Products

St. John Vianney, the Cure d'Ars, though he was not thought competent to preach or hear confessions, became one of the greatest preachers and confessors of his age.The 19th century was one of optimism for French Catholicism, but, following the horrors of the French Revolution, there was also a feeling of lukewarmness and an approach to the moral life that felt sin could not be all that bad.St. John Vianney, on the other hand, would not suffer to see souls be damned for lukewarmness. His preac...

Among the most beautiful prayers ever composed, the 'O' Antiphons have for twelve centuries voiced the Church's longing for Christ's Coming at Christmas. In this remarkable book Oliver Treanor explores the rich biblical background to each Antiphon and, drawing on the spiritual tradition of the Fathers and the teachings of Vatican II as well, leads us to the deep sources of meditation that lie within the texts. Here is an ideal Advent companion for individuals or groups seeking to recharge the...

Many of us fail to recognize that obtaining the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to getting to heaven. We often block their reception through our own faults. We fail to see how they are passed on or strengthened in the sacraments. And, sadly, we forget to petition God in prayer to bestow these gifts upon us.In these pages, Dr. Kevin Vost best-selling author of The One-Minute Aquinas provides us with a substantive yet readable introduction to the seven gifts and how we ca...

Centennial Perspectives on Romano Guardini's Landmark Work Romano Guardini's The Spirit of the Liturgy helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life.... We were now willing to see the liturgy as the prayer of the Church, a prayer moved and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, a prayer in which Christ unceasingly becomes contemporary with us, enters into our ...

Many devotional books present different ways to participate in the Mass, but relatively few preseor which there are no fixed prayers. An excellent help in this domain is a short work, Seven Ways of the Cross (1958), by Jesuit Father Jean (John) Galot (1919-2008), who was to become a prolific writer and professor of theology, first at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, then at the Angelicum in Rome, where he regularly contributed to the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano. Father ...

Fulton J. Sheen turned his voice and pen to many subjects during the course of a long and remarkable apostolate. But nothing was closer to the heart of his message than bringing the words of Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother to bear on the problems of modern life and the modern world. In this book, Archbishop Sheen explores the connection between the seven words spoken by Mary in the Gospels, and the seven last words of Jesus on the Cross. Fulton Sheen was unparalleled in his ability to combine...

In Sex and the Catholic Feminist, Browder challenges the notion that you can't be a feminist and believe in God. She echoes John Paul II's call for Catholics to embody a "new feminism," a radical new view of women's dignity. Her goal in this book is to "follow one golden thread of feminism in America--the pro-life thread--to show why it has been ignored by the media and left out of public conversation for fifty years." For Browder, the pro-life movement is about more than abortion and contrac...

The thesis of this book is that God intends that sexual intercourse should be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant. From this it follows that the marriage covenant provides the criterion to evaluate the morality of every sexual act. Thus the title, Sex and the Marriage Covenant, is an appropriate description of the book's contents. Marriage comes into being by a couple unreservedly entering God's covenant of marriage; contraceptive intercourse contradicts the very essence of...

It all happened one morning. It was as if the world had gone mad. Well, maybe not the whole world, but enough of it to get noticed. People were waking up as if possessed; suffering souls resorting to tearing at their skin, crying out loud to no one in particular, haunted by a sudden internal torment that no one around them could decipher. For investigative reporter Elijah, this news story was way bigger than a scoop. Unless he could unmask the truth behind the madness, how could he stop it, o...

This book is the result of a life-long companionship with William Shakespeare. Annie-Paule de Prinsac has never been in doubt about his mannerism, whose many guises she reveals through close readings of selected plays. Such mannerism, however, in a kingdom torn by religious conflicts, violent oppression, and censorship raises questions. It seems out of step with the spirit of the Elizabethan Court, but also seems to belie the views of so many critics regarding his alleged social background an...

The object of Shane Leslie's Ghost Book is to collect instances of ghosts, apparitions, and messages from the other twilight world which have come under Catholic cognizance or suggest Catholic interpretations. This small collection is intended to illustrate occasions between the Catholic Church and the ghostly. They are not necessarily spiritual and even less spiritualistic. Religion colours most of these stories, but some merely have occurred to Catholics or in Catholic surroundings. Whateve...

