Saint Francis of Assisi is quite possibly the most popular of all Christian saints. Perhaps it is his adoration for all living things or his unrelenting generosity that has made so many people open their hearts to him. Perhaps it is the deep conviction and piety expressed not only by the saint himself, but in his name, in the Franciscan orders throughout the centuries.Whatever the reason, in a world that is quickly developing in a direction diametrically opposite to the saint's own simple asceticism, Saint Francis of Assisi still stirs strong emotions and compassion. How close he found God, in the very nature around him, is inspiring.All books in The Life and Prayers series come complete with a Touch-or-Click Table of Contents, divided by each section. Enjoy.

    Thomas wrote, then turn to The One-Minute Aquinas, the fast-paced book that provides busy readers with simple, readable explanations of the truths that, for 750 years now, have caused the works of St. Thomas to be sought out by kings and popes, scholars and saints, as well as by ordinary souls like you — hungry to know God and to love him more and more.In this book’s lucid pages, author Kevin Vost gives you small, digestible portions of St. Thomas’s life-giving wisdom that you can enjoy one minute at a time. Tables and graphics will help you grasp and remember St. Thomas’s key ideas with a minimum of time and effort.Best of all, in The One-Minute Aquinas you’ll find quick, sure refutations of the countless relativistic, secular, and pseudoscientific ideas that are so influential in our culture today — and so shallow, contradictory, and wrong!Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.” Now The One-Minute Aquinas enables even those with limited time and only a modest education to benefit from the wisdom of this great saint.Here, with minimal effort and among scores of other things, you’ll finally come to know and understand:--Why God permits evil--Heaven: what it is (and is not)--Five simple proofs that God exists--Why God became man--Why Jesus let himself be tempted--How you can grow quickly in virtue--Why all souls need the sacraments--Why Jesus let himself be crucified--The causes of lust--The natural law and the Commandments--The soul, free will, sin, and damnation--The angels, their ranks, and their powers--How God governs (and refrains from governing)--God’s power and its limits--The Bible: why didn’t Jesus just write it himself?--The surprising qualities of our resurrected bodies

    . . . If the very thought of seeing stars dance piques your curiosity at some deep level of your soul, then pay attention to what follows, for the walk to the Field of Stars, to Santiago de Compostela, is a journey that has the power to change lives forever.” -- from the introduction “Pilgrimage” is a strange notion to our modern, practical minds. How many of us have walked to a distant holy place in order to draw nearer to God? Yet the pilgrimage experience is growing these days in various parts of the world. Seeking to take stock of his life, Kevin Codd set out in July 2003 on a pilgrimage that would profoundly change his life. To the Field of Stars tells the fascinating story of his unusual spiritual and physical journey on foot across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, the traditional burial place of the apostle James the Greater. Each brief chapter chronicling Codd's thirty-five-day trek is dedicated to one or two days on the road. Codd shares tales of other pilgrims, his own changes of perspective, and his challenges and triumphs along the way -- all told with a disarming candor. Seen through the eyes of a Catholic priest who honors the religious worldview that originally gave rise to these medieval odysseys, “pilgrimage” comes to life and takes on new meaning in these pages.

    It's time to try something new: Give up. Pastor and author Kevin DeYoung counsels Christians to settle down, make choices, and do the hard work of seeing those choices through. Too often, he writes, God's people tinker around with churches, jobs, and relationships, worrying that they haven't found God's perfect will for their lives. Or—even worse—they do absolutely nothing, stuck in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision, waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting for clear, direct, unmistakable direction. But God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like. No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.

    It’s the clash between our sense of stubborn self-sufficiency and God’s call to recognize that we’re really nothing without Him. It’s pride versus humility. And it’s a fight we can’t win without looking repeatedly to Christ and the cross. C. J. Mahaney raises a battle cry to daily, diligently, and deliberately weaken our greatest enemy (pride) and cultivate our greatest friend (humility). His examination clarifies misconceptions, revealing the truth about why God detests pride and turns His active attention to the humble. Because pride is never passive, defeating it demands an intentional attack. The blessing that follows is God’s abundant favor. “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit.” —Isaiah 66:2, ESV God clearly states that He is drawn to the humble. He’s also clear that He opposes the proud. These two, humility and pride, cannot coexist. Where one is fostered, the other is defeated. Which will you pursue?

