Bestselling Books

Music plays such an important part in everyone's life but how much do we know about the history of music? How did music shape our civilization and how was music itself shaped by the Catholic Church? Susan Treacy, an experienced professor of music, is an excellent guide to the history of music. Every Catholic should own at least one book on music. This is it.

This volume in the popular Ignatius Catholic Study Bible series leads readers through a penetrating study of Deuteronomy using the text itself and the Church's own guidelines for understanding the Bible.Ample notes accompany each page, providing fresh insights by renowned Scripture scholars Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch as well as time-tested interpretations from the Fathers of the Church. These helpful study notes provide rich historical, cultural, geographical, and theological information per...

In this new book by bestselling author, Edward Sri, we discover the close connection between growing in the virtues and growing in friendship and community with others. A consummate teacher, Dr. Sri leads us through the virtues with engaging examples and an uncanny ability to anticipate and answer our most pressing questions. Dr. Sri shows us in his inimitable, easy-to-read style, that the virtues are the basic life skills we need to give the best of ourselves to God and to the people in our ...

The Catholic deposit of faith and tradition is wide and deep! There are so many different devotions and ways to pray that it's impossible for anyone to ever use them all, let alone in a busy family. Fortunately, the liturgical calendar is here to help!In this companion to her bestselling book about liturgical living traditions in the home, The Catholic All Year Compendium, Kendra Tierney lays out hundreds of prayers, devotions, practices, blessings, indulgences, novenas, hymns, Bible readings...

The fruit of much pastoral experience, this book addresses both perennial and current challenges facing Catholics, giving reasons for hope and joy. Touching on a wide range of topics, from prayer to evangelization, it offers insights into living the Catholic faith with humility and heroism as it focuses on the person of Jesus Christ--his identity, mission, and presence in our lives. Having been a pastor of souls in a variety of settings--the suburbs, the inner city, the mission field, and the...

Peter Kreeft presents a series of brilliant essays about many of the problems that undermine our Western civilization, along with ways to address them. "These essays are not new proposals or solutions to today's problems," he says. "They are old. They have been tried, and have worked. They have made people happy and good. That is what makes them so radical and so unusual today."In his witty, readable style, Kreeft implores us to gather wisdom and preserve it, as the monks did in the Middle Ag...

Cur Deus Verba unfolds a systematic theology of Scripture from a single key question: What did God seek to accomplish by making the Bible? The answer requires seeing why the Holy Trinity made anything at all, why the Word became flesh, and finally why the Church needs an inspired text. As Christ is more fully man than any mere man, so his Church is more fully society than any merely human society. And as every society has its literary tradition, so the Church needed a canon of literature that...

Before Austen Comes Aesop presents an in-depth examination of the Children's Great Books, that is, the literature that has made the most profound impact on the lives of children throughout Western history. In addition to its invaluable chronological list of titles, from ancient times to the present, the book provides both students and their parents the guidance they need to read leisurely or study formally the Children's Great Books at home. The book's premise is that children often do not sp...

All of us need to return to Nazareth.-- Pope Benedict XVI, from his visit to Nazareth, 2009After the best-selling archaeological biography Mary of Nazareth, Michael Hesemann sets out once again for the Holy Land, this time seeking traces of perhaps the most mysterious figure in human history: Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians believe to be the Son of God, the Messiah.In this unique book, Hesemann walks the streets of Israel in order to put historical, archaeological, geographical, and script...

In this second volume of the Called Out of Darkness trilogy, Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., draws together some of the best advice given by Catholic spiritual masters across the ages and brings it into harmony with modern scientific research, offering practical ways to live out the gospel in our busy days. It is a roadmap to a deeper relationship with the Lord and to authentic transformation through the imitation of Christ.Giving evidence that Jesus established just one Church, with Peter as it...

We all want true friends. But how many of us really know what friendship is, or where to find it? In these pages, philosopher John Cuddeback weaves together the timeless wisdom of Scripture, of the ancient Greeks, and the saints to map out the steep and beautiful path to man's greatest joy--true friendship.Following Aristotle's teachings on the unbreakable connection between happiness and virtuous living, Cuddeback sees friendship at the very center of the human drama. Although there are diff...

