Books on Culture

There are many good and popular English books on the Mass. Some of them treat the subject after the manner of a Rationale, explaining the significance of the prayers and ceremonies of the Eucharistic rite; others are historical and antiquarian, and elucidate the origin and evolution of the ceremonial—while of devotional books there is no end. This book, however, is a treatise on the folklore and minor antiquities of the Mass; by which are meant the various aspects and the numerous details of ...

We are meant for beauty, and beauty is meant for us What we moderns have forgotten, the ancients knew well: true beauty heals the soul, draws us to God, and yields lasting happiness. Rich with the wisdom of Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and St. John Paul II, these pages unpack perennial truths about beauty and rivet them into your soul, opening the eyes of your understanding to the beauty all around us. Offering an abundance of accessible examples, author John Mark Miravalle demonstrates that b...

That sacred art scarcely exists today is all too clear. We can perhaps speak of a “religious,” but certainly not a sacred art. True sacred art is not sentimental or psychological, but ontological and cosmological in nature. Sacred art cannot be the result of the feelings, fantasies, or even “thought” of the artist—as with most modern art—but rather the translation of a reality largely surpassing the limits of human individuality. Sacred art is precisely a supra-human art. The temple of former...

New converts and cradle Catholics alike are often perplexed by the myriad of devotions, traditions, practices, and beliefs that the Catholic Church has accumulated over the past twenty centuries. Why pray to St. Anthony to find something lost? Why keep a St. Christopher medal in your car? Or why bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down! in your yard when selling your house? In Helen Hoffner's lovingly-illustrated, encyclopedic Catholic Traditions and Treasures, you'll find succinct and sometim...

The new What Every Catholic Should Know series is intended for the average faithful Catholic who wants to know more about Catholic faith and culture. The authors in this series take a panoramic approach to the topic of each book aimed at a non-specialist but enthusiastic readership. Forthcoming titles planned for this series include: literature, salvation, mercy, history, art, music and philosophy. In Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, Joseph Pearce provides a survey of literary wor...

Pub crawl your way through the sacred seasons with this entertaining and useful collection of cocktail recipes, distilled spirits, beer, and wine for virtually every occasion on the Catholic liturgical calendar. One part bartender's guide, one part spiritual manual, a dash of irreverence, and mixed with love: Drinking with the Saints is a work that both sinner and saint will savor.You may think you're savy on saintly drinking, but did you know: Beer may have been invented by the ancient Egyp...

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...

Drinking with Saint Nick is a unique and delightful gift book that celebrates the traditional holiday season. Written by Michael Foley, author of Drinking with the Saints, this special book has something for everyone! From hot gin toddies and smoking rosemary old fashioneds to beer and cider selections, it is the perfect way to bring the spirit of Christmas into your home! Enjoy learning about Saint Nicholas and other saints while you sip on festive cocktails that will make your Christmas Eve...

Presented by the Pontifical Swiss Guard: 500 Years of Classic Recipes, Papal Tributes, and Exclusive Images of Life and Art at the Vatican The Vatican Cookbook, presented by the Pontifical Swiss Guard reveals for the first time the favorite dishes and personal menus of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, and St. John Paul II. Enjoyed daily by Vatican dignitaries and guests from around the world, the more than 80 gourmet recipes included here range from the simple to the sublime, and from everyda...

This beautiful, hardcover cookbook features over 60 recipes to help your family celebrate the liturgical year and the life of the saints. Both a teaching and a cookbook, this resource offers triple nourishment of body, soul and mind that makes it so much more than a traditional cookbook. From approachable saints bios with an accompanying dish to full meals associated with Holy Days of Obligation, your family will enjoy these delicious, authentic, tested, and easy-to-cook recipes. Here you'll ...

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...

How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the twentieth century. Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker? Jason Baxter argues that Lew...

How Religion Drove the Voyages That Led to America "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 indigeno...

