Best of
Faith

1953

Life is Worth Living


Fulton J. Sheen - 1953
    This book contains the full-length scripts of forty-four of those top-rated programs that drew thousands of letters weekly to Sheen from his viewers in response to the advice and insights he gave on his shows.Bishop Sheen's writings, tapes and videos are as popular today as when he was alive. His timeless insights offered in this book give wise, personal and inspiring guidance on the problems affecting our lives in today's world. His talks cover an amazing variety of subjects, from the character of the Irish to the handling of teen-agers. He discusses education, Christianity, relativity, and world affairs. He speaks about love, conscience, fear, motherhood, work. He tells amusing anecdotes, recites poetry, and ponders the fate of the free world as well as America's destiny.Among his many best-selling books, none has greater universal appeal than Life Is Worth Living. It offers a stirring and challenging statement of Bishop Sheen's whole philosophy of life and living. It is a book for everyone - of immediate concern to all people seeking understanding, belief, and purpose in these troubled times.

Peace with God: The Secret of Happiness


Billy Graham - 1953
    Billy Graham asks God to help this book “find its way into the hands and hearts of a lost, confused, and searching world . . . men, women, and young people everywhere [who] thirst for peace with God.”In spite of a life drenched with responsibilities and rewards, are you thirsting? Searching for some nameless thing that is more important than anything in life? You are not alone. All mankind is seeking the answer to the confusion, the moral sickness, the spiritual emptiness that oppresses the world. All humanity is crying out for guidance, for comfort . . .for peace.Dr. Graham shares God’s gentle, reassuring promise of spiritual calm—of authentic personal peace—amidst a personal life wracked with too much stress, too many burdens, too great a heartache.“I know men who would write a check for a million dollars if they could find peace,” writes Dr. Graham. “Millions are searching for it. But we Christians have found it! It is ours now and forever. We have found the secret of life! . . .When your spouse dies or your children get sick or you lose your job, you can have a peace that you don’t understand. You may have tears at a graveside, but you can have an abiding peace, a quietness.“God’s peace can be in your heart—right now . . .Whatever the circumstances, whatever the call, whatever the duty, whatever the price, whatever the sacrifice—His strength will be your strength in your hour of need. “It’s all yours, and it’s free. You don’t have to work for it . . . . Do not put it off.”

The God of All Comfort


Hannah Whitall Smith - 1953
    You're living in a world of worry. Every day, you see people facing hardship, pain, and trials. Pain and fear are running rampant, and you just can't ignore it. In this message of strength and encouragement, Hannah Whitall Smith reminds us that there is peace in the midst of a lost and dying world. With the God of All Comfort, you can taste joy and peace, you can let go of fear and worry, and you can rest while God fights your fears for you.

The Sign of Jonas


Thomas Merton - 1953
    Begun five years after he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, The Sign of Jonas is an extraordinary view of Merton’s life in a Trappist monastery, and it serves also as a spiritual log recording the deep meaning and increasing sureness he felt in his vocation: the growth of a mind that finds in its contracted physical world new intellectual and spiritual dimensions.

Set All Afire: A Novel of St. Francis Xavier


Louis de Wohl - 1953
    With humility and deep religious conviction, the famous Catholic novelist Louis de Wohl takes us into the mind and heart of this great missionary and saint who went by order of St. Ignatius of Loyola to set all afire in the Orient. Louis de Wohl captivates the reader as he follows Xavier's life from student days in Paris, through his meeting with Ignatius, his rather reluctant conversion, and his travels as one of the first Jesuits. The story takes the reader from Europe to Goa, India, Malaysia, Japan, and finally, to an island off the coast of China, where the exiled Xavier dies virtually alone. The book captures the dramatic struggles and inspiring zeal of this remarkable saint, giving at the same time an enthralling picture of the age in which he lived.

Saint Philomena: Powerful With God


Marie Helene Mohr - 1953
    She immediately began answering prayers, with so many favors and miracles being granted that she was raised to sainthood by Pope Gregory XVI—becoming the only person recognized by the Church as a saint solely on the basis of her powerful intercession, since nothing is known of her except her name and the evidence of her martyrdom. A great intercessor for all needs! 160 pgs, PB

Saints of the American Wilderness: The Brave Lives and Holy Deaths of the Eight North American Martyrs


John Anthony O'Brien - 1953
    French priests enter a war zone where captured Westerners are paraded before their captors, tortured, and then beheaded. Their desecrated bodies get dumped by the roadside. Iraq in 2007? The Gaza Strip? Western Afghanistan? No. A place more dangerous: Canada in the 1600s. On rivers and in forests, Iroquois slaughter Huron and Europeans kill for land and power. It s a landscape of blood and horror whose viciousness eclipses the terrorism that shocks us today. Into this iniquitous land go dozens of stouthearted Jesuits, the purest examples of Roman Catholic virtue our Western continent has ever seen. Their purpose? To baptize souls and preach the gospel to savages whose degraded, vicious lives cry out for the light of Christ. Many of these Jesuits were murdered, and today eight of them are saints. Six were priests: Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Antoine Daniel, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel; two were lay assistants: Rene Goupil and Jean Lalande. They are the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, and this is their story. From letters these brave men wrote to their superiors by the light of Indian campfires or while skimming lovely waters in swift canoes, John A. O Brien has crafted the terrifying, inspiring, and true tale of the dangerous struggle they engaged in for enormous stakes: the salvation of countless souls mired in darkness. O Brien shows that in the best of times, these good men were surrounded by lasciviousness, pandemonium and demonic rituals. Bad times brought bloody war, upraised tomahawks, the shrieks of victims, and knowledge that their superstitious hosts might turn against them without warning, and bury a tomahawk in their skull. Patient, charitable, and heedless of their own lives, these eight Jesuits spoke constantly of Jesus, baptized thousands, and even in the shadow of death brought them the consoling graces of the Sacraments. Between times they cared for souls dying of smallpox, cleaned festering wounds, and day in and day out returned love for hatred, blessings for curses, and prayers for abuse. Ultimately, all were murdered. Some died from a sudden blow; the rest were mutilated and tortured until, with forgiveness in their hearts and Jesus name on their lips, they died in flames their persecutors had set around them. Saints of the American Wilderness tells of these good men who sought nothing less than the conversion of a continent. Their zeal won for them the imperishable crown of martyrdom and sanctified with their holy blood the soil of North America. Truly, they are models for those who would be saints in bloody times like ours.