Spiritual writer, theologian, and philosopher Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D., tackles the topic of recognizing and overcoming spiritual evil. His focus is the human heart. His goal: our spiritual and moral transformation, which leads to true peace and genuine happiness.The book is divided into two main parts: (1) the realities of God's goodness and of spiritual evil, and (2) recognizing and overcoming the diabolical tactics of deception, temptation, and sin. The author synthesizes the best a...

The Politics of Heaven and Hell makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of classical, medieval, and modern political philosophy, while explaining the profound problem with modernity.Christianity freed men from the overwhelming burden of ever thinking that their salvation will ultimately come from the political order, writes Fr. James Schall, S.J. Modernity, on the other hand, is a perversion of Christianity, which tries to achieve man's salvation in this world. It does this by p...

Unifying people of good will in living God's willChristians, as well as all men and women, are called to holiness and happiness, but we all struggle with taking the practical steps necessary to overcome the vices that rob us of our peace and steal our joy. The WillPower Advantage shows that we need to renew our minds with the truth about ourselves--that we are not to be passive in the face of our challenges, but to use our will and our strength to surrender to God's grace and transform the wo...

In Being Catholic: What Every Catholic Should Know, Suzie Andres focuses on Catholic customs, traditions, and practices that are in danger of being forgotten but which have been, for centuries, the joy of Catholics to remember. Topics covered include: The Seven Sacraments The Layout of a Church Details and Process of the Mass Catholic Doctrine on Mary The Communion of Saints Angels The Liturgical Year Popes, Bishops, Priests, and Religious Life Different Rites (Byzantine, Alexandrian, Latin,...

Élisabeth and Félix Leseur began their life together in France as a carefree young couple with a bright future ahead of them. They were beautifully and compatibly matched, except for one major difference--Élisabeth was a devout Catholic, and Félix was a firmly decided atheist. As they faced the seasons of life together, their relationship was tested, and both were called to deep spiritual transformation.Out of love for her husband, Élisabeth spent her life offering her many sufferings for the...

Ethan McQuarry is a young lighthouse keeper on a tiny island, the rugged outcropping of easternmost Cape Breton Island on the Atlantic Ocean. A man without any family, he sees himself as a silent vigilant, performing his duties courageously year after year, with an admirable sense of responsibility.He cherishes his solitude and is grateful that his interactions with human beings are rare. Even so, he is haunted by his aloneness in the world and by a feeling that his life is meaningless. His c...

A great philosopher once observed, "Philosophers let theories get in the way of what they and everybody else know." A lot of ink has been spilt in order to obscure what we really can't not know about reality, humanity and morality.In the midst of a culture permeated by philosophies that seek to redefine the universally available meaning of what it is to be human, Fr. Robert McTeigue says it is more important than ever to be equipped with reliable philosophical tools that help us to see clearl...

When high school valedictorian Ian Murphy was writing his graduation address, a teacher told him that he could not mention Jesus in his speech. She even threatened to pull the plug on the microphone if he tried to do so. Murphy's defiance, in the name of his constitutional rights, made national news, and his zeal to spread the Gospel, no matter the cost, became the defining passion of his life.Murphy's public battle for his freedom of speech is where this conversion story begins, but then it ...

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...

Jesus told us to be perfect, and the Second Vatican Council highlighted this command by speaking of the universal call to holiness for all Christians. How do we answer this call? One great way is to learn from and pray with the saints, the ordinary men and women who fought the good fight to be holy until the end of their lives - and won.The saints have inspired Christians for more than two thousand years because they show us what it looks like to follow Jesus Christ despite countless challeng...

Assaults on the dignity and rights of the human person have been central to the ongoing crisis of the modern era in the last hundred years. This book takes a searching look at the roots of this problem and the various approaches to it by the eight men who led the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, from Pope St. Pius X and his crusade against Modernism to Pope St. John Paul II and his appeal for a renewed rapprochement between faith and reason.Thus it offers a distinctive, illuminating ...

