Alphonsus Ligouri teaches us how to use the small events of everyday life to raise our hearts and minds to God: in praise, contrition, hope, joy, and union with God’s will. In this way, we can “pray unceasingly” and converse with God in the way most pleasing to him—personally and confidently. This booklet features 20 bite-sized chapters, either for study or for daily meditation, and an index full of short prayers and aspirations. It is the perfect size to slip into a wallet, purse, or pocket, for use in church, at home, or at work—wherever you may be, for as this booklet shows, we can pray to God at any place and at any time. (77 pgs. PB.)

    In this book, culled from the deeply spiritual works of Thomas à Kempis, the reader is treated to beautiful writings about Our Lady set forth in the style of the Imitation of Christ. He offers the reader a splendid way to grow in following Jesus through imitating His Blessed Mother. With an attractive gold stamped, blue cloth cover and stained edges, this 144-page book is a profoundly spiritual road map for readers who wish to travel with Mary and Jesus.

    Translation of J'entre dans la vie, originally issued under title: Novissima verba.

    This highly anticipated second edition includes a new preface by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI and a supplement to the bibliography by theologian Peter A. Casarella.Eschatology presents a balanced perspective of the doctrine at the center of Christian belief--the Church's faith in eternal life. Recognizing the task of contemporary eschatology as "to marry perspectives, so that person and community, present and future, are seen in their unity," Joseph Ratzinger brings together recent emphasis on the theology of hope for the future with the more traditional elements of the doctrine. His book has proven to be as timeless as it is timely.

    Cardinal Ratzinger examines how these beliefs are linked to the Church's faith in Jesus Christ. Far from competing with the truth about Christ, the Church's Marian beliefs uphold and underscore that truth. Mary's role in salvation, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, was anticipated in the Old Testament. She was prefigured in Eve, the Mother of the Living; in the holy women of the Old Testament, such as Sarah, Hannah, Deborah, Esther, and Judith; and in the prophetic image of the daughter Zion. Cardinal Ratzinger also considers Mary's place as the embodiment of created wisdom, who faithfully received the Uncreated Wisdom of the Word of God in the Incarnation. Daughter Zion avoids the extremes of ignoring the biblical foundation for Marian doctrine on the one hand and fundamentalistic proof-texting on the other. Instead, the author beautifully and lucidly develops key biblical themes to help readers understand and appreciate the Mother of God.

    It investigates literature, culture, history, and religion in an attempt to show that education is increasingly about bureaucratic training and less about scholarly truth. A warning that cultural and artistic treasures of classical and Christian civilizations must be preserved, this provocative analysis diagnoses a cultural and societal malaise facing modern Western societies.

    Fresh, beautiful insights--typical of Cardinal Newman. 48 pgs, PB

    The new book contains twice as much material as first English edition.Dogma, for many people, is a bad word. For the well-informed believer, it shouldn't be. Dogmas are truths revealed by God, which should enlighten the minds, guide the choices, and gladden the hearts of Jesus' disciples, including pastors, deacons, and lay teachers. But, as Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), notes in the foreword to this book, The path from dogma to proclamation or preaching has become very troublesome. Finding ways to relate the content of the Church's dogmas to everyday life can be challenging for today's preachers and teachers. Some people find the task so daunting that they leave dogma out. As a result, they wind up presenting something other than the Church's faith and speak in their own name, offering perhaps unwittingly merely their own, subjective ideas, rather than the Word of God. In Dogma and Preaching, the theologian and priest Joseph Ratzinger provides (1) a theory of preaching for today; (2) application of this theory to some themes for preaching drawn from the Church's dogmas; (3) meditations and sermons based on the liturgical year and the communion of saints; and (4) some thoughts regarding the decade after the Second Vatican and Christianity's seeming irrelevance. Ratzinger insists that sound preaching should rest on three pillars--Dogma, Scripture, and the Church Today, the contemporary situation in which the Church finds herself. He shows that the proper understanding of the Church, her dogmas, the nature of faith, and the contemporary world allow the proclaimer-believer to remain faithful to the Church's mission and life-changing message.

    To a point this may help, but sad experience makes clear that these approaches alone never heal the polarization problems which plague our civil and ecclesial life.The Biblical therapy is radically different - and it achieves results. This book explores the divine strategy in detail. Research discovers in Scripture 40 or 50 themes that bear on discovering truth and recognizing that it has been solidly found. We learn how we discern whether we are being led by the Holy Spirit or by our own unredeemed inclinations and desires, whether it is the spirit of God or the prince of darkness that is operating in our disagreements and programs. We find in these themes clear responses to key questions:• Why are there divisions and factions in the Church?• How are these polarizations to be healed?• What are the sure signs that some people have truth, while others are in error?• What are the conditions for finding and maintaining a shared vision in marriage,parishes, dioceses, religious orders, the universal Church?

    Key to this powerful devotional practice as Dom Vitalis Lehodey points out is the realization that all whatsoever happens to us in this life either has been allowed to happen by Almighty God, or He has sent to us directly as some kind of special cross or lesson or chastisement. The author—who also wrote the comprehensive The Ways of Mental Prayer —cites many famous Catholic writers in what is probably the most thorough study of "holy abandonment," or "conformity to God's Holy Will," that has yet appeared in English. Point after point is covered by numerous poignant examples from the lives of the Saints and from passages from noted writers on the subject. He distinguishes between the Signified Will of God and His Will of Good Pleasure. The Abbot of Bricquebec also discusses the meaning of abandonment, the role of prudence on our part, how our desires and petitions and efforts fir into the picture, the role of suffering and self-oblation, the nature of detachment, faith and confidence in Divine Providence, abandonment in temporal things, abandonment in external things, health and sickness, reputation, humiliations, persecutions, failures, darkness of mind, insensibility, disgust, impotence of will, spiritual poverty, peace, fear of God, simplicity and liberty, constancy, joy and a number of other similar topics. Holy abandonment has nothing to do with fatalism or personal inertia, he says, but entails our constant, intelligent, loving union with God s Holy Will. Do you see how we ought to measure our humility? he quotes St. Francis de Sales. By obedience. If you obey with promptitude, sincerity and joy, you are truly humble. For without humility, it is impossible to have true obedience. Obedience requires us to be submissive, and he that is truly humble renders himself inferior and subject to every creature for the love of Jesus Christ. Such is the caliber of Dom Vitalis Lehodey s Holy Abandonment —a work of the first order, one that makes life-long devotees, and a book that will form the reader as a true follower of Jesus Christ and His holy Mother, who as our principal Father s Holy Will in all things, which is the main lesson in life we all need to learn.

    216 pgs, PB