The Immaculate Conception describes the sinless conception of the Blessed Virgin in St. Anne's womb. But if there were nothing more hidden in this mystery, it would be only her unique privilege. It would not affect our lives nor touch our hearts. The Holy Spirit continues to imprint this mystery on our hearts by purifying us of all sin and healing its effects, so that we too may be immaculate like the Virgin. Through these 40 days, we tap into the living reality of this mystery, so that the H...

Novelist Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) left a mark on twentieth-century literature, not only in her homeland of Norway, but across the West. Her painterly eye for the Scandinavian countryside, her uncompromising emotional realism, her concrete sense of history, her bold vision of woman and man--these won her such acclaim that she received the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature, not long after the publication of her epic historical novel, Kristin Lavransdatter. During World War II, she loudly opposed...

Based on a true story that hints at the presence of miraculous grace, The Silent Angel is a powerful account of human resilience and heroic faith set against the backdrop of the massacre of Christians during the Armenian Genocide.This tale opens up with a scene of carnage and devastation, from the ruins of a monstary to lifeless bodies--the doings of an army of young Turks. Silent Angel follows the story of five survivors: three women, a child, and a Greek monk. They are forced to wander thro...

The secret of a good marriage, for the most part, is that there are no secrets, only commonsense, time-tested ideas practiced by countless others who have done it well.--from the Introduction Marriage expert Dr. Ray Guarendi has counseled enough couples to know that building a better relationship with your spouse doesn't mean learning exotic new communication techniques or rearranging your lifestyle. In fact, a few of his ten "small steps" are lessons you learned in grade school, such as: -Sa...

In Sin Revisited, Solange Hertz tackles the topic of sin with a unique perspective for modern times, delving into the intellectual approaches of the Desert Fathers as well as St. John of the Cross. In Hertz’s own words: “Don’t expect to find the seven deadly sources so familiar in song and story. You’ll find eight, and even these won’t be in the same sequence most of us are used to. This approach is newer than Vatican II, because it’s so much older, if you know what I mean, very much older ce...

A Novel Based on the Life of St. Francis of Assisi His neighbors thought he was spoiled and lazy. His teachers found him incorrigible. His own father believed he was crazy. His mother never doubted that he was a true son of God. Arrogant and grandiose, young Francis di Bernardone was an embarrassment to his family and a source of amusement to his community. He led a lavish, undisciplined life, squandering his father's fortune on the finest food, wine, and late-night parties with his coterie o...

God uses the most unlikely people in mysterious ways. Madeleine Mirabal was born into a poor family in 19th century Paris. She suffered throughout her whole life. Despite not being raised in the Catholic Faith, she found God and step by step surrendered herself to His love, coming to realise that the very heart and essence of the Catholic Faith is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It was to her that God gave the inspiration for the devotion of the Mass of Reparation. Saddened by the absence of ...

Meet a modern-day Joan of Arc. Whether in scrubs, camouflage, or a religious habit, Sr. Dede Byrne, in her threefold calling as a professed religious sister, renowned surgeon, and U.S. Army colonel, inspire us to both virtue and action.If the apostles had remained hidden in the Upper Room, we would never have a Church today. Similarly, Sister's inspirational life serves as a call to emerge from the safety of the Upper Room and enter the public square to courageously infuse culture with an una...

Meet the Sisters of the Last Straw, a community of Sisters working hard to overcome their bad habits. Join these loveable misfit nuns as they learn to love God and forgive one another. When Amanda Kate comes to visit, Sister Krumbles gets the idea to run the Saint Patrick's Day Marathon. But will she be up to the challenge? What is Mr. Lemon up to? Will he win the prize money for himself? Will the Sisters solve the mystery of the missing items?

Joan Windham’s Sixty Saints for Boys contains all of her stories of the saints whose names boys are likely to have. The stories are arranged by date, beginning with St. James and finishing with St. Michael. In between is a splendid mix of saints, young and old: soldier saints and schoolboy saints; clowns and kings; noblemen and knights; monks and missionaries; and many others. These stories are able to inspire readers to fall in love with virtue. No child reading them will ever suppose that s...

