My Books
My Books
For a complete list of my publications, visit my Amazon Author’s page.
The books are presented below in Chronological order. They may be read in any order to the reader’s benefit. Each will stand on its own. However, the body of work is a development in phenomenological discovery expressed through the flow of ideas over time.
The books are under my first and last name, Walter Adams.
Emerson is my middle name, and I use Walter Emerson as my online persona.
Both, then, are my “real” name.
Journey to Christendom: The Freedom Dance
On a blustery, sunny October afternoon in 2008, I left the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago heading northward on the Eden’s expressway toward my home in Lake County. It was mid-afternoon and rush hour traffic had yet to materialize. As a result, traffic was relatively light, and I was able to cruise at a steady pace. My mind began to wander.
My thoughts began to drift. As they did so, the following phrases rolled through my head like a contemplative mist:
One day
I was walking
Through a forest
I continued pondering that for a while. As I moved further northward, the traffic became even lighter, my thoughts drifted further, and the contemplative mist became softer and more mysterious:
In an open field I saw an
Unusual scene
There, a group of bright,
Smiling people were,
Dancing
Just a half-hour earlier, while adoring the Blessed Sacrament at St. Stanislaus, I had the following contemplative image. I saw myself walking in a beautiful meadow with the Blessed Virgin Mary. She spoke to me, saying, “If you have something you feel you need to say, you should probably think about saying it.” I thought for a moment. Then I responded to her. “Yes, I believe I do have something I would like to say now.”
Seek First the Kingdom: The March of Hope
Seek First the Kingdom - The March of Hope is about my life-long journey along the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed through Catholicism with the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joan of Arc, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux that I introduced in my first book, Journey to Christendom - The Freedom Dance.
Here, you will continue your journey as we venture together through the gateway at the great castle walls of Catholicism and march forward with the Virgin Mary, St. Joan, and St. Thérèse to a beautiful panoramic view of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that awaits you inside the mysterious land of Catholic spirituality.
The March of Hope is about the mystical beauty and reality that is the Catholic Church, the Kingdom of God on earth. It is about what happened next, on the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed. It is about a new worldview.
The Dove and Rose: Personal reflections on devotion to St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux
This is the fourth edition. Substantive edits from the first three editions clarify the text. Chapters were removed from the earlier editions to keep The Dove and Rose focused on its objective: inspiring devotion to St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. St. Joan is the Dove. St. Thérèse is the Rose.
The Dove and Rose is a series of descriptive reflections on the impact of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux on my life. A lifelong devotee to St. Thérèse, her poetry and plays introduced me to St. Joan through an extraordinary inspiration. I began writing about what that inspiration meant. Soon, St. Joan of Arc became the most significant influence on my life after Jesus and Mary. A journey had begun, with St. Joan guiding me and St. Thérèse at my side. St. Joan and St. Thérèse brought me from the Dark Forest of the contemporary world to a brightly lit path I call The Trail of the Dogmatic Creed.
The reader searching for the story of St. Joan of Arc or St. Thérèse of Lisieux will not find it. This is a personal reflection on how devotion to them transformed my life. I encourage the reader to contemplate and journal as they walk along The Trail of the Dogmatic Creed with our saintly sisters. The reader’s story with St. Joan and St. Thérèse remains to be written.
My Life with St. Joan and St. Thérèse
“Joan of Arc,” I thought to myself. The name was familiar, for sure. Yet, I really could not recall much that I had learned about her. I remembered something about burning at the stake. Yes. Did she not burn at the stake? The rest was a blank sheet. I would not have done well on a French history exam, even after my six weeks in Brittany.I turned with a typical “whatever” shrug and walked at a clip to catch up with the group, not realizing that she, Joan of Arc, was the reason that the French defeated England at Orléans. She was the reason the French routed the English from the Loire Valley. She was the reason that the Dauphin, Charles VII, marched to Rheims to be crowned King of France, rather than run away. She was the reason that France kept her independent crown. She was the reason France would remain Catholic after the Protestant revolution. She was the reason France developed into the nation state we know today. That is who Joan of Arc was. I did not realize the historical, religious, and spiritual significance in Western Civilization of the person whose image that curious statue represented. I also did not realize the historical, religious, and spiritual significance she would have in my personal life. Joan of Arc had saved France’s life. I had no “earthly” idea at that time that she was going to save mine.
Royaume France: The French Catholic Diaspora in America
Royaume France is my attempt to make sense of a single phenomenon. It is as if my entire life up to that day in October of 2008 was leading to it, and every day after has been an attempt to understand it. The phenomenon was a powerful instant whereby St. Joan of Arc permanently entered my life story through the Jehannian hermeneutics of St. Thérèse’s plays and poetry. I refer to it, using the terminology of St. Edith Stein, as a “divine glance” and an encounter with the combined hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse. For the next decade or more, this encounter transformed my life.
Royaume France is an attempt to explain this transformation. It is not about St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux as much as it is about their influence on me and on the meaning of that encounter. This journey led me through religion to philosophy and phenomenology and back again. Royaume France is a record of this intellectual and spiritual journey through the influence of the combined hearts of Joan and Thérèse.
Despite the very philosophical language the reader encounters along this way, the work remains highly devotional in nature. There is philosophy and phenomenology but no attempt to make this “divine glance” a purely philosophical affair. The astonishing moment imbuing my soul with a lifelong devotion to St. Joan of Arc is supernatural in nature and a grace from Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I have done my best in Royaume France to explain its m
The French Catholic Diaspora: The French Royal Hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“So it is that the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods.” (CCC 955)[
The Starting point for this manuscript is a moment in the Fall of 2008. Through contemplating the plays and poetry of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, I experienced a profound, instantaneous psychic metanoia around the person of St. Joan of Arc. The search for the meaning of this encounter propelled me forward in Catholic faith, hope, and love. At the same time, Our Lady removed me from the corporate world where, for many years, I had been a highly paid executive leading a well-known global brand and, before that position, a Park Avenue executive consultant. I set that aside to teach part-time at various local colleges and universities, which allowed me the freedom to devote my life to St. Joan and St. Thérèse and the moment of “unreflective certainty,” a phrase I borrowed from the philosophy of St. Edith Stein. A story emerged that confirmed the authority of the Holy Catholic Church as the absolute bedrock of mankind’s order on earth and the only means of eternal salvation for the human race.
A more precise story appeared through the mist of a magnificent contemplative panorama. France, Catholic and Royal, is truly the Eldest Daughter of the Church and must be restored on earth congruent to its form in Heaven as the lily of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. The Church and France must be restored to their Catholic splendor if humanity and Western Civilization, respectively, are to be saved. Those called to this special mission are the mystical French Catholic Diaspora worldwide.
This book is a brief but essential companion for those called to the French Catholic Diaspora through the hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse.
The House of New Bethany: Holy Devotion to St. Mary Magdalene
This brief book of reflections distills the essence of what I have been writing for over fifteen years. Despite the shortness of the book, the reader might take a lifetime to finish it. Behind every sentence are years of contemplation, Eucharistic adoration, reading, and writing. What remains hidden behind the glimpse of Holy Devotion to St. Mary Magdalene expressed here is a shimmering Kingdom circumscribed by the light of the combined hearts and St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The Kingdom is a form in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. St. Mary Magdalene embodies this Kingdom and holy devotion to her through the Virgin Mary leads us to the feet of Christ in Bethany, the foot of the Cross, the tomb of the resurrection, and, finally, to Mystical France on the shores of Provence. May the reader find Catholic spiritual nourishment here and life in the Mystical Kingdom of Catholic and Royal France for eternity.
