost and apple picking or Fred Voss at the airplane factory and writing about factory work is not restricted to men. I can recommend here the wonderful books by Inez Holden. Author Jeanne Schinto wrote in The Nation magazine: “In 1972, when Michael Casey was twenty-four, he won the Yale Younger Poets award with a book called Obscenities. Stanley Kunitz called it “the first significant book of poems written by an American to spring from the war in Vietnam.” . . . “Casey didn’t see action in Vietnam; he was in the military police, assigned to the highway patrol and gate-guard duty. So it’s no wonder that very little of Obscenities is about combat; instead, many of the poems illuminate the Army’s pecking order and its hyper-logical nonsense. In Millrat, Casey explores the mill hierarchy, at times even more complex than the military’s, since the rules there are less rigid and the consequences of disobeying them less certain. You may not lose your job, but you may lose face, which is often more valued. . . .” Poet Helena Minton says, “Michael Casey’s Millrat, first published twenty-five years ago by Adastra Press in western Massachusetts, is a novel distilled, spoken in a series of distinctly American voices. These laconic, but visceral poems, with their blunt language, immerse us in the world of a textile mill, featuring characters whose mishaps, trials and escapades sometimes land them “on the outside lookin in.” “In deceptively simple, yet startlingly original lines, Casey uses true sleight-of-hand. The job at the mill involves heavy machinery, dangerous chemicals and working with others who can’t be counted on for much of anything. Even moments of downtime—at the coffee truck, a softball game, a picnic, or signing up for the company betting pool, with its byzantine rules—are fraught with complications. On first reading, we might be tempted look at the world of the millrat as absurd, but it is all too real, and we laugh at our own peril. Thanks to Loom Press, Millrat will remain in print. It already has the feel of a classic, and should be widely read and re-read."

After sixty years of living in a Cistercian community, Michael Casey combines his down-to-earth observations about the joys and challenges of living in community with an appreciation of the deeper meanings of cenobitic life, taking into account the changes in both theory and practice that have occurred in his lifetime. He invites his readers, especially monks and nuns, to reflect on their own experiences of community as a means of seeing a path forward into the future. Many of the key components of monastic community have kept the same names for more than a millennium. In an age of paradigm shift, Michael Casey invites readers to examine these essential practices of community life and to ask how they might be envisioned in a way that speaks to our contemporaries.

An introduction to the theory and engineering practice that underpins the component design and analysis of radial flow turbocompressors. Drawing upon an extensive theoretical background and years of practical experience, the authors provide descriptions of applications, concepts, component design, analysis tools, performance maps, flow stability, and structural integrity, with illustrative examples. Features wide coverage of all types of radial compressor over many applications unified by the consistent use of dimensional analysis. Discusses the methods needed to analyse the performance, flow, and mechanical integrity that underpin the design of efficient centrifugal compressors with good flow range and stability. Includes explanation of the design of all radial compressor components, including inlet guide vanes, impellers, diffusers, volutes, return channels, de-swirl vanes and side-streams. Suitable as a reference for advanced students of turbomachinery, and a perfect tool for practising mechanical and aerospace engineers already within the field and those just entering it.

The Promise of Deliverance is a series of reflections on important themes of Second Isaiah, intended to inspire readers of this biblical text. Each chapters reflects on a variety of themes from Isaiah 40-55: consolation, transcendence, servanthood, glory, sin, compassion, awake and deliverance. The book guides the reader to see how these themes keep emerging, how they are intertwined, and how they build up a complex message of hope, which is as relevant in our times as it was originally.

This collection of short plays begins with Joyce at Last, which was performed in Dublin and in the Henrik Ibsen Museum, Oslo - an appropriate venue, given James Joyce's admiration for Ibsen's work. The play is set in Paris where Joyce is making arrangements to travel to neutral Zurich just before World War II. His great work is behind him and, possibly for the first time, he reflects on his family, especially his children, Lucia and Giorgio, whose lives seem to be blighted. Could he have been a better parent? The fruits of his reminiscences come as a shock, a final epiphany. Many of the other plays were inspired by paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland and were performed in one of the public spaces of that institution. Audiences were impressed by the fusion of the dramatic and purely visual. The six plays following Joyce at Last deal with the following themes: a single mom captured by ISIL, a woman who fights to save her marriage, a sad recluse who hides away but still tries to help people from 'inside' a computer, a father who, because of a guilty secret, dreads his daughter's upcoming wedding, a dog which has been given the gift of awareness, and a conversation between Frederick William Burton and George Eliot. The other six plays are lighter in tone, and they range from a married couple with acute sexual problems, to a human clone who is expected to donate his heart; from a would-be writer who lives with his characters, to a vulture fund which has evicted the cousin of a mafia don; from elaborate sexual role-play, to confusion in the non-binary community of LGBT. The humour in these plays is 'greyish-black', and comes close to the bone of PC-ness; it is not for the faint-hearted. "It is possibly the ekphrastic plays in this collection - those based on paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland - that are the key to why the texts here are so compelling. An idea, once sparked to life here, goes where its own logic takes it, to great effect."- Peter FitzGerald