Joan Windham's Sixty Saints for Girls contains all her stories of girl and woman saints from her other books, with a number of new ones added. The stores are arranged by date, beginning with Our Lady's mother, St. Anne, and finishing with another Anne, Anne de Guigne (this Anne, who died in 1922, aged 10, has not been canonized, but she was declared Venerable on March 3, 1990 by Pope John Paul II). In between is a lovely mix of saints, young and old, princesses and pilgrims, mothers and grand...

David Lowenthal transposes present society onto that in the novel, 1984, and illustrates "how the quest for a perfect society led instead to the worst--in the course of revolting against which the true ends of life are established." It is more than suspicion: the year 2021 is 1984. What many understand by instinct, Lowenthal here articulates in clear terms using the political prophesy of this no longer futuristic literature. To be one without truthful unity? This is the picture of human broth...

What Exorcists See & What We Should Know This book draws upon the great wisdom of some of the leading exorcists in the Church, including Fr. Chad Ripperger, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea, Fr. Gary Thomas, among others, presenting it in an approachable and engaging way that conveys critical insights into spiritual warfare to modern audiences. These experts draw on teachings from various sources, including sacred traditions of our Faith, teachings from Church Fathers and Doct...

Acclaimed British historian examines the layers of craft and insight in Tobias Smollett, and discusses the particular nature of his genius and influence on British culture. Once again, Black acquaints the reader with the full range of a prolific writer's works and offers a backstage tour of the meaning and context of Britain's most beloved stories and story-tellers.

The study of any masterpiece can change one's life, but the Confessions of St. Augustine, like Plato's Republic or Dante's Commedia, has the almost uncanny power to enact in the reader what it describes. Plato's book reconfigures the city of the soul by freeing it from enslavement to the tyrannical passions and making it answerable to reason in its pursuit of the good. For Augustine, who shares many of the same ends, the pursuit of the good is not the rectification of philosophical reason, bu...

Can the medieval world still speak to the modern? The implicit answer in Bede Jarrett's remarkable work, Social Theories of the Middle Ages, is a resounding "yes". Fascinating as a purely historical study, it serves also to present the foundation whereby Christendom began to articulate the vision of a different kind of common life. Embedded in medieval doctrines regarding law, women, Christendom, art - and especially just war, property, money-making, and education - are principles that we wou...

What can the lay person learn from the life of a monk? Solitude and Silence are two pillars of monastic life that many people quickly point to as the hardest and most confusing parts of this kind of religious consecration. However, the great spiritual writer Thomas à Kempis, author of The Imitation of Christ, helps us to understand that all Christians are called to some solitude and silence in our lives while not taking on a complete eremitical life. He recommends the systematic and intention...

Jennifer Fulwiler told herself she was happy. Why wouldn't she be? She made good money as a programmer at a hot tech start-up, had just married a guy with a stack of Ivy League degrees, and lived in a twenty-first-floor condo where she could sip sauvignon blanc while watching the sun set behind the hills of Austin. Raised in a happy, atheist home, Jennifer had the freedom to think for herself and play by her own rules. Yet a creeping darkness followed her all of her life. Finally, one winter ...

The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb On August 9, 1945, an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing tens of thousands of people in the blink of an eye, while fatally injuring and poisoning thousands more. Among the survivors was Takashi Nagai, a pioneer in radiology research and a convert to the Catholic Faith. Living in the rubble of the ruined city and suffering from leukemia caused by over-exposure to radiation, Nagai live...

The power of a woman is most concretely observed in the seeds she plants, day after day, in the lives of those around her. Soul Garden is a sizable collection of personal stories, essays, poems, and recipes written to cultivate the motherly role of women by offering inspiration, camaraderie, and encouragement.Contributors from across the country and around the world invite readers to put away their screens and to pick up this lovely, tangible book, in which they can find nourishment for the s...

The Foundations of Science introduces children to the wonders of the natural world in light of God's providential care over creation.Too often we hear messages that science is in conflict with faith, but Pope St. John Paul II wrote that faith and science "each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish." Foundations seeks to spawn this flourishing in the hearts and minds of young readers, guiding them into a world that will delight their imaginations and inspire...

