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On October 16-17, Dr. Peter Erb gave a series of lectures to students, faculty, and associates of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy. A graduate of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, ON and retired professor of Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Dr. Erb has a passion for literature and research, and,self-admittedly, an obsession with murder mysteries.
 Dr. Erb gave two lectures, entitled “Newman and the Development of Doctrine” and “The Catholic Literary Convert: An Abiding Phenomenon.” His engaging lecture style and scattered poetry references kept his large audience charmed.
In his lecture, “The Catholic Literary Convert,” Dr. Erb spoke on the opinion of secular society which sees religious writing as closed to possibilities because of its religious mind frame. The reality, Dr. Erb claimed, is that the secular vision is limited. He used an example from a poem by Robert Frost, revealing Frost’s view that life has no meaning. Such a viewpoint, Erb pointed out, is narrow and a deeper and more meaningful vision may be found in Catholic writing that uncovers the possibilities in a life full of meaning directed to an end.
Throughout his lecture, Dr. Erb made reference to an American writer, Donna Tartt, herself a literary convert and author of books well-received in parts of Europe, yet little known in North America. Erb used Tartt’s The Secret History as an example of how many literary converts seek to challenge secular society to read deeper and find truth and meaning in life. Tartt reveals, Dr. Erb feels, a “desire for a greater sense of catholicity” in secular society.
Dr. Erb suggested that literary converts, including Donna Tartt, make appeal to beauty in order to relate to the world. They often “focus on the beautiful,” he said, “rather than analyze reality to discover the truth.” Dr. Erb claimed that many or all Catholic literary converts accept, as Frost did, that we “don’t have all the answers.” Yet, he suggested that these converts draw hope from the “catholicity of humanity” that can hear, as the Catholic poet Francis Thompson wrote, “feet that followed, followed after.” Finally, Dr. Erb recommended that his audience attempt to take up literature at some point with the intention of reading simply for the beauty of the written word.
Biography of Peter C. Erb:
Peter C. Erb is a graduate of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, Ont (Licentiate in Medieval Studies, 1970) and the University of Toronto (PhD on the appropriation of late medieval spirituality in early German and Dutch Protestantism, 1976). A Roman Catholic, with a particular interest in the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Peter was born to Amish-Mennonite parents in Tavistock, Ont., has served as a community development worker and teacher in Cleveland’s Hough area, 1965-1966, and as a Mennonite pastor and lay preacher, and continues to work closely on Mennonite-Catholic dialogue as well as other ecumenical matters.
He and his wife, Betty, live in Waterloo, Ont., where Peter was a faculty member at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ont., in the Department of English, 1971-1984, and thereafter in the Department of Religion and Culture, 1984-2008. He has recently retired as Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies through St. Dunstan’s University at the University of Prince Edward Island (2004-2009), and continues as Associate Director of Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, Pennsburg, Pa., a position he has held for the past 36 years. He also continues to teach and direct students though Waterloo Lutheran Seminary and the Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto.
The author and editor of some 15 books and numerous articles on patristic and medieval spirituality, the Radical Reformation, German Pietism, German-American religion and culture, Catholic thought in the Romantic era, for the past two decades Peter has devoted most of his scholarly time to the study of nineteenth-century Anglican/Roman Catholic relations. His major study of the past twenty years, a four-volume critical edition of the correspondence between the British Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Henry E. Manning, is now at the copy-editing stage with Oxford University Press. He is presently working on the influence of the Oxford Movement in North America and the British colonies for inclusion in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement and preparing his lectures, “Facing a Secular Age: Notes for the modern sceptic,” for publication.
His free time is primarily devoted to reading contemporary Catholic and Anglo-catholic theology, murder mysteries and cheap comic thrillers. He and Betty are the parents of two daughters, Catharine (who teaches Classics at Upper Canada College) and Suzanne (a neuroscientist at the University or Toronto, married to Douglas Funk, a neuroscientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto) and two granddaughters, Leanna Marie and Jillian Sarah. Peter lectures and writes regularly on various aspects of Christianity and on religious themes in twentieth-century German and English fiction. He holds an Outstanding Teacher award and has been honoured for his service to the perpetuation of Pennsylvania-German culture by the Pennsylvania-German Society of Pennsylvania. His retirement from Laurier was celebrated with a Festschrift, edited by Harold Remus and Michel Desjardins, Tradition and Formation: Claiming an Inheritance: Essays in Honour of Peter C. Erb (Kitchener, Ont., Pandora Press, 2008).
Among his recent publications are:
Books
(2007) Martyrdom in an Ecumenical Perspective: A Mennonite Catholic Conversation. A Bridgefolk Publication. Edited by Peter C. Erb. Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press, 2007
(2007) Murder, Manners, and Mystery: Presentations of Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction. London: SCM Press. (Focussing primarily on the Anglo-Catholic novelist P. D. James and a number of modern “atheist” writers of detective fiction)
(2006) The Pietists, edited by Emilie Griffin and Peter C. Erb (translator of complete text) with Foreword by Phyllis Tickle. San Fransisco: Harper Collins, 2006.
(2001) A Weekend Book of Thought and Prayer, by Maude D. Petre. A critical edition edited by Peter C. Erb. Lanham: Catholic Scholars Press
(1997) Newman on the Idea of a Catholic University. Atlanta, Ga.: Aquinas Center, Emory University, “Occasional Papers, 2" 1997.
