about me

My name is Joe Castorino. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree and also a Master of Arts degree in English literature (with an emphasis in fiction) from Loyola Marymount University, and for over ten years I taught writing (and also some literature), mostly on the community-college level but also to a limited extent on the university level and high-school level. In addition, for a little under 15 years I worked as an academic training leader for Edward Jones Investments, during which time I held the designation of Accredited Asset Management Specialist.

In terms of my spiritual life, since 2007 I have been a member of the Association of Mary, Queen of All Hearts (this is a part of the Company of Mary that was founded by St. Louis de Montfort). Then, from 2011-2013, I was a pre-diaconate candidate and graduated from the Kino Catechetical Institute with a specialization in Respect Life ministry. In addition, I have given various different presentations at parishes in the Diocese of Phoenix. The first one was “A Mission to Jesus through Mary” and focused on St. Louis de Montfort’s very powerful Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. The second one was “A Mission of Divine Mercy” and focused on the very beautiful Divine Mercy Novena. The third one was a dramatic presentation on selections from “Introduction to the Devout Life,” the masterpiece of spiritual direction by St. Francis de Sales.

a journey of divine mercy

An essay describing my literary journey into the world of Divine Mercy

* * * dedicated to Nonna & Sweetie Pie * * *

I thought I was going to be a deacon. I was wrong. In retrospect, I can see that the Lord really does have a divine sense of humor...

I was just finishing my pre-diaconate studies when the diaconal door unexpectedly closed. I knew that I had a calling from God, so now I had to search to find out what He had in His plans for me. Since my mother was a Third-Order Franciscan, I very seriously considered becoming a Franciscan tertiary, but deep down in my heart, I felt that this wasn’t quite what the Lord had in mind. Eventually, I came across the Association of Mary, Queen of All Hearts (formerly the Confraternity of Mary, Queen of All Hearts), and I felt drawn towards it. It is specifically intended for those who have made the consecration to Jesus through Mary that is recommended by St. Louis de Montfort. The consecration itself is magnificently beautiful, and since my initial consecration on January 1, 2007, it has gradually become part of the cornerstone of my entire spiritual life, simply living as Our Lady's little candle in the dark night. But the good God had more in mind for me.

For a long time, I have very sincerely loved literature -- and, really, the arts in general. I had seen Joseph Pearce, the great Catholic literary critic, on EWTN, and I appreciated hearing his perspectives on the life of William Shakespeare. So when I found out that Pearce had just released a book entitled Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape, I knew that I wanted to read it.

So I purchased a copy and began to read. When I did so, I had an epiphany moment. Pearce talks about three different kinds of apologetics: the apologetics of reason, the apologetics of love, and the apologetics of beauty (or cultural apologetics).

This was the first time I had ever heard the term “apologetics of beauty,” and I was immediately enthralled with the concept. I devoured the book, hungry to see Pearce apply this idea to many great Catholic works of literature throughout the history of Christendom, from Dante to Tolkien. I was fascinated. I thirsted to be a part of the evangelization of beauty, even if only in a small way, so that I could use my gifts and talents for the Lord. But how?

It was January of 2015, and my life was very much like a patchwork quilt, so the literary form that I would choose needed to fit the rhythm of my life. It did not take long before I realized that poetry was my best alternative, so I embraced it. I prayed and asked God to help me to compose morally-responsible poetry.

When I think back through the history of literature in the age of Christendom, I am dazzled by the array of beautiful and inspiring works, from the epic poetry of Dante to the mystical poetry of St. John of the Cross to the provocative plays of William Shakespeare to the historical fiction of Alessandro Manzoni. But, as Pearce so aptly points out, it appears that beauty has all but disappeared in our own times. With the rise of moral relativism, the arts have seemingly become a free-for-all, as more and more artists are trying to redefine beauty. Although there are exceptions, contemporary literature, for the most part, has become like the Dickensian neighborhoods of Fagin and the Artful Dodger: foggy, dreary, drab, and, really, hopeless. Or, to use another image, contemporary art is often like a puzzle that is missing the Messianic centerpiece; consequently, the light of God is missing, the Light that can dispel that darkness. Our world was convulsed by two unimaginably horrifying world wars in the 1900s, and the shadow of fear is still long and dark even in our own times. Our world so needs the light of God’s love to burst through and dissipate the fog of moral relativism, to pierce our hearts and souls with His love.

