“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” Gerard Manley Hopkins’s line could serve as a quiet epigraph to the work of Fr Joseph Evans, even when – or especially when – that freshness seems hidden. A priest of Opus Dei and a former journalist, Evans has spent much of his life moving between words and souls: first on local newspapers in London and Manchester, then as a university chaplain, spiritual director and preacher. Now, with his first published collection of poems, When God Hides (SLG Press, “Contemplative Poetry” series), he has added another strand to that vocation: giving crafted, honest language to the experience of searching for God in dryness and apparent absence.
12:00 PM
The poetry and priesthood of Fr Joseph Evans
Gerard Manley Hopkins spoke of “the dearest freshness deep down things.” In the poetry of Fr Joseph Evans new collection of poetry offers a window into the quiet struggle to find God in apparent absence
Jan C. Bentz
11 min read
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