Excerpt from the Introduction: Father Valuy's work gives the religious practical means of achieving detachment from their own wills in order to practice the type of charity Our Lord demands of them. He strikes at the heart of that duplicity of spirit which can so easily put on the semblance of piety but which in reality is hypocritical in its dealings with other men. Fr. Valuy asks: "Am I one of those proud spirits who expose the faults of others in order to show off their pretended virtues?"...

The startling assertion that "the laity must be apostolic" requires unpacking as the Church becomes more and more confined in modern society. But, as Fr. Francis Wendell shows in this short book, there is a transformative "philosophy of presence that can be exercised only by lay people since they are present in and are of the world." In this short work, Fr. Wendell shows how: - the laity must avoid a purely external living of Christianity - how there is no one-size-fits-all program for the la...

 A Teacher's Companion for Making Every Class Catholic  Brett Salkeld, Ph.D., explains the role of Catholic anthropology in education and accompanies Catholic teachers in integrating the Faith into all aspects of the curriculum. From math and science to health and social studies, every subject can and should be taught from a Catholic worldview. And in doing so the true purpose of Catholic education is fulfilled. For teachers, this isn't "one more thing" to do in the classroom -- this is a new...

Dorothy L Sayers' great lay contemporaries in the Church of England were T. S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, but none of them wrote a book quite like The Mind of the Maker. In this crisp, elegant exercise in theology, Sayers illuminates the doctrine of the Trinity by relating it to the process of writing fiction, a process about which she could speak with complete authority. She illustrates her thesis with many examples drawn from her own books, and even illuminates the Christian he...

Catholic Christendom versus Revolutionary Disorder Volume 1 (The Collected Works of Dr. John Rao) If Christ came to "bring a sword" into history, it was a sword that was meant to fight on behalf of the personal and common good of individual human beings and the communities through which they work to perfect themselves. Everywhere that sword cut, it did so to fashion a true, good, and beautiful civilization in which men could live with a freedom and a dignity that surpasses all purely natural...

Well-known in the French-speaking world for his devastating critiques of the decadence of thought in the West since Descartes's Cogito ergo sum, Marcel De Corte published Intelligence in Danger of Death as the final stage of his reflections in 1969. To grasp the profound mutation which man and society have undergone, Marcel De Corte offers a merciless analysis that relies on classical philosophy and insight from Christian Revelation. He outlines the genealogy of contemporary evils and indic...

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...

Too little intimate history has been written of common people in the Middle Ages. Most "comprehensive" works pass them by in favor of tales of monarchs and warriors. Yet if we truly wish to form an accurate understanding of how life was during a certain period, it is to the lives of ordinary people that we should first direct out attention. It is precisely this strategy that Eileen Power employs in Medieval People. In this refreshingly insightful collection of lives untouched by fame, Power g...

Explore the vibrant and complex first thousand years of Christian culture with Popes, Emperors, and Elephants: The First Thousand Years of Christian Cult. This carefully researched book is written in an accessible style that adults and children alike can enjoy. Roy Peachey takes you on a journey from Athens to China, from Rome to Ethiopa and through ancient lands like Jerusalem and Iraq. You’ll learn about saints, popes, emperors, sailors —and yes, even the occasional elephant! It’s an eye-op...

Is man an isolated, voluntaristic, autonomous individual, as modernity would have him? Or is he subject to natural, social, and transcendent orders? Much has been written since Rerum Novarum in 1891 on the general outlines of Catholic social, economic, and political thought, but what Catholics need today is a sure guide to how to live out these principles in their daily lives. To this end, Brian McCall’s To Build the City of God responds with chapters on marriage and the family, dress, educat...

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...

A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning Is secularism a positive force in the modern world? Or does it lead to fragmentation and disintegration? In Saving Leonardo, best-selling award-winning author Nancy Pearcey (Total Truth, coauthor How Now Shall We Live?) makes a compelling case that secularism is destructive and dehumanizing. Pearcey depicts the revolutionary thinkers and artists, the ideas and events, leading step by step to the unleashing of secular worldviews...

