Books Published by Angelico Press

In The Middle Ages, Dorothy Mills lets medieval chroniclers tell their own tales; poets and troubadours, minstrels and wandering scholars sing their own songs; and serfs describe their hard lot. She combines interesting source material with a scholarly interpretation of important events and of those features that characterized all countries during the Middle Ages: the Church; monks and friars and pilgrims; feudalism and chivalry; the manors and towns; Crusades; students wandering in search of...

To the medieval thinker, man was the center of creation, and all of nature existed purely for his benefit. The shift from the philosophy of the Middle Ages to the modern view of humanity's less central place in the universe ranks as the greatest revolution in the history of Western thought, and this classic in the philosophy of science describes and analyzes how that profound change occurred. A fascinating analysis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Gilbert, Boyle...

Readers of The Imitation of Christ have sometimes asked why Thomas à Kempis does not once mention the Blessed Virgin in his magnificent work. The present book is an answer to their question, compiled from his many devotional writings about her. In its selections it is unique, preserving the poetic heart of its author better than other edited works published under the same title. The Imitation of Mary is arranged according to the mysteries of the life of Mary: joyous, sorrowful, and glorious. ...

First published in 2003,The Heresy of Formlessness is already a modern classic, unique for its melding of poetic shimmer and keen observation. Martin Mosebach offers up a compelling defense of the traditional Roman Rite and a searing critique of the postconciliar liturgical reform through which ancient rites were profaned by tone-deaf modernizers—and thus a once-flourishing religion gutted by banal innovations. For Mosebach, the only coherent solution to this crisis is a wholehearted return t...

Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom The core of the global cultural revolution is the deliberate confusion of sexual norms. It is the culmination of a metaphysical revolution as well—a shifting of the fundamental ground upon which we stand and build a culture, even a civilization. Instead of desire being subjected to natural, social, moral, and transcendent orders, the identity of man and woman is dissolved, and free rein given to the maximum fulfillment of polymorphous urges, with ...

Three years ago, the Gentle Traditionalist introduced the skeptical, secular Geoffrey to the Catholic Mystery. Now a convert, Geoffrey struggles to see with his reason what his wife Anna intuits to her horror: the steady possession of a once-Christian West by the twin forces of Secular Materialism and Secular Spiritualism—the New Secular Religion and New Age Religion. In Ireland, land of saints and scholars, the transformation is rapid and devastating: over 1,500 years of faith evaporating in...

J. R. R. Tolkien was a profoundly metaphysical thinker, and one of the most formative influences on his imagination, according to this new study of his works, was the great thirteenth-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Structured around Tolkien’s Middle-earth creation myth, the Ainulindale, The Flame Imperishable follows the thought of Aquinas as a guide in laying bare the deeper foundations of many of the more familiar themes from Tolkien’s legendarium, including such notions as sub-cre...

In 1925, just three years after his reception into the Catholic Church, G.K. Chesterton published a work that proclaimed anew to the doubters of the age that the key to history had arrived nearly two thousand years before. Contra the evolutionists, he first points to the singular nature of man from his very beginnings; and, later, contra the comparative religionists, points to the uniqueness of Christianity in relation to all other paths. Two of those paths, the way of myth and the way of phi...

The Divine Liturgy: Insights Into Its Mystery will fascinate readers interested in learning more about the ancient and powerful mystery at the heart of Christian tradition. This book by renowned author Robert Hughes uncovers the deeper meaning of the Mass, tracing its symbolism through the history of religion.The core message of this engaging text reaches out beyond religious discussion, offering readers a unique perspective into a timeless sacred ritual that has delighted and amazed humanity...

Fulton J. Sheen was remarkable in his ability to uncover many layers of meaning in the life and words of Jesus of Nazareth. The Seven Beatitudes and The Seven Words from the Cross - both were delivered from a mountain, but the connection runs deeper than that. As Bishop Sheen points out, Our Lord began His Public Life on the Mount of the Beatitudes and closed it on the Mount of Calvary. On the first He uttered the words central to His message; on the second He spoke to the deed central to His...