As I was writing this book, I had the privilege of speaking to people from all over the world, and it helped me to realize just how common mental illness truly is. Mental illness is something that can affect anyone at any time. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from or what you've done, mental illness doesn't discriminate.Unfortunately, mental illness is something that has remained in the shadows until now, and people have been too afraid to speak up because of the reaction they might receive. Use this book as a guide whenever you're having doubts or feeling alone to remind yourself that you're not. Everyone has a voice, and everyone has a right to use that voice. Mental illness affects us all. Now is the time to come together and use our voices to show the world that mental illness is real.No one need feel ashamed about mental illness ever again. The human mind is capable of many great and amazing things. But it is also capable of enduring a lot of suffering and hardships. Fear, doubt and self-hatred, are all emotions people endure every single day. Pain is a part of life, and it is natural and necessary for personal growth. What is not natural is hiding this pain. It is not right to hide your pain and pretend to yourself that everything's okay when your mind is giving you a sign that you need help.Breaking Free addresses these issues in a sensitive compassionate way. It does this through the power of short stories on the following mental health issues and ways to handle them. Self-Harm, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, Depression, Anorexia, Phobias, Schizophrenia, Addiction, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bigorexia, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Bullying, Bulimia, Psychosis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Balaam’s Donkey is a series of daily reflections based on the homilies preached by Cistercian monk Michael Casey over his fifty years of priesthood. What remained of the original homilies was a large box full of index cards with a few talking points on each. From there, Casey has re-created the homilies and recast them into short reflections, arranged randomly for every day of the year. The range of topics discussed is broad and the approach taken differs with each reflection, most of them colored with a touch of Casey’s whimsy and good humor.

Collected Works Vol. 1: The Two-Fold Knowledge: Readings on the Knowledge of Self and the Knowledge of God Vol. 2: Pater Bernhardus: Martin Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux Vol. 3: Luther's Catholic Christology According to His Johannine Lectures of 1527 ""Franz Posset illustrates Martin Luther's deep regard for Bernhard of Clairvaux as a major source for knowing the God of Scripture who comes to be made flesh in us through Jesus Christ. This book contains an ecumenical treasure trove of Bernhard's sermon points that empowered Luther to proclaim both the birth and cross of Jesus as the source for daily renewal of our lives in Christ."" --Rev David R. Froemming, pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, author. Franz Posset is a German-American independent church historian and lay theologian in the Catholic Church. He is an internationally recognized ecumenist, specializing in the history and theology of the Renaissance and early Lutheran Reformation. Franz was born in 1945 in Glockelberg in the Bohemian Forest (Sudetenland), and between 1965 and 1970 he was a student of Hans Kung, Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI emeritus), and Walter Kasper (Cardinal). He earned a diploma in Catholic theology at University of Tubingen, and received a PhD in Religious Studies, with his dissertation directed by the late Kenneth Hagen, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. He was the associate editor of Luther Digest (1993-2012) and is a member of the International Luther Society. Franz is the author of numerous articles and books in English and German including award-winning articles and books: - The first annual Natalie Zemon Davis Prize (Canada) in 2006 for his ""Polyglot Humanism in Germany circa 1520 as Luther's Milieu and Matrix."" - Davidias Prize of the Association of Croatian Writers in 2014 for the book, Marcus Marulus and the Biblia Latina of 1489. - Franz-Delitzsch-Forderpreis (Germany) in 2015 for his ""In Search of an Explanation for the Suffering of the Jews: Johann Reuchlin's Open Letter of 1505."" - The Koenig Prize in Biography of the American Catholic Historical Association in 2016 for the book, Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522): A Theological Biography.

Benedictine monastic spirituality has emerged as an antidote to the spiritual and cultural challenges facing people of faith today. In this book, the author focuses specifically on GRACE, and the benevolence of God as it expresses itself in many different ways along our spiritual journey. What is a person likely to experience when beginning to give up him or herself conscientiously to the spiritual journey? In this beautiful guide, gradually, we come to realize that everything that happens in our lives is somehow the gift of our loving Father.Every journey is ultimately individual. As Casey explains, what you hear within your own spirit is more significant than what he can say. But his aim is to help you listen to the voice of God in your heart.

The place of religion in Australia has never been more contested than it is today. In this new and timely essay, Frank Brennan and Michael Casey draw on the Catholic tradition to explain why freedom of religion remains of vital importance for the way of life enjoyed in a secular liberal democracy such as Australia. Greg Craven complements Brennan and Casey's philosophical analysis with an essay discussing how freedom of religion is currently protected in Australia, and what reforms are necessary in order to ensure its protection in the decades ahead.

In 1972, Michael Casey won the Yale Younger Poets Prize for Obscenities, a collection of poems drawn from his military experience during the Vietnam War. In his foreword to the book, judge Stanley Kunitz called the work a kind of anti-poetry that befits a kind of war empty of any kind of glory and the first significant book of poems written by an American to spring from the war in Vietnam. Its raw depictions of wars mundanity and obscenity resonated with a broad audience, and Obscenities went into a mass market paperback edition, and was stocked in drugstores as well as bookstores. In the decades since, Caseys poetry has continued to document the places of his work and life. Then and now, his poems foreground the voices around him over that of a single author; they are the words of young American conscripts and their Vietnamese counterparts, co-workers and bosses, neighbours and strangers. His compressed sketches and unadorned monologues have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. There It Is: New and Selected Poems presents, for the first time, a full tour through Caseys work, from his 1972 debut to 2011s Check Points, together with new and uncollected work from the late 60s on. Here are all the locations of Caseys life and work -- Lowell to Landing Zone, dye house to desk -- and an ensemble cast with a lot to say. The publication of Michael Casey's New and Selected Poems, with his quirky portraits of ordinary Americans, is an event to celebrate. Like a photographer snapping pictures relentlessly, he must have written a poem about everyone he ever met with dead-on realism. Compared to him, the Spoon River Anthology is a work for kiddies.