A Guide to Russian and Byzantine Icons A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated guide to Russian icons -- the "beating heart of the Christian East" Religious icons have been at the spiritual heart of the Christian East for nearly two thousand years. Their mysterious, peaceful quality and almost magnetic power can stop us in our tracks and draw our gaze, without us even knowing why. The sophisticated composition and symbolism of icons emphasize that their subjects are inhabitants of another...

Satan is the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning. Falsity and violence— these two features are only too tragically typical of the present century. And of these two diabolical manifestations, it is arguable that falsity is the more essentially Satanic. We shall here attempt to show why this is so. Contemporary man, confronted by the problem of Satan, is divided against himself by a twofold reaction, apparently self-contradictory. He is on the one hand fascinated by this mysterious...

One of Tolkien's great appeals to readers is that he offers a world replete with meaning at every level. To read and reread Tolkien is to share his sense of wonder and holiness, to be invited into the presence of a “beauty beyond the circles of the world.” It is to fall in love with a universe that has a beginning and an end, where good and bad are not subjective choices, but objective realities; a created order full of grace, though damaged by sin, in which friendship is the seedbed of the v...

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...

This book shows from within the damage that the sexual revolution has caused to our bodies, our souls, and our sense of joy. Quoting extensively from testimonies and reports written by the revolution's most outspoken advocates, Nathanael Blake proves that even beyond the question of right and wrong, Christian sexual ethics simply provide a better way to love and live. The sexual revolution offered happiness and great sex--but Americans are increasingly lonely and unhappy, and they even report...

Christopher Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement offers a sharp, deeply researched examination of how the reforms and cultural revolutions of the 1960s reshaped American life — often in ways no one expected. Caldwell argues that many of the most celebrated changes of the era came with profound costs in freedom, social cohesion, and economic stability, costs that fell unevenly across classes and generations. Tracing the true political and cultural turning points of the last half-century, Caldwell...

Redeeming Beauty explores the depth of the Christian tradition—both Western and Eastern—in its understanding of sacred aesthetics, the theology of beauty as it relates to divine revelation, creation, and art. Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, examines how beauty serves as both a reflection of God’s creative power and a pathway to holiness. Nichols investigates five central themes: The foundation of beauty in the natural order as an expression of divine creativity Beauty as a quality of biblical reve...

Video games tap into a deep human drive for adventure and greatness, whether it is an epic quest to slay zombies, a mission to rescue the princess, or teaming up with a clan to defeat the final boss. But what if that same desire could shape more than just your gameplay? What if it could transform your entire life? In Gaming and the Heroic Life, Catholic author and lifelong gamer Bobby Angel invites readers to see gaming not simply as entertainment but as preparation for a real-life adventure ...

Meet a Doctor of the Church whose wisdom on health and nutrition will aid you in everything from better digestion and sleep to improved mood, memory, and pain relief. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a mystic and scholar who chronicled more than six hundred pages of visions, wrote cantatas, and even devised her own language. She authored The Book of Divine Works, Causes and Cures, and Scivias and corresponded with the greatest intellectuals, theologians, and royals of her time.As a pioneer...

After the devotions of May to His Blessed Mother Mary, we turn now to June, the month of His love. It is not a coincidence that western culture has chosen June for the month of weddings, nor that Our lord chose to elevate the month to turn the mind toward love, union, and the promises of the human heart and Divine Love. To increase this necessary fervor, The Month of the Sacred Heart, by the Abbé Berlioux, contains a valuable trove of practices and sentiments toward sanctifying the month of J...

Amid the pervasive cultural upheaval and moral uncertainty of the mid-twentieth century, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen emerged as a prophet of hope, always giving people a reason to believe that life is worth living. For decades, "America's bishop" wrote, taught, and preached about the major questions and issues that were shaping American culture.Prophet of Hope places Sheen in dialogue with eight of the leading thinkers of his day -- John Dewey, H. L. Mencken, Henry Luce, Margaret Mead, B. F. S...