The Common Mind traces the theme of the sensus communis, inherited from the medievals, through the lives and writings of twelve literary figures in the modern age, ranging from Thomas More and Jonathan Swift to C. S. Lewis and Russell Kirk. It is this quality, argues the author, which, like natural law, serves as the bedrock of orthodoxy, of social and political order, and which, by its presence or absence, determines the nature of every society. The Common Mind is an altogether uncommon achi...

The Case for Liturgical Restoration, which gathers the complete and definitive texts of the widely-admired “position papers” of the International Federation Una Voce, tackles the questions: What is the point of the Extraordinary Form? What is its rationale? What can it contribute to the life of the Church here and now? Taking up one by one the most controversial topics in liturgy today—among them, active participation, the role of the laity, eastward orientation, extensive silence, the use of...

The Beer Option proposes a renewal of Catholic culture by attending to the small things of life and ordering them toward the glory of God and the good of the community. Beer has played a surprising role in the history of Catholic culture, spurred on by the prayer and work of brewing monks. As we confront the many challenges of our time, beer can play a role in refermenting a local and home economy, drawing people together in festivity and friendship in the warm beauty of lost traditions. Cons...

This book is a kind of retreat, a coming away to find where Jesus dwells. The author, a Benedictine monk, ponders the word of God and the testimony of poets as he asks: What does it mean for the Lord to “abide in us” and we in Him? The “disciple whom Jesus loved”—the timeless model of all contemplatives—is our principal guide, as we look now at one, now at another aspect of the indwelling of God in our soul and in the people He has given us to love. Fr Luke takes as his structure “seven great...

St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), saint and martyr, might well be called the Saint of Synthesis. His thought, no less than his geographical wanderings, place him between Rome and Byzantium, between the theologies of East and West, and between the early Middle Ages and the ancient Church, whose representatives and traditions (which during his day had suffered much at the hands of imperial and ecclesial censure) he salvaged and brought back to the attention of his contemporaries. In this,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

SINCE THE TIME of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has experienced an unprecedented crisis of identity, symbolized and propelled by the corruption of the greatest treasure of her tradition: the sacred liturgy. The result has been confusion, dismay, devastation. To the surprise of some, however, the same half-century has witnessed a growing counter-movement of Catholics who find in the Church's traditional liturgy a perennial witness to the orthodox faith, a solid foundation for...

Dorothy Mills' book Renaissance & Reformation Times is an essential read for anyone interested in European history. This book not only delves into the reasons behind the great change in thought during this period, but also how it affected the everyday lives of people in countries like Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and England. Mills' engaging and direct approach to writing history makes this book a valuable resource for homeschooling parents and private school educators alike. With sound...

When a physicist who becomes a metaphysician, and a metaphysician who studies physics, join together to deal philosophically with science (quantum physics and cosmogenesis in particular), explosive results might well be expected—and this pivotal text does not disappoint. Co-author Jean Borella, professor of philosophy and metaphysics, also earned a degree in physics. And in co-author Wolfgang Smith we have a professor of mathematics and physics who became a metaphysician. Smith explores the i...

The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass At the crest of volatile years of experimentation, a new rite of Mass was introduced in 1969—no mere cosmetic treatment but a radical reconstruction of the Church’s central act of worship. A minority of the faithful continued to hold fast to the traditional rite, which John Paul II and Benedict XVI gradually freed from restrictions. The steady growth of this “traditionalist” movement inevitably prompts questions in the minds of more and ...

The ancient philosophy, in its original Orphico-Pythagorean and Platonic form, is not simply a way of life in accordance with the divine or human intellect (nous), but also the way of alchemical transformation and mystical illumination achieved through initiatic 'death' and subsequent restoration at the level of divine light. To use another mythical image, philosophy restores the soul's wings and leads the purified lover of wisdom to Heaven. As a means of spiritual reintegration and unificati...

The present volume is a shorter edition of Christ in His Mysteries, Dom Columba Marmion's profound reflection on the Mysteries of Christ's birth, death, Resurrection, and Ascension as presented in the Gospels and the Liturgical Year. In Blessed Marmion's words, the mysteries that Jesus lived were lived for us. In them He shows Himself as our model and wills to make Himself one with our souls as Head of the Mystical Body of which we are members. Advent, Christmas, Holy Week, Paschaltide, the f...