So I wanted to go back into the rich literary history of Christendom, in order to see and understand it from the perspective of great intellectual thinkers. I wanted to be like the man in Matthew 13:52: “... a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament). My journey took me back to St. Bonaventure, a Doctor of the Church, a devout Franciscan, and truly one of the great minds of the Medieval period. In his work entitled On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, St. Bonaventure rightly points out that the arts -- and, really, everything we know in life -- should take us back to God.

Then, about three hundred years later, during the English Renaissance, Sir Philip Sydney came along and refined this thought further. In his Apology for Poetry he said, “Poesy therefore is an art of imitation… to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture; with this end, to teach and delight.” So, along these lines, I knew that I strongly agreed with both Bonaventure and Sydney. I always wanted my poetry to lead back to God. But, more specifically, I wanted it to teach and delight.

However, I also wanted to get contemporary perspectives on artistic criticism, so I looked to two of the great spiritual and intellectual giants of our time: St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In his “Letter to Artists” (1999), John Paul the Great made some profound statements. Let us begin with his view of art in modern times: "It is true nevertheless that, in the modern era, alongside this Christian humanism which has continued to produce important works of culture and art, another kind of humanism, marked by the absence of God and often by opposition to God, has gradually asserted itself. Such an atmosphere has sometimes led to a separation of the world of art and the world of faith, at least in the sense that many artists have a diminished interest in religious themes."

But then he went on to point out our role as artists in the contemporary world: "In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God." Even now, when I read this sentence, it stirs the flames of love in my own heart. This is the kind of literature and art that I wish to read and to experience. This is the kind of poetry that I wish to produce. I want to compose poetry that, as he said, makes a relationship with God attractive. We might best describe John Paul the Great as the “saint of light,” which indeed he was, shining the light of God’s love in the midst of the dark night of Nazism and of Communism, in his native Poland. He successfully battled and, by God’s grace, defeated the latter during his pontificate, as the documentary Nine Days that Changed the World so beautifully and accurately illustrates.

Therefore, in a similar manner, with St. John Paul II as one of my guides, I wish to produce poetry that illustrates “Divine Mercy in the Dark Night.” This reminds me of the magnificent paintings of Charles Pabst and Thomas Kinkade, whose works touch my heart, and fill me with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Their beautiful artistic works are filled with light and are radically different from most other contemporary paintings.

In addition, Pope Benedict XVI followed the same path as his famous predecessor. He said the following in his “Meeting with Artists” (2009): “Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.” Here he takes us right back to St. Bonaventure, a man that he studied in great depth as a theologian. All literature, all art, must lead us back to God.

So, in short, my goal and purpose is to drive down the poetic highway to Heaven, leading towards God, showing the beauty and harmony of God, as well as the ugliness and emptiness of life without Him. I wish to produce literature that reflects the Good, the True, and/or The Beautiful, and, whenever possible, all three.

Once I knew my goal, my destination, I had to determine what my poetry would actually look like from a stylistic perspective. So I broke it down into five categories: content, description, organization, poetic verse, and tone. Let’s begin with the first one, content. I would describe my poetry as being essentially Marian because my goal is, very simply, to point to Jesus. No one was better than “La Madonnina” (as St. Padre Pio would affectionately call her) in humbly loving through her quiet example and, when necessary, through her words. Her life was like a signpost pointing towards the Divine Mercy. That’s all Our Lady ever really did in her life. At the wedding feast in Cana, her last words recorded in Scripture say it all: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). In a similar way, every poem on this website, either directly or indirectly, points to Jesus, The Divine Mercy. 

In terms of description, I would say this collection of poetry is essentially Johannine because, like the Gospel of John, it is filled with light juxtaposed against darkness. In fact, in this respect it is not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. In like manner, it is also quite reminiscent of Dante's masterpiece The Divine Comedy. But light and darkness only reveal one aspect of the description. While the content is decidedly Marian, the descriptive element is quite Franciscan. St. Francis of Assisi wholeheartedly loved beauty, exactly the same kind of beauty that Pope Benedict XVI discusses in his “Meeting with Artists.” In addition, St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Artists” specifically mentions St. Francis’ insightful realization that true beauty is a reflection of God. Therefore, my poetry often strives to illustrate not just caritas in veritate, but truth in beauty. I must also add that I am a great lover of sights and sounds -- in other words, the senses -- so my poems are often brimming with figurative language and alliteration, occasionally even delving into the mystical, once again not unlike St. Francis of Assisi.

