With 2000 years of experience and grace the Catholic Church has has an unsurpassed body of history, knowledge and wisdom. From the days of the Evangelists to the present time the Church has been blessed not only with theologians and philosophers but with poets and authors who have delved and added to this treasure store.  It is ours to explore in our Catholic home school.

The World's Great Catholic Literature is an anthology of 208 selections from 103 authors from the days of the Fathers through the first part of the 20th century, selected by George Shuster. It is a reprint from 1942. The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom, edited by Father John Hardon, S.J., presents 33 of the greatest Catholic writers from every age. Both books contain poetry and a wide variety of prose selections.  An anthology devoted strictly to poetry is Garlands of Grace: An Anthology of Great Christian Poetry, edited by Regis Martin. Not every poet in this collection was Catholic by profession but all are Catholic in spirit.

A Modern Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy is a canto to canto student's guide to the many characters and allusions of Dante's great epic, considered the greatest of Catholic poems.

New editions of acclaimed Catholic novels are now available in the ever expanding Loyola Classics  series. These are fine Catholic works but, dealing as they do with sin and redemption, they are best read by adults or mature high school students. Titles include: In This House of Brede and Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rummer Godden; The Devil's Advocate by Morris West; Vipers' Tangle by Francois Mauriac; Helena by Evelyn Waugh; The Silver Chalice by Thomas Costain; The Keys of the Kingdom by A.J. Cronin.

Sigrid Undset is considered by many to be the greatest of Catholic novelists. The sagas of Kristin Lavrandatter (in three volumes) and The Master of Hestviken (in four volumes) tell of the clash of Christianity and paganism, as individual men and women are caught in the conflict.