Thoroughly personal and inspiring, Drawn into the Mystery challenges all Christians to encounter the fullness of life lived in close communion with God. Vanier writes: "These insights that I share in this book come from the life of Jesus in me . . . They also flow from my life with people who are weak and who have taught me to welcome Jesus from the place of the poverty in me." Jean Vanier was a friend and influential mentor to the late Henri Nouwen. Toward the end of his life, Nouwen left Harvard to live and work at one of Jean Vanier's L'Arche communities. This was perhaps the most profound experience of Christianity Nouwen experienced. The thought and spiritual direction/discipleship of Jean Vanier is available to all in Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus-through the Gospel of John. +

    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.”

    It offers an in-depth inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational.

    She reveals the strategies of secularist gatekeepers who use this division to banish biblical principles from the cultural mainstream, stripping Christianity of its power to challenge and redeem the whole of culture.How can we overcome this divide? Unify our fragmented lives? Recover authentic spirituality? With compelling examples from the struggles of real people, Pearcey shows how to liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity. She walks readers through practical, hands-on steps for developing a full-orbed Christian worldview. Finally, she makes a passionate case that Christianity is not just religious truth but truth about total reality. It is total truth.This new Study Guide Edition of Total Truth is filled with fresh stories, examples, and illustrations. Based on questions and comments raised by readers of the book, it is ideal for individual or group study.

    Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book of great originality and scholarship serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also encompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence.

    In addition to a moving account of their conversion that caused Ray and his wife to cross the Tiber to Rome, he offers an in-depth treatment of Baptism and the Eucharist in Scripture and the ancient Church. Thoroughly documented with hundreds of footnotes, this contains perhaps the most complete compilation of biblical and patristic quotations and commentary available on Baptism and the Eucharist, as well as a detailed analysis of Sola Scriptura and Tradition.

    Paul is one of the most important figures in Christian history. As Saul of Tarsus he vigorously persecuted Christianity, even collaborating in the death of Christianity's first martyr, Stephen. His encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus changed Paul's life, the Christian Church, and world history. More than anyone else in the early Church, Paul saw the universal nature of the Christian message. He became the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and the "Teacher of the Nations". As the human author of half of the New Testament, Paul is a figure who cannot be overlooked by anyone who wants to understand Jesus Christ and Christianity.In this book, Pope Benedict XVI, a profound spiritual leader in his own right and a first-rate theologian and Bible commentator, explores the legacy of Paul. Pope Benedict follows the course of the Apostle's life, including his missionary journeys and his relationship with the other apostles of Jesus such as St. Peter and St. James, and Paul's martyrdom in Rome. Benedict also examines such questions as: Did Paul know Jesus during his earthly life and how much of Jesus' teaching and ministry did he know of? Did Paul distort the teachings of Jesus? What role did Jesus' death and resurrection play in Paul's teaching? What are we to make of Paul's teaching about the end of the world? What does Paul's teaching say about the differences between Catholic and Protestant Christians over salvation and the roles of faith and works in the Christian life? How have modern Catholic and Protestant scholars come together in their understanding of Paul? What does Paul have to teach us today about living a spiritual life?These and other important issues are addressed in this masterful, inspirational, and highly-readable presentation of St. Paul and his writings by one of today's great spiritual teachers, Pope Benedict XVI."The Apostle Paul, an outstanding and almost inimitable yet stimulating figure, stands before us as an example of total dedication to the Lord and to his Church, as well as of great openness to humanity and its cultures." —Pope Benedict XVI

    With a simple yet penetrating style, Zacharias uses rich illustrations to celebrate the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives. Jesus Among Other Gods contrasts the truth of Jesus with founders of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, strengthening believers and compelling them to share their faith with our post-modern world.

    Filled with compassion and brilliant scholarship, Fulton Sheen's recounting of the Birth, Life, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ is as dramatic and moving as the subject Himself.

    "I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark, because in much the same way," writes Buechner, "it helps to give us courage and to hold the shadows at bay."

    ca. 165), a convert to Christianity from traditional Greek religion. The Dialogue purports to be a two-day dialogue that took place in Asia Minor between Justin and Trypho, a Hellenized Jew. Justin argues extensively on the basis of lengthy Old Testament quotations that Christ is the Messiah and God incarnate, and that the Christian community is the new Israel. In the beginning of the work Justin recounts how he converted to Christianity.The Dialogue remains of great, and varying, interest. It has important information on the development of Jewish-Christian relations, on the development of the text of the Old Testament, and on the existence and character of the early Jewish Christian community. Justin's story of how he became a Christian is one of our earliest conversion accounts. The Dialogue is an ideal textbook for classes investigating the development of religion in Late Antiquity since it touches on many aspects of religion in the Roman Empire.This edition of the Dialogue with Trypho is a revision of Thomas B. Falls's translation, which appeared in Fathers of the Church, vol. 6. Thomas P. Halton has emended the translation in light of the 1997 critical edition by Miroslav Marcovich, and he has provided extensive annotation to recent scholarship on the Dialogue. Michael Slusser has edited the volume to bring it into conformity with the new Selections from Fathers of the Church series.ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:Thomas P. Halton is Professor Emeritus of Greek and Latin at the Catholic University of America. He has served as the general editor of the Fathers of the Church series since 1983.

    This work contains the 26 visions of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who was the first of the great German mystics, as well as a poet and a prophet, a physician and a political moralist.

    African slave, homeless exile, surrogate mother, Hagar's story provides an image of survival and defiance appropriate to black women today. Exploring all the themes inherent in Hagar's story -- poverty and slavery, ethnicity and sexual exploitation, exile and encounters with God -- Sisters in the Wilderness traces parallels in the history of African-American women from slavery to the present. A particular theology -- a womanist theology -- emerges from this shared experience; specifically, from the interplay of oppressions on account of race, sex, and class. In Part I, Williams shows how reading Hagar's story exemplifies the issues and problems black women face. The "forced motherhood," "single motherhood" and "surrogate motherhood" Hagar experienced have been part of black women's lives. Williams also explores the dismal reality of contemporary "racial narcissistic...consciousness" which finds its parallel in Hagar's travail as foreign servant and outcast. Finally, there is the religious resonance of Hagar's sojourns in the wilderness and her encounters with God. These themes Williams finds echoed in the cultural and literary traditions of African-American women. Part II considers the theological implications of the womanist understanding of Hagar's history. Williams explores the relationship between womanist and black liberation theology, and womanist theology and the black church. Through the combination of social history, political theology, and literary criticism, Williams demonstrates how approaching theology consciously informed by the awareness of the identity of black women results in a rich and vibrant knowledge of the sacred. Sisters in the Wilderness provides a reconstruction of "God-talk"

    Though originally published nearly seventy years ago, the book maintains its relevance today.

    Written at the height of the controversy surrounding the reforms Teresa instituted in the Carmelite order, it instructed the nuns in the practice of prayer. Teresa discusses the three essentials of a prayer-filled life -- fraternal love, detachment from material things, and true humility. Her counsels on these are the fruit of her practical experience. The book develops these ideas and takes up directly the matters of prayer and contemplation. Teresa gives various maxims for the practice of prayer and concludes the book with her masterful and impassioned version of the Lord's Prayer. "How is it that Thou canst give us so much with Thy first word?" she says of the "Our" at the beginning of that prayer. The simple and practical nature of this mystical classic will appeal to all who seek a life of wholeness.