Articles
(2008) “From Paul Gerhardt to Johann Scheffler (Angelus Silesius): Poetry and Polemic in the Baroque Era,” Lutheran Theological Review 20 (2007-2008), 11-25.
(2007) “The Creed, Doctrine, and the liturgical Occasion: Continuing a Conversation with A. James Reimer,” Creed and Conscience: Essays in Honour of A. James Reimer, edited by Jeremy M Bergen, Paul G. Doerksen, and Karl Koop (Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press, 2007), 181-96.
(2007) “Introduction” to the thought and life of Tersteegen in Gerhard, Tersteegen, The Quiet Way: Selections from the Letters, trans. by Emily Chisholm (Bloomington, Ind.: World Wisdom, 2006), vi-xxvii
(2006) “Foreword” to Ruth Goldbourne, The Flesh and the Feminine: Gender and Theology in the Writings of Caspar Schwenckfeld (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006), xiii-xvii.
(2005) “Henry Edward Manning, Priscilla Maurice, and the Pastoral Care of the Sick,” in Sheridan Gilley (ed.) Victorian Churches and Churchmen: Essays Presented to V. Alan McClelland, edited by Sheridan Gilley (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005)
(2005) “Newman et la tradition patristique: Le Développment de la Doctrine Chrétienne et <<une certain permanence>> Etudes Newmaniennes 21 (2005), 43-56.
(2004) “Graham Greene,” “Bernard Lonergan,” “ Evelyn Waugh” articles in John Powell (ed.) Dictionary of Literary Influences Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004
(2004) “Gottfried Arnold” in Carter Lindberg (ed.), The Pietist Theologians, (Oxford: Blackwells, 2004), 175-91
(2002) Gottfried Arnold’s Defense of Mystical Theology” in Dietrich Meyer und Udo Straeter (hrsg.) Zur Rezeption mystischer Tradition im Protestantismus des 16. Bis 19. Jahrhunderts (Köln: Rheinland Verlag, 2002), 203-222.
(2001) “Pietism and Tractarian Oxford: Edward Bouverie Pusey, Evangelicalism, and the Interpretation of German Theology” in Wolfgang Breul-Kunkel und Lothar Vogel (hrsg.), Rezeption und Reform: Festschrift für Hans Schneider zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, Quellen und Studien zur hessischen Kirchengeschichte, Bd. 5 (Darmstadt und Kassel: Verlag der hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichen Vereinigung, 2001), 399-412.
(2000) “Enjoyment and Repose: Newman and Aristotle on Work, Leisure, and Liberal Education” in Christiane d’Haussy (ed.) Travail et repos. Paris: l’Université de Marc Bloch de Strasbourg et Didier. Also in Communio: International Catholic Review 27 (2000), 743-58.
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On Friday, November 27, Pembroke Bishop Michael Mulhall visited Barry’s Bay for a game of hockey with OLSWA students. Every Friday evening, from 10:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m., students and members of the community play pick-up hockey at the local Paul J. Yakabuski Community Centre. Hockey is one of the sport options available for students who want a break from academics. It will be a long-lasting memory in the minds of these students, who can now say that they have played hockey with the local bishop! Bishop Mulhall enjoyed the game as well and hopes to come out again.
The Paul J. Yakabuski Community Centre resonated with the sound of fiddle and piano, laughter, and clapping, as OLSWA celebrated its annual American Thanksgiving. Members of the school, and also of the local community, enjoyed three hours of dancing and desserts. Throughout the evening of November 26, participants were asked to “square their sets” as square dancing occupied much of the dance time. A few polkas and waltzes were also welcomed for some variation. This annual celebration was a student –
organized and coordinated event. An American Thanksgiving evening has been a tradition at the Academy, to join its American students in celebrating their Thanksgiving, when they cannot go home to celebrate. Many thanks go out to Julie and Kerry Fitzgerald (Bancroft, ON) who provided the live music, and also to Stanley Pecoskie who called the square dances. Thank you to the student organizers, Elizabeth Enright and Hannah Corkery.
Norm Edwards and Wayne Forsyth of St. Casimir’s Knights of Columbus Council, Round Lake, presented a cheque to Interim President, Dr. Keith Cassidy, and Senior Development Officer, Maria Reilander. The council presented this contribution as the proceeds from their first fundraising breakfast for OLSWA. The breakfast was held at St. Andrew’s Parish, in Killaloe, on Sunday, October 18. The Knights plan to make this an annual event, to show their appreciation and support for the Academy. OLSWA is very grateful for their financial assistance and ongoing encouragement. 
from classes and study to participate in a school-organized Remembrance Day service. It was held outside at the Jubilee Cross which overlooks Lake Kamaniskeg. The service consisted of several reflections, prayers, the singing of our national anthem, and the recitation of the poem, In Flanders Field. It was officiated by Deacon Robert Probert. Thank you to students, Joseph Jalsevac and Elizabeth Enright, for coordinating this event.
The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College is a U.S. publication of the Cardinal Newman Society designed to aid Catholic high school students and their families seeking faithful and authentic Catholic higher education. Initially published in 2007, the Newman Guide was recently released in its second edition. OLSWA is proud to be one of only two Canadian schools – along with Redeemer Pacific College of Trinity Western University in B.C. – to be highlighted in the Guide and the only Canadian institution offering a full Catholic liberal arts program.