The poetry of Spending the Winter is musical and structured, whimsical and piercing, begging to be read aloud when one is not laughing or arrested by an image that hooks the heart. "Poems so severely beautiful that they become unforgettable after one reading," writes one poet. "A throwback to a time when lovers of poetry...looked for poetry of depth, wit, and craft from the likes of Auden and Larkin," adds another. With sections of comedy that show his wit, translations that echo his vast rea...

Nearly a century ago, the Trappist monk Jean-Baptiste Chautard sat in the silence of his cell and wrote this classic book, showing us how to live in the noise and bustle of the world and to win more souls for Christ. Praised by Pope St. Pius X, Pope Benedict XV, and by many cardinals and bishops, Spiritual Handbook for Catholic Evangelists was an instant hit when it was first published in 1912, and has since been read with gratitude by hundreds of thousands of busy parents, teachers, preacher...

St. Paul was struck down by divine power, from a bolt of spiritual lightning. In our own lives, we also experience moments of spiritual lightning, whether subtly, dramatically, or circumstantially. Throughout this attention-grabbing book, Deacon Richard Eason reveals how to let God's power run wild in your soul so that you can be formed in Christ's values and revel in the abundant life. Through compelling real-life examples, including sports analogies, Deacon Eason focuses each chapter on a s...

This book introduces the reader to thirteen Christian spiritual classics that illustrate the ordinary steps we can take toward living the Gospel life more fully.Drawing on the rich teaching of a particular saint or mystic, each chapter helps us grow in a different aspect of holiness, of intimacy with God. Archbishop Hughes offers an itinerary for becoming a good disciple of the Lord, giving the reader access to an impressive spiritual library that can support and strengthen progress in discip...

Daily Meditations for Sanctifying Advent This book is written to bring to our minds the thoughts of Advent so that we may think and pray with Mary, who brought Christ to us. Advent, like Lent, is a time of preparation in thought and deed for a great event. Certainly, if a king or a cardinal were to come to our home as a guest, we would prepare for his advent. Should we not prepare, then, for the great King of the universe during these days? Instead of coming to our homes, however, His Advent,...

Satan is always at work breeding sadness and anxiety while providing obstacles that prevent souls from making spiritual progress. In this concise yet powerful book, author Dan Burke presents the venerable, time-tested wisdom of Catholic mystics to help you understand the influence of the Enemy on your mind and heart, and the tactics you need to combat him. With St. Ignatius as his guide, Burke presents here an indispensable, authoritative manual for engaging in daily battle with the Adversary...

This short, beautifully illustrated volume serves as an inviting introduction to St. Francis of Assisi through one of his most beloved works, the Canticle of the Creatures. As G. K. Chesterton observed, the Canticle is a “supremely characteristic work,” so rich with Francis’s spirit that much of his life and character can be discerned from it alone. For newcomers to Francis, the Canticle provides a perfect entry point; for Franciscans—especially members of the Secular Franciscan Order—it offe...

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, it was high treason—and therefore punishable by death—to be a Catholic priest in England. In this dangerous era, hiding places were essential whenever pursuivants arrived in search of clergy. Among the master craftsmen responsible for constructing these ingenious “priest-holes,” one name stands above the rest: St. Nicholas Owen. A small and later crippled man, Owen built the majority of England’s priest-holes, saving the lives of countless priests...

St. Alphonsus Liguori is one of the most awe-inspiring figures in the Catholic Church. His 111 books, more than any other author in history, have deeply enriched Catholic thought for centuries and still serve as a source of wisdom and inspiration for modern believers. St. Alphonsus was not just a prolific writer – he was also a bishop, confessor, founder of the Redemptorists, and Doctor of the Church.His life was marked by incredible achievements and even miracles that could only be attribute...

This is the classic, fascinating and almost fabulous life of St. Antony of the Desert, the first hermit and the Father of Monasticism, all as recorded in the inimitable style of the great Doctor of the Church, St. Athanasius of Alexandria (c.297-373 A.D.).From St. Antony’s life, for example, we learn that there are swarms of devils everywhere, but that they are powerfulness to harm us if we use the Holy Name of Jesus and the sacramentals of the Church to ward them off. We also see how stalwar...