In No Trifling Matter, Monsignor Nicola Bux, a well-respected Italian professor of sacramental and liturgical theology, offers us a modern primer on the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Bux clarifies the purpose, significance, history, and spirituality of each of the seven “efficacious signs” by which, until the end of time, the Church diffuses the conditions of holiness to receptive people. To this positive exposition Bux adds a warning call regarding the deformations, equivocations, addit...

Modernity is viewed as an opportunity for discovering the self and encountering the radically other; but, as an ideology and as a quasi-religion, it amounts to the most sophisticated and unacknowledged play of shadows into which fallen man has thus far descended. Indeed, René Girard went so far as to identify the uncontrollable escalation of violence unleashed by our attempt to secure political order and peace—absent corporate repentance and obedience to the Gospel—as Apocalypse. With a quest...

This work makes an essential contribution to the history of mental illnesses and their therapies in a domain very little studied until now. Confronted by the numerous problems still posed today in understanding these illnesses, their treatment, and their relationship to those who are sick, Jean-Claude Larchet shows the importance offered for reflection and current practice by early Christian thought and experience. After indicating how the Fathers understood the psyche and its relationship wi...

Human beings are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, yet the complicated world we live in constantly interferes with our natural understanding. And so we live in a time of widely divergent opinions about right and wrong, life and death, sexuality and sex, pro-life and pro-choice, prolonging life and shortening life. What we need now more than ever is a moral compass by which to steer. In Matters of Life and Death, Gerard Verschuuren means to provide the contemporary reader with just...

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel is a collection of some of the most beautiful words spoken by St. Charbel, augmented by a short biography. St. Charbel's homilies and proverbs are reminiscent of the sayings of the Desert Fathers: simple, homespun, and direct, yet shining and profound. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to get to know this great saint better!

Life's Journey is a rich exploration not only of biology but also of the meaning of life and death. In addition to guiding the reader through the biological milestones marking a lifetime, the book is also a philosophical pursuit of the Great Questions that accompany our journey through life. Gerard Verschuuren describes in fascinating detail the six main phases of that journey: conception, life in the womb, infancy and childhood, adulthood, old age, and natural death. If you have children goi...

Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama What has gone wrong with the grand American experiment in "ordered liberty"? The progressive answer is that America has failed to live up to its full promise of inclusiveness and equality--likely the result of corporate greed and white male ruling elites. The mainstream conservative or libertarian's reply points to the Warren Court, the 1960's, or a loss of Constitutional rectitude. Christopher Ferrara, i...

“I have come to bring fire to the earth,” said Jesus Christ, and his words have come true in the lives of Catholic saints through the ages—men, women, and children on fire with love of Jesus, and with the desire to spread his word. The intention of this book of inspirational stories from the lives of saints is to fill the reader with this same fire. Whereas saints were once the popular heroes of our culture, populating our art and folklore, lending their names to our towns and streets and ins...

In 2007, Our Lord and Our Lady began to speak to the heart of a monk in the silence of adoration... He was prompted to write down what he received, and thus was born In Sinu Jesu, whose pages shine with an intense luminosity and heart-warming fervor that speaks directly to the inner and outer needs of our time with a unique power to console and challenge. The pages of this remarkable record of spiritual communication range across, and plunge into, many fundamental aspects of the spiritual lif...

In No Strange Land illuminates the richness of mysticism--in the life of Philip Neri--as an "experience of the activity of God." The life of the Apostle of Rome demonstrates that it is primarily people, not arguments, that reveal the mysteries of God. Philip's experience of God, his mysticism, was given him for the sake of others. Furthermore, that experience itself was embodied; that is to say awakened, nourished, and brought to fruition within the religious tradition into which he was born,...

In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga defines play as the central activity in flourishing societies. He identifies five characteristics of play: it is free; it is not “ordinary” or “real” life; it is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality and duration; it creates order; it is connected with no material interest, and from it no profit can be gained. With cross-cultural examples from the humanities, business, and politics, Huizinga examines play in all its diverse guises—as it relates to la...

