Ideals

The Alexandrian’s primary goal is to elevate and deepen Canadian culture by engaging our modern society in dialogue with the Catholic traditions on which it was founded. In order to accomplish this goal, we publish a quarterly online journal – both to support and to challenge the individuals it reaches. Our love for the truth and beauty of Catholic tradition is our motive in this publication, and our desire to glorify God, Who is Love, Truth and Beauty.

Building on Tradition.

During the centuries since Christ instituted the Church, great Catholic minds have given the world many masterpieces of creativity and thought. By incorporating the works of classical genius with their new theological perspective, these men were able to interpret reality with hope and love. Among innumerable others in the fields of philosophy and the arts, we find St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Blessed Duns Scotus, Dante, Chaucer, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, William Shakespeare,¹ Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Pope, Blaise Pascal, and more recently, Blessed Edith Stein, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Pope John Paul II, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh.

Faithful to the Magisterium

In our promotion of Catholic culture in Canada, we strive to be faithful to the teachings of the Church. Led and inspired by enthusiastic young people who love and live their Faith, we hope to be part of the “new springtime” of the Church in Canada.

Non-Catholics and Non-Canadians.

We welcome submissions from those who do not share our Faith or our country. While we will not publish any works which attack Catholic teaching, a work need not be explicitly Catholic to be published by the Alexandrian. In fact, the best works are often those which imply their Catholicity, rather than stating it outright. We want works in which grace and hope have been infused, rather than merely imputed (to use a theological analogy). In other words, the works we publish will have foundations in a Catholic respect for life and love of God, even though the particulars may not be outspokenly Catholic. On the other hand, we cannot publish works which, despite a superficial Catholicism, are built on anti-Catholic premises such as atheism or solipsism.

How to Write.

Like most other problems in life, the solution to becoming a good Catholic writer is rooted in individual sanctity. Do your best to grow in holiness, learn your Faith and love her, and strive for perfection in all that you do.

Then, write what you like.

Most people are better at writing when they write what they enjoy reading. Keep practicing, until you can communicate your ideas and emotions clearly and in an engaging manner. Don’t worry about trying to be “Christian” in your writings. If you are able to express your thoughts in writing, and your thoughts center on Christ, then hope, love and authenticity will shine through your work even when it is not outspokenly theological.

Keep your writing very professional – grammatical and spelling errors can make even a very good piece of writing seem childish and unsuitable. Particularly when writing philosophy, keep your thoughts straight, your definitions readily available and all your sources properly cited and endnoted in MLA format. In poetry, make sure that you are aware of your metre and rhyme scheme, and of any exceptions to the rules you have laid for your words. Exceptions do lend force to a poem – but their force is inversely proportional to their frequency. While we accept free verse, one goal of the Alexandrian is to revive traditions which our modern culture has lost and we would like to encourage poets to try writing formal poetry, which is challenging and rewarding.²

How Not to Write.

Because our mission is to publish works of art and thought, we do not publish cultural commentary, book or film reviews, or political commentary in our Journal. Although these can affirm the Catholic culture, they do not add intellectual and creative content directly. If you have ideas of this kind, though, feel free to submit them for blog posts. Keep in mind that we are not a political group, and cannot affiliate ourselves with particular political positions, only moral positions.

Since our target audience is the Canadian population of young and enthusiastic Catholics, we do not publish apologetics, including, for example, the Bud MacFarlane genre of fiction. You can safely assume that your average reader owns a copy of the Catechism – and reads it.

¹ The Catholicity of Shakespeare is presumed; for backing arguments, see Shadowplay by Clare Asquith.

² Should you decide to take on the challenge of metre, a recommended text is Writing Metrical Poetry by William Baer.