Books on the Spiritual Life

Identity means being the same and being different. It is a one-word oxymoron. How on earth can the concept make sense? This brilliant exposition of the question goes-by way of literature, philosophy, and psychology-to show that it can only be answered metaphysically. Identity is the mystery at the heart of creation, and, ultimately, the mystery of its Creator. Personal anxieties about who we are and political tensions about who others are melt before the radiance of God's truth. In that truth...

Navigating the Spiritual Life with Blessed Columba Marmion In the early twentieth century, Blessed Columba Marmion's dogmatically-grounded spiritual theology, expressed in artful prose, set the Catholic world on fire. A century later, in The Grace of "Nothingness," Fr Cassian Koenemann seeks to rekindle that fire for a new generation with his inspired presentation of Marmion's key spiritual insights. To this task he brings a monk's sensitivity to friendship with God, a schoolteacher's focus o...

Chivalry, Christendom, and Catholic Culture Portraits of Spiritual Nobility is a timeless collection of stories, homages and reflections written by world-renowned theologian Tracey Rowland. In this stimulating volume, Rowland illuminates the mysteries and morals espoused by Catholicism and how they are applied in daily life to promote spiritual nobility and charity. From Pope John Paul II to Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Portraits of Spiritual Nobility takes the reader on an incredible journey th...

The Little Way to Jesus The prayer of the heart is one of the dearest treasures of Christianity. It transforms any prayer by the fire of God's love, allowing for an immersion in Christ whereby He is able to communicate to us the Holy Spirit. In his new book Praying with the Heart: The Little Way to Jesus, Jean Khoury entrusts to us the secret of the sustainable and successful way of practicing prayer of the heart. While remaining rooted in the living Tradition, the book offers new and abundan...

The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own "Lord, teach us to pray"--the petition of the most intimate followers of Jesus--remains the heartfelt petition of every Christian disciple down to the present day. The divine gift of the Our Father is the foundation of our life of prayer, but it is only the beginning of how Jesus leads us through himself to the Father: then as now, he teaches the Church to pray, and he does the same for us in our individual prayer lives. Shane Kapler's Throu...

Thinking on death is the most profitable meditation we can make.Indeed, Our Lord's most holy passion and death offers us the greatest meditation, but pondering our own imminent death can bring us great fruit as it prepares us for the most important thing we will do: enter into eternity."Remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."By meditating on their deaths, many have renounced this fleeting world for the monastery and cloister. By meditating on their deaths, many have con...

The Breviary of Fire is a powerful tome of wisdom. It chronicles the deep friendship between two devoted women—the mystic Mectilde and grand lady Marie. Through an extensive exchange of letters, which took place over twelve years, they explored the multifaceted intricacies of mysticism and psychology in depth. This fascinating record was eventually compiled by Marie de Châteauvieux into a single volume now known as The Breviary of Fire.This classic book is set apart by its ability to deliver ...

The Eucharistic Message of Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament Catherine de Bar (1614–1698)—in religion, Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament—stands out among the luminous spiritual masters of seventeenth-century France as one of the great teachers of the interior life, a woman of the stature of St Gertrude the Great or St Teresa of Avila. This volume offers, for the first time in English, a substantial introduction to her life and teaching. Living in a period marked by superstition,...

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...