In this third title in the Father Gabriel Mystery series, the detective priest is less than pleased to find himself the reluctant guest at a wealthy local family's Christmas party. Only the excellent - and probably black market - food softens the horror of meeting the odious Victor Gladstone, a veteran reporter, an ardent anti-clerical and the only witness to a wartime massacre no one wishes to hear about. When Victor is found dead on the Martin estate the next morning, the apparent victim of...

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 Holy Eucharist is the Church's most precious treasure, the source and summit of her worship and life. The Church is built upon and around the Eucharist.In this book, a renowned spiritual writer and Carmelite priest shows how receiving the Lord in the Eucharist has profound consequences, because the Eucharist is not only the great Sacrament that brings about oneness with Christ and with the faithful but also the foundational norm for Christian behavior. Any Christian who wonders how he sho...

Too many of the people sitting in the pews of today's churches have been unchanged by their relationship with Christ, says the urbane, astute, and provocative Frank Sheed. The same goes for Church leaders, he asserts. Yet neither clergy nor laity are blind to, or silent about, the others' weaknesses.Sheed charges that both share a common failure to consider Christ as they propose both radical change and a return to old ways in order to correct the problems they see. Says Sheed, I have fallen ...

Written by a foremost expert on the life of the beloved St. Thérèse of Lisieux, this work is widely considered as the most definitive and popular presentation of her life. St. Thérèse is the most popular modern saint of our times.Who was this young French Carmelite who died in 1897 of tuberculosis at age twenty-four? At a time when extreme physical penance was widespread in many religious orders, Thérèse would have none of it. Her passionate love of Jesus led her to concentrate entirely on hi...

This beautifully printed volume contains John Henry Newman's most profound devotional writings. His meditations on the Litany of Loreto and the Stations of the Cross are classics of Catholic spirituality. His prayers, hymns, and verses provide inspiration for personal prayer, and his reflections on Christian doctrine show that the source of true piety is sound teaching.Also included are the devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, a Church of England bishop during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I...

Popular author and TV and radio host John Martignoni has written a book that highlights the flaws in Protestant teaching -- using something that is in rather short supply in today's culture: common sense. He throws in a little simple logic too. He uses the Bible as the background for his plain yet provocative analysis of numerous underlying problems with Protestantism as a whole and then focuses on specific Bible passages to ask a number of tough questions regarding individual Protestant doct...

Several popes have referred to St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) as "the Apostle of the Eucharist." Nonetheless, he is not that well known in the universal Church. When it comes to worldwide recognition of his extraordinary life, as well as the many amazing things he did to foster a greater love for the Blessed Sacrament, most Catholics are unfamiliar with him and have never heard his name. That is about to change. 30-Day Eucharistic Revival is intended to help you, your children, your gran...

"I have lived to my ninety-sixth year; I have enjoyed continued health, I have been blessed with great wealth, prosperity, and most of the good things which the world can bestow-public approbation, esteem, applause; but what I now look back on with the greatest satisfaction to myself is, that I have practiced the duties of my religion." So wrote Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving Signer of the Declaration of Independence, of his Roman Catholic faith just before his death in Nov...

Here is the book that shows you the road to happiness through the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. It proves the relationship between the science of faith and human reason and how the truth will set you free in the hereafter and now. This book is invaluable for anyone who wants a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles of Catholic moral teaching. In these powerful pages, Fr. Mullady unpacks how the Church is called to help form the culture and not vice versa. He ex...

Though they escape the notice of many, stunning miracles of healing take place each and every day at Our Lady's Grotto in Lourdes, France. Inexplicable, biblical-like healings of body, mind, and spirit leave visitors with the gifts of peace and renewed faith. Here is the book that will move you, deepen your faith in Our Lady's active involvement in our world, and help you personally encounter Our Lord. Marlene Watkins recounts twenty astounding true stories of miracles at Lourdes, including h...

This powerful book features the captivating stories of twelve women who overcame personal trials and societal deceptions to become champions for the Kingdom of God. Legendary televangelist Mother Angelica's words of wisdom-and a glimpse into her own story of growing up in a broken home-will help you move from pain and regret to enduring hope and love. Radio personality Teresa Tomeo shares how she learned to follow God's will amid exhausting career changes, and pro-life leader Catherine Hadro ...