From an organizational perspective, there are several different categories of poems in this collection: Mystical Mercy, Mystical Rose, Mystical Histories, Mystical Memories, Mystical Reflections, Mystical Adventures, and The Dark Night. The poems on mystical mercy delve into the mystical beauty of Divine Mercy, while the mystical rose leads us to Our Lord of Love through Our Lady, the Mystical Rose. Then, the mystical histories recount significant events in Church history or describe the heroic and sometimes mystical lives of the saints. Mystical memories are drawn from my own personal life experiences, oftentimes describing my travels abroad, and they typically point towards the Good, the True, and the Beautiful; mystical reflections, on the other hand, are miscellaneous poems on a wide variety of different topics. The mystical adventures narrate stories of mystical and adventurous journeys into the imagination, and the dark tragedies depict the imperfect side of human nature -- life without God -- sometimes through comedy and sometimes through tragedy, in the abyss of darkness.

Speaking of the saints, I chose to write about them because I’ve noticed that surprisingly few poets throughout literary history have dealt with this subject. During my spiritual journey, I had hardly ever thought about our “extended family” in Heaven. Then, at my old parish, my pastor did something at Saturday morning masses that I had never seen done before, and I found it to be quite delightful and refreshing. Instead of giving the standard two-minute weekday homily, based on the Scriptures of the day, he simply read a brief summary of the saint of the day. Oh, how I began to look forward to those Saturday morning masses! A whole new world had opened up for me as I got to know my long-lost spiritual relatives. So the mystical histories are intended to familiarize readers with these great personages, in a literary fashion.

With that we come to the subject of poetic verse. Now although this entire collection of poetry is in some way about the spiritual journey and our lofty goal of “theosis” or spiritual union with God, the reality is that we’re still sinners saved by grace. Therefore, many of the poems are a reflection of this and use what I call “crooked verse.” In other words, regardless of whether or not a particular poem has a rhyme scheme, I sometimes choose to employ verse that does not have a predictable meter, in order to highlight our erring human nature. 

Lastly, in terms of tone, I am usually aiming to compose poems that are centered in hope. St. John Paul II, a “witness to hope,” is undoubtedly a beacon of light shining in the darkness, and is a true inspiration for me. I never want to lose sight of the truth, that no matter where fear and evil ultimately lead our world, Jesus -- The Light of the World and The Light of the Word -- will always be shining in dazzling brilliance. 

Now, for a number of years, I was busy composing many poems, on a wide variety of topics (how I thought about so many things to write about only the Holy Spirit knows). But then something interesting happened. I began to be drawn towards composing prayers, and perhaps the first of these was “An Act of Thanksgiving: To Jesus through Mary,” which is essentially a very descriptive act of contrition. And so, gradually, through Our Lord’s divine mercy, I found myself writing more prayers.

Then, one day, when I was reading a short selection from St. Faustina’s diary (which I try to do on a daily basis), I noticed that this great saint was not only very poetic, but even wrote poems in her diary, and very inspiring ones, too. In a way, they reminded me of some of the writings of St. Francis of Assisi and also St. Hildegard of Bingen, many of which are also very poetic. But when I studied St. Faustina’s poems more closely, I realized that they are actually something very unique. It dawned on me that they are both prayerful poems and poetic prayers. In other words, they are hybrids — not automotive hybrids, but literary ones. The reason this struck me so profoundly is that I myself had been composing the very same kinds of literary hybrids without realizing I was doing so.

But in addition to poems and prayers, I have also included on this website the three devotions that are the dearest to me: the Divine Mercy Novena, St. Louis de Montfort’s Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, and St. Francis de Sales’ classic of spiritual direction entitled Introduction to the Devout Life (the first two are enhanced with unbelievably beautiful classic sacred art by some of the greatest artistic masters in the history of Christendom).

Well, then. Let me conclude with one final comment. I can’t help but share the sentiments of St. Teresa of Avila. When she concluded her masterful book The Interior Castle, she made the following comments: "If you find anything in the plan of this treatise which helps you to know Him better, be certain that it is sent by His Majesty to encourage you, and that whatever you find amiss in it is my own.... If these writings contain any error, it is through my ignorance; I submit in all things to the teachings of the holy Catholic Roman Church.... May our Lord God be forever praised and blessed! Amen, Amen." I feel very much the same way. It is my hope that you will enjoy this collection of poems, prayers, and holy devotions, but I am all too aware of this website’s defects. It is my sincerest hope that on this website you will discover in a deeper way the Good, the True, and the Beautiful — even if only in a little way. May God bless you, and may the magnificent and dazzling light of Divine Mercy always shine brightly in your hearts!