    There are no verse references, and Scripture segments are seamlessly woven together with transition text into a single grand narrative. For those intimidated or overwhelmed by the unabridged Bible, The Story helps people understand God’s Word more fully and engage with it more easily.Simple, accessible, and easy to use, churches are finding The Story a powerful way to engage their people in Bible reading like never before. As The Story brings the Bible to life, the broad scope of God’s message will penetrate hearts. People of all ages will be swept up in the story of God’s love and God’s plan for their lives.God goes to great lengths to rescue lost and hurting people. That is what The Story is all about: the story of the Bible, God’s great love affair with humanity. Condensed into 31 accessible chapters, The Story sweeps you into the unfolding progression of Bible characters and events from Genesis to Revelation. Using the clear, accessible text of the NIV Bible, it allows the stories, poems, and teachings of the Bible to read like a novel. And like any good story, The Story is filled with intrigue, drama, conflict, romance, and redemption; and this story’s true! “This book tells the grandest, most compelling story of all time: the story of a true God who loves his children, who established for them a way of salvation and provided a route to eternity. Each story in these 31 chapters reveals the God of grace---the God who speaks; the God who acts; the God who listens; the God whose love for his people culminated in his sacrifice of Jesus, his only Son, to atone for the sins of humanity.”

    Do you know of a Vietnam veteran struggling with his Faith after witnessing the horrors of war? Do you have a son or nephew serving in the military and facing an uncertain future in a troubled world? Here is a book to help them see how a Christian man lives and dies in service to God and country.

    Yet, there are other times when God seems far and we feel we have nothing left to offer. We are tired, or thirsty, or imprisoned in our own chains through our own devices, or caught in the waves of a tumultuous sea. This is when God shows us His steadfast love. He wraps His eternally powerful, ultimately creative, nail-scarred hands around our hearts and squeezes with appropriate might—yielding an honest plea for Him to save us and deliver us from our circumstances, fears, and self control. And He does. He initiates with His steadfast love, and responds with the same.  Walk with Lauren as she shares what she has learned of the steadfast love of the Lord.

    Its rather absurd to identify a first-century homeless Jew as God revealed, but a bunch of us do anyway. In this book, Tripp Fuller examines the historical Jesus, the development of the doctrine of Christ, the questions that drove christological innovations through church history, contemporary constructive proposals, and the predicament of belief for the church today.Recognizing that the battle over Jesus is no longer a public debate between the skeptic and believer but an internal struggle in the heart of many disciples, he argues that we continue to make christological claims about more than an event or simply the Jesus of history. On the other hand, C. S. Lewiss infamous liar, lunatic, and Lord scheme is no longer intellectually tenable. This may be a guide to Jesus, but for Christians, Fuller is guiding us toward a deeper understanding of God. He thinks its good newsgood news about a God who is so invested in the world that God refuses to be God without us.

    John O'Donohue, Irish teacher and poet, looks at life's thresholds--getting married, having children, starting a new job--and offers invaluable guidelines for making the transition from a known, familiar world into a new, unmapped territory.Most profoundly, however, O'Donohue explains "blessings" as a way of life, a lens through which the whole world is transformed. He awakens readers to timeless truths and shows the power they have to answer contemporary dilemmas and ease us through periods of change.

    Do you ever feel caught in an endless cycle of working harder and longer to get more while enjoying life less? The Stewart family did—and they decided to make a radical change. Popular Catholic blogger and podcaster Haley Stewart explains how a year-long internship on a sustainable farm changed her family’s life for the better, allowing them to live gospel values more intentionally.When Haley Stewart married her bee-keeping sweetheart, Daniel, they dreamed of a life centered on home and family. But as the children arrived and Daniel was forced to work longer hours at a job he liked less and less, they dared to break free from the unending cycle of getting more yet feeling unfufilled. They sold their Florida home and retreated to Texas to live on a farm with a compost toilet and 650 square feet of space for a family of five. Surprisingly, they found that they had never been happier.In The Grace of Enough, Stewart shares essential elements of intentional Christian living that her family discovered during that extraordinary year on the farm and that they continue to practice today. You, too, will be inspired to:live simplyoffer hospitalityrevive food culture and the family tablereconnect with the landnurture communityprioritize beautydevelop a sense of wonderbe intentional about technologyseek authentic intimacycenter life around home, family, and relationshipsDrawing from Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, Stewart identifies elements of Catholic social teaching that will enhance your life and create a ripple effect of grace to help you overcome the effects of today’s “throwaway” culture and experience a deeper satisfaction and stronger faith.