Most new parents expect to lose sleep, savings, and serenity, but many don't anticipate how their spiritual lives will be impacted by the birth of a child. Investing in your family's spiritual well-being before new members arrive will give you a fresh mindset for embracing your vocation and will help you to find godly purpose in the midst of the excitement to come. This is a book that will help you develop a home brimming with love, peace, and faith that will help your family get to Heaven. T...

In this dynamic and authoritative book on the spiritual life, Cardinal Robert Sarah shows us how to enter into and progress through the spiritual life. He notes that the goal of this book is "to accompany all those who have set their hearts on responding to God's love with a full, happy, fruitful life that will culminate in the eternal happiness of contemplating Him." Written as a catechism of the spiritual life, this book is organized around the sacraments, prayer, asceticism, and the liturg...

Raising ten kids revealed to Dr. Ray Guarendi and his wife, Randi, a lifetime of insightful lessons. Dr. Ray shares his wisdom with clarity and abundant humor, because as any mother or father knows, parenting is too important to be taken too seriously. With his rich, tenfold experience as a father, Dr. Ray gives guidance that will help you gain confidence toward molding and instructing your own children. Through his many and absorbing anecdotes, you'll learn how to act with calm authority whe...

Nihilistic attacks. Iconoclasm. Catholic apostasy. Fractured families. School shootings. Epidemic drug abuse. Pornography. Infanticide. Gender dysfunction. Rampant suicide.We have become bewildered and overwhelmed by the appalling state of affairs in our culture, with many of us choosing to turn away from the evil and withdraw to our own safe enclaves. But for how much longer will even our neighborhoods and homes remain safe.This riveting book is a clarion call to Catholics to "wake up" in th...

This is the book you need to master your anger so your anger won't master you. Popular TV host, clinical psychologist, and best-selling author Dr. Ray Guarendi incisively cuts to the heart of the matter to help you determine whether your anger response is justified -- and what to do when it isn't. Dr. Guarendi unpacks for you the many types of anger and the types of people who suffer most from anger. For some, anger is a trait; for others, it is a state. Some are "wired fiery," with an anger ...

The life of St. John Vianney (1784-1859) was marked by boundless humility and obedience to God. In 1818, when this simple French priest was assigned to the parish of Ars -- a town of just 250 people -- few would have guessed that it would lead to his international notoriety (even without modern communications!). You will see how this happened -- how Vianney's tireless work in his parish quickly flowered into a radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings.Acclaimed dr...

Sister Mary Wilhelmina Lancaster, OSB, founded the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles in 1995 at the age of seventy. Four years after her death, in May 2023, the sisters were preparing for the reinternment of the remains of their beloved foundress after the completion of a St. Joseph Shrine. Upon seeing Sister Mary's remains, they discovered something incredible, something miraculous--her body appeared to be incorrupt!In The Life of Sister Mary Wilhelmina, you will become acquaint...

Six siblings awaken from a mysterious sleep to find themselves in a beautiful but perilous land called Undlar that is missing some important things. The residents of Undlar are missing from their villages and fields, cowering in fear from the menace that haunts their skies and woods. The Lord of the land is missing from his throne, and is presumed to be asleep in his tower. The jewels which brought order and harmony to Undlar are missing from the Lord's Crown, and are scattered and lost.Also ...

Why is the capital of the United States named in part after Christopher Columbus, a Genoese explorer commissioned by Spain who never set foot on what would become the nation's mainland? Why did Spanish American nationalists in 1819 name a new independent republic "Colombia," after Columbus, the first representative of the empire from which they had recently broken free? These are only two of the introductory questions explored in The Legacy of Christopher Columbus in the Americas, a fundament...

"One of the 100 best books of the year." --The Times Literary Supplement Christopher Columbus is reevaluated as a man of deep passion, patience, and religious conviction--on a mission to save Jerusalem from Islam. Five hundred years after he set sail, Columbus is still a controversial figure in history. Debates portray him either as the hero in the great drama of discovery or as an avaricious glory hunter and ruthless destroyer of indigenous cultures. In Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, ...