Our Lady, the Divine Mercy, and the Popes of the Marian Era from Blessed Pius IX to Benedict XVI In the past 200 years, the Catholic Church has approved a series of private revelations with a deeply apocalyptic undercurrent. But what have the popes taught concerning these times? In this ground-breaking book, Stephen Walford uncovers the astonishing truth that the successors of St. Peter have together warned of the rapidly approaching final coming of Jesus Christ. By unearthing a great variet...

In a world that is ever-changing and increasingly full of challenges, it is more important than ever to have a strong foundation on which to build our lives. For centuries, the Rule of Saint Benedict has been a source of wisdom and guidance for those seeking to live a joy-filled and meaningful life.André Gushurst-Moore's book, Glory in All Things: St Benedict & Catholic Education Today, shows us how even in the 21st century, the ancient wisdom of Saint Benedict can be applied to our lives...

Glastonbury Abbey was, according to legend, the center from which radiated a Christian presence on that island for two thousand years, a sacred site from which the Christian faith was passed down through the generations. The story begins with the arrival of Joseph of Arimathea and his family, bearing the most sacred relic in all Christendom, the Holy Grail; and continues on to their confrontation with the Druids and the conversion of the new land to Christ; to the persecutions under the Roman...

The Long, Jagged Trail to a Postmodern Void From Christendom to Americanism and Beyond describes the momentous changes that occurred in the European cultural orbit from the end of the Middle Ages until the mid 20th century. During this period the Catholic unity of the West--what rightly was called Christendom--was lost, and the social order came to be organized on an entirely new basis. Instead of a society that attempted to arrange all its activity and institutions in a hierarchy directed to...

The Complete Story from Visionaries to Saints On October 13th, 1917, some seventy thousand spectators in Fatima’s Cova de Iria bore witness to what Pio Scatizzi, former professor of astronomy at the Gregorian University, would describe as the “most obvious and colossal miracle of history”—the vision of the sun “dancing” in the heavens. In Fatima, the First Hundred Years, Barry R. Pearlman provides an invaluable theological and historical framework for understanding this “Miracle of the Sun,” ...

Ridding the Church of Abuses of Sex and Power Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed is an important book tackling the pressing issue of sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic church. It offers necessary changes to revolutionize not just the structures but even theology of the church, ensuring that such abuses never happen again in its history. Strongly rooted in historical references and thology of Eastern Churches, this book is a practical guide to provide powerful and efficient methods to co...

Preliminaries to a Spirituality of Work In what way can human beings attain that Harmony whereby they become mediators between Heaven and Earth? In the mysterious language of symbols we can rediscover the sense of vocation that reflects Divine Activity. For God is, in reality, the sole Artisan. All the traditional crafts strive to imitate within their limitations the work of God, Who unceasingly creates and maintains the world. And in the end it is this that constitutes the sole foundation of...

Dismantling Freud is an essential read for individuals interested in psychology and understanding human nature. Written by an expert in the field, this book offers an insightful exploration of psychoanalysis and religion’s often-overlooked role in our lives. Through careful analysis and compelling arguments, Dismantling Freud contends that recent trends toward the acceptance of psychoanalytic theory has had destructive implications on our understanding of ourselves and the world. This meticul...

From Secularism and the New Age to Christendom Renewed The Cor Jesu Sacratissimum is a book for all generations, as it has the power to open minds and hearts that have been closed to Spiritual truths. Uncovering the bind of materialism, artificiality, and spiritual cynicism, this book offers real insight into how Catholic spirituality can bring new life and openness to those who are in search of more genuine spirituality.Drawing on personal experiences including his own conversion story and i...

Contra Mundum: Joseph de Maistre & The Birth of Tradition is the definitive introduction to an incredibly influential and controversial figure. Combining his philosophical achievements with ultra-modern thought, Thomas Isham offers a dynamic view of Joseph de Maistre, who not only shaped our present understanding of orthodox ideas but also held great influence in his own time. Featuring crisp and accessible language, this critically acclaimed work illuminates the groundbreaking aspects of...