    Yet most of our lives is unwitnessed. We spend our days working, driving, parenting. We sometimes spend whole seasons feeling unnoticed and unappreciated.In Unseen, Sara Hagerty suggests that this is exactly what God intended. He is the only One who truly knows us. He is the only One who understands the value of the unseen in our lives. When this truth seeps into our souls, we realize that only when we hide ourselves in God can we give ourselves to others in true freedom--and know the joy of a deeper relationship with the God who sees us.Our culture applauds what we can produce, what we can show, what we can upload to social media. Only when we give all of ourselves to God--unedited, abandoned, apparently wasteful in its lack of productivity--can we live out who God created us to be. As Hagerty writes, "Maybe my seemingly unproductive, looking-up-at-Him life produces awe among the angels."Through an eloquent exploration of both personal and biblical story, Hagerty calls us to offer every unseen minute of our lives to God. God is in the secret places of our lives that no one else witnesses. But we've not been relegated to these places. We've been invited.We may be "wasting" ourselves in a hidden corner today: The cubicle on the fourth floor. The hospital bedside of an elderly parent. The laundry room. But these are the places God uses to meet us with a radical love. These are the places that produce the kind of unhinged love in us that gives everything at His feet, whether or not anyone else ever proclaims our name, whether or not anyone else ever sees.God's invitation is not just for a season or a day. It is the question of our lives: "When no one else applauds you, when it makes no sense, when you see no results--will you waste your love on Me?"

    No matter how charred or distorted the fragments, we can always uncover inklings of the Gospel, which can then lead people to God. Through this evocative collection of essays, Father Robert Barron finds those "seeds" in today's most popular films, books, and current events. How do Superman, Gran Torino, and The Hobbit illuminate the figure of Jesus? How does Bob Dylan convey the prophetic overtones of Jeremiah and Isaiah? Where can we detect the ripple of original sin in politics, sports, and the Internet culture? Finding the "seeds of the Word" requires a new vision. This book will train you to see.

    Most of us are clueless at praying. Why is that? And how come we've never done anything about it? In Confessions of a Prayer Slacker, author Diane Moody traces her own personal prayer journey with a touch of humor and a healthy dose of transparency. ''I want my readers to stop the merry-go-round of prayerlessness, quit acting like a bunch of spiritual babies, and get serious about this thing called prayer. Without it, we'll never experience the warm, one-on-one relationship God desires to have with each one of us.''

    Many people who visit communities for retreats and quiet days look for help in integrating into their daily lives some of the things they see and experience. This handbook will help people follow the Rule of Benedict as it explains the essential elements of Benedictine spirituality. It provides information on the spread of the Benedictine movement, its outstanding figures, and the main branches of the Benedictine family today. It also includes a simple version of the Daily Office and a collection of Benedictine devotions. It is a member's handbook" that deepens the sense of belonging among those who seek regular contact with a Benedictine community.The Benedictine Handbook will appeal to a broad range of readers who may or may not be familiar with Benedictine literature. The contributors to The Benedictine Handbook come from Benedictine backgrounds in the United States and Europe.Chapters and contributors include in Part One: Tools of Benedictine Spirituality *The Work of God, - by Demetrius Dumm; *Lectio Divina, - by Michal Casey; *Prayer, - by Mary Forman; *Work, - by Lauren McTaggart; *Perseverance, - by Kym Harris; *The Vows, - by Richard Yeo; and *Hospitality, - by Kathleen Norris. Part Two: The Benedictine Experience of God includes *A Simple Daily Office, - by Fr. Oswald; *Benedictine Prayers, - by Fr. Anthony; *A Benedictine Who's Who, - by Robert Atwell; and *Benedictine Holy Places, - by ColmanO'Clabaigh. Part Three: Living the Rule includes *In Community, - by Columba Stewart; *In Solitude, - by Maria Boulding; *As Oblates, - by Patrick Phelan; and *In the World, - by Esther de Wall. Part Four: The Benedictine Family includes *A Short History, - by Joe Rippinger; *Benedictine Orders, - by Dominic Milroy; and *The Cistercian Tradition, - by Nivard Kinsella. The contributors to Part Five: A Glossary of Benedictine Terms are Terrence Kardong and Jill Maria Murdy. A Benedictine Handbook also includes *Preface to the Rule, - by Patrick Barry; and *The Rule (Patrick Barry's Version). -"