The modern world generates so much noise, he says, that seeking moments of silence has become both harder and more necessary than ever before.Silence is the indispensable doorway to the divine, explains the cardinal in this profound conversation with Nicolas Diat. Within the hushed and hallowed walls of the La Grande Chartreux, the famous Carthusian monastery in the French Alps, Cardinal Sarah addresses the following questions: Can those who do not know silence ever attain truth, beauty, or love?  Do not wisdom, artistic vision, and devotion spring from silence, where the voice of God is heard in the depths of the human heart?After the international success of God or Nothing, Cardinal Sarah seeks to restore to silence its place of honor and importance. "Silence is more important than any other human work," he says, "for it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and others so as to place ourselves humbly and generously at their service."

    As Pinckaers himself notes in the text, excellently translatedby Michael Sherwin, the interest should in no way be limited to RomanCatholics. Morality recasts the earlier book in an argument that is both lower andupper case ‘catholic,’ and is accessible to readers and teachers outside the limitedcircle of moral theologians and academic ethicists. Pinckaers contends thatChristian morality is not first of all about obligations but about happiness, understandingthat the happiness of union with God is our natural destiny made possibleby grace. The Sermon on the Mount is at the center of an approach to moralitythat turns on the distinction between ‘freedom for excellence’ and ‘freedom ofindifference,’ the former understood as human flourishing and the latter as a ‘neutral’capacity to choose between controversies. The proposal of Morality is thoroughlyChrist-centered, humanistic, and faithful to the magisterial teaching of theChurch. Warmly recommended.”First Things  “If you want to have the experience of reflecting on Catholic morality as thoughyou were reading about it for the first time, treat yourself to Father ServaisPinckaers’ Morality: The Catholic View. He has recovered the classical view of themoral life as the quest for happiness and has presented it with disarming simplicity.Bringing us back to the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 12–15, the writingsof Augustine and Aquinas, and the theme of natural law, he has freed those textsfrom the layers of legalism which has hidden their liberating, spiritual powers formoral living. By distinguishing freedom of indifference from freedom for excellence,he has restored a wise vision of freedom. No one has shown better the roleof virtues as building blocks for morality. Catechists need to read this book.”Rev. Alfred McBride, O.Praem., Professor of Homilectics and Catechetics at BlessedPope John XXIII Seminary, Weston, Massachusetts “Father Pinckaers has given us a masterful exposition of Christian living. The clarityand brevity of his presentation – captured well by the translator – make this bookideal for classroom and parish use.     “Readers will find the historical and systematic observations very informative.”Romanus Cessario, St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts

    A great introduction to the Episcopal way of thinking in readable prose for any newcomer or seeker in the Episcopal Church who may wonder what makes Episcopalians different than Roman Catholics or other protestants.

    and how to start choosing happiness again!Are you happy? It may be the wrong question. Most of us think we are relatively happy, while at the same time knowing that we could be happier—maybe even a lot happier. Ordinary people and the finest philosophers have been exploring the question of happiness for thousands of years, and theories abound. But this is not a book of theory. Resisting Happiness is a deeply personal, disarmingly transparent look at why we sabotage our own happiness and what to do about it.Are you overwhelmed? Do you procrastinate? Do you sometimes feel like you are your own worst enemy? Are you ignoring your dreams? Have you lost the courage to truly be yourself? Do you feel that your life lacks meaning and purpose? Do you find yourself avoiding the real issues in your life and focusing on the superficial?We all experience these feelings and doubts from time to time. But do you know what to do when you experience them? In this fascinating book, Matthew Kelly, uses his signature combination of the profound and the practical, to help us understand why we feel these things and how to rise above them.Breaking through resistance, Kelly tells us, is essential to becoming the-best-version-of-ourselves and living with passion and purpose.What is resistance? It's that sluggish feeling of not wanting to do something that you know is good for you. It's the inclination to do something that you unabashedly know is not good for you. It's the desire and tendency to delay something you should be doing right now.It is resistance that stands between you and happiness. In these pages you will learn not only what it is, but how to recognize and conquer it in your own life.

    Marty, who regards this book as one of the most vital books of our time, as well as an introduction by the author never before included in the book, and a new preface by James Gustafson, the premier Christian ethicist who is considered Niebuhr’s contemporary successor, poses the challenge of being true to Christ in a materialistic age to an entirely new generation of Christian readers.