In a culture of death, St. Francis restores us to life. This book invites the reader into Franciscanism as the answer to Modernism.This item is Not ReturnableAdditional Information BISAC Categories:- Religion | MonasticismPhysical Info: 0.07" H x 8.0" L x 5.0" W (0.1 lbs) 36 pagesCarton Quantity: 226Number of Units in Package: 1Worth Considering

Italy: a storied land of saints and the travel destination of dreams.For those wishing to experience this remarkable country to the fullest, just knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Enter bestselling author, Catholic media personality, and Italy aficionado Teresa Tomeo to provide the choicest sites, best routes, and most inspiring and satisfying journeys to help you soak in all the beauty Italy has to offer and make your Italy excursion utterly unforgettable.Tomeo draws from her exper...

For too many of us, life is harder than it needs to be. We have forgotten the ancient system of "super habits" -- a specific set of habits for making decisions, managing our emotions, and dealing with other people that fosters lives of greater ease, happiness, and power.Ancient civilizations relied on these habits to produce some of the greatest achievements in human history. Now, contemporary researchers in psychology, education, and management are rediscovering these habits and empirically ...

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...

In the eternal battle for souls, prayer is our greatest weapon.In this book on spiritual warfare, acclaimed author and radio host Jesse Romero emphasizes the importance of prayer in facing our modern crises, especially for men who are the heads of their households.He reminds us that the faculty of prayer is both a gift and a protective weapon from God. Far from a passive routine, it is an intrepid action in which we directly encounter the divine and drive away the diabolic.Romero identifies t...

He played video games, excelled athletically and academically, manifested contagious joy and wit -- even in suffering -- and befriended all those he met. St. Carlo Acutis (1991-2006), already hailed "the greatest saint of the century," was a Thomas Aquinas in blue jeans.It's almost unheard of that parents take part in the beatification of their own child. So, too, is it uncommon for parents to miraculously be brought back to the Faith and dedicated Christian living by their child. All this ha...

While much modern poetry seems to deny or ignore our culture's religious heritage, Gene Fendt's Eternal Life and Other Poems boldly celebrates biblical figures, Church fathers, and saints. They grapple with the glittering, erotic, crisp cruelty of the physical world-all the time demanding the angelic blessing of the numinous within.

When it came to writing about the "permanent things", Thomas Howard was without peer. An English professor and Catholic convert, Howard wrote prolifically over his long career, in a style that will never cease to be both relevant and refreshing. This collection of his essays is a sampling of his finest work. The secular world is a rushing whirlwind, often devoid of the consideration of eternal truths. Seeking to voice the beauty of such truths, Howard articulates and respectfully engages with...

One of the most misunderstood -- and misrepresented -- elements of the Catholic Church is her social teaching. It is all too often misconstrued and even held hostage by speculative economic theories and partisan politics. When G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and their colleagues endeavored to promote the ideas of property ownership and independence one hundred years ago, it was frequently misinterpreted due to the terminology used. Here, at last, is a clear explanation of authentic Catholic...

The Second Vatican Council exhorted the faithful to 'seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God' (Lumen Gentium, 31). The contours of this mission are given by Catholic social teaching and yet, regrettably, this treasure of the Church remains undiscovered by most Catholics. Conscious of this, the popes of the modern age have consistently expressed their desire that this aspect of the Church's doctrine and mission become more widel...

Since the publication of its predecessor volume Contemporary Catholic Education in 2002, the Catholic education landscape has experienced significant developments and challenges. The notion that the perennial, in the form of the rich heritage of the Catholic education tradition, must remain in constant dialogue with the transitional educational landscape permeates this publication. This is rooted in a sacramental vision of the human person and is anchored in three core principles: the dignity...