    The seven sessions are: The Separation of Church and State Creation and Evolution in the Public Schools The Death Penalty Euthanasia Prayer in Public Schools Abortion Homosexuality The study is designed as a "fishing expedition," with tools and helps that will enable congregations to make the study a church and community-wide outreach event, including sermon starters and promotion aids.

    This book rocked the academic world and catapulted its young author, William F. Buckley Jr., into the public spotlight.

    Among these questions the most important one of all sometimes gets lost: Is Islam true? With his new book author Peter Townsend invites you to accompany him on a journey through the foundational texts of the Muslim religion. In the process the truth-claims of Islam will be respectfully, honestly and impartially evaluated. Along the way the following questions will be asked: - Can the traditional Islamic historical accounts be trusted? - Is the Qur'an a 'Perfect Book, Perfectly Preserved'? - Was Muhammad indeed a 'Beautiful Pattern of Conduct'? The answers to these questions will not be sought from modern commentaries on Islam. Instead Questioning Islam goes straight to the classic sources of Islam namely the Qur'an, hadiths (traditions) and biographies of Muhammad. Questioning Islam is not an attempt to promote any other belief system or ideology. Its focus is simply on asking the hard questions about Islam that are all too often ignored or swept under the carpet. Simply put, if you have ever wondered whether the truth-claims of Islam can withstand critical scrutiny then this book is for you!

    Access to the needs of every neighbor on the planet is wide open in a way that has never before been true in human history, awakening Christians to the reality of injustice and the depth of suffering in our world today. Evangelical interest, in particular, has been on the rise. But reactions can all too easily range from impulsive fits of activism without true understanding to paralyzing despair. Here two authors with firsthand experience in the justice movement encourage us to ground our call to justice in sound biblical and theological teaching as we engage with the most critical global needs of our time. The authors connect justice to Scripture, the character of God, and the long traditions of the church so that our passion meets perseverance and justice becomes an enduring and integrated part of our life and faith.

    One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic text on ethics, humanism, and civic duty.What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

    Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed. To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution. It would seem, therefore, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities." When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance--indeed, respect--the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades.

    From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel–Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world’ and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a dazzling narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women – kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores – who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. As well as the many ordinary Jerusalemites who have left their mark on the city, its cast varies from Solomon, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent to Cleopatra, Caligula and Churchill; from Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad; from the ancient city of Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Nero to the modern times of the Kaiser, Disraeli, Mark Twain, Rasputin and Lawrence of Arabia.Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that is believed will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice – in heaven and on earth.

    Woods Jr., historian and N.Y. Times national best-selling author: “…One of the rare ‘must-read’ books about the Latin Mass. It lays bare the obtuseness of those who would treat the immemorial Roman rite as a text in need of editing.” The Heresy of Formlessness The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy By Martin Mosebach German writer Martin Mosebach is as famous in his country as Tom Wolfe is in ours. So when he wrote a book about the destruction of the old Latin Mass, Church leaders and the secular world took note. His view of the new rite of Mass in force since Vatican II goes deeper than any other yet published. Mosebach sees the normative Mass today, precisely because it is at the core of Catholic life for most souls, as the tragic product of wholesale manipulation and compromise with the world, from its gestures and rubrics (or lack of them) to its bad translations and committee-invented prayers. But he does not stop with his evaluation of the new Mass. He defends the old, and summons fellow Catholics to drop their prejudices against it, embrace it as their forefathers did, and restore it to its proper place in the Church. Excerpts from the Mosebach tour de force: On ‘refurbishing’ old churches: “No one who really believes in the power of…prayer would be so reckless as to scorn and wreck something that has been sanctified by prayer.” On the net result of the changes at Mass: “To put it crudely, the liturgy disappeared, and what did the congregation see in its place? A ‘presider’ in billowing garments, his mouth opened in joyful song.” On his rediscovery of the old Latin Mass after being away: “…I was fulfilling the most important duty of human existence…and I was doing this for all the others who did not

    Using everyday language to explain difficult theological concepts, Teresa of Avila compares the contemplative life to a castle with seven chambers. Tracing the passage of the soul through each successive chamber, she draws a powerful picture of the path toward spiritual perfection. It is the most sublime and mature of Teresa's works, offering profound and inspiring reflections on such subjects as self-knowledge, humility, detachment, and suffering.One of the most celebrated works on mystical theology in existence, as timely today as when St. Teresa of Avila wrote it centuries ago, this is a treasury of unforgettable maxims on self-knowledge and fulfillment.

    This favorite of Percy fans continues to charm and beguile readers of all tastes and backgrounds. Lost in the Cosmos invites us to think about how we communicate with our world.