Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

    As he recently emphasized in his first encyclical, he talks a lot about the meaning of love, the love of God and of neighbor; as well as the importance of a lived faith as a witness for our age and striving to bring faith in line with the present age.

    Yet this guidance remains largely inaccessible to parents and often disconnected from the parenting challenges we face in our homes. Parenting Toward the Kingdom will help you make the connections between the spiritual life as we understand it in the Orthodox Church and the ongoing challenges of raising children. It takes the best child development research and connects it with the timeless truths of our Christian faith to offer you real strategies for navigating the challenges of daily life.

    Drawing heavily on poignant anecdotes from his own experience as a life-long Catholic born in 1960s, Madrid offers readers a way of looking at the Church--its members, teachings, customs, and history--from perspectives many may have never considered.Growing up Catholic during a time of great social and theological upheaval and transition, a time in which countless Catholics abandoned their religion in search of something else, Patrick Madrid learned a great deal about why people leave Catholicism and why others stay. This experience helped him gain many insights into what it is about the Catholic Church that some people reject, as well as those things that others treasure. Drawing upon Madrid's personal experiences, Why Be Catholic? offers a deeply personal, fact-based, rationale for why everyone should be Catholic or at least consider the Catholic Church in a new light.

    His beautifully written meditations on the passion and the cross invites you to a new understanding of redemption and offers insight into the meaning of your own loss and suffering. Take a journey into the deeper meaning of pain with guidance from a trusted spiritual advisor.The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.

    He was ready to accept God in whatever form He chose to reveal Himself-and that form turned out to be Christ. But Bernstein soon perceived discrepancies in the various forms of Protestant belief that surrounded him, and so his quest continued-this time for the true Church. With his Jewish heritage as a foundation, he studied and evaluated, and eventually came to the conclusion that the faith of his forefathers was fully honored and brought to completion only in the Orthodox Christian Church. Surprised by Christ combines an engrossing memoir of one man's life in historic times and situations-from the Six-Day War to the Civil Rights Movement to the Jesus Movement in Berkeley-with a deeply felt examination of the distinctives of Orthodox theology that make the Orthodox Church the true home not only for Christian Jews, but for all who seek to who seek to know God as fully.

    To help us on our way, Coutinho introduces us to people in various world religions—from Hindu friends to Buddhist teachers to St. Ignatius of Loyola—who have shaped his spiritual life and made possible his deep, personal relationship with God.

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

    The problem with these libraries is that they contain books that are generally written by professionals for their peers. Where the Hell Is God? combines the best of the professional's insights with the author's own experience and insights to speculate on how believers can make sense of their Christian faith when experiencing tragedy and suffering. Starting with a very personal story of the author's sister being left a quadriplegic from a car accident twenty years ago, Where the Hell Is God? gently leads the reader through some "take-home" messages that are sane, sound, and practical. Among these messages are: God does not directly send pain, suffering, and disease. God does not punish us; God does not send accidents to teach us things, though we can learn from them; and God does not will earthquakes, floods, droughts, or other natural disasters. This concise, accessible, and experience-based book will help people who are suffering as well as those who minister to them and their families.

    This catechism is specifically designed for Catholic adults, for those who are new to the church, and especially for those who are journeying through the Rite of Chrisitian Initiation.

    In addition to updated demographic information, Clendenin examines at length a particular aspect of Orthodoxy's intersection with Protestantism—its growing exchange with evangelicalism.

    Not in our school system, not in our synagogues, and not in our media. Nor do we have easy access to the New Testament. Jesus has been studiously avoided, and hidden from our people. Today in Israel, 99.7% of the Jewish population, reject Jesus as the Messiah. How did our country, where the gospel first took place, come to be so adamantly against it? Within Judaism over the last two millennia, any kind of spiritual message had to go through the “gate keepers”, the Orthodox Jewish Rabbis. The Rabbinic Judaism of the Orthodox comes directly from the sect of the “Pharisees”, whom Jesus rebuked: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13) Ever since the days of Messiah, the Rabbis have set themselves in opposition to the gospel, blocking the message of Jesus from Israel. They deliberately prevent Jewish people from hearing about the free salvation offered to them in the death and resurrection of their own Jewish Messiah. They have gone to great lengths to conceal Jesus, and keep him the best kept secret in Judaism., keeping our people in spiritual darkness. But now the secret is out! After almost 2000 years, Jesus, or as we call him in Hebrew, Yeshua, can no longer be hidden from the people! Today, our ministry, ONE FOR ISRAEL, reaches Jewish and Arab Israelis exactly where they are – online. We no longer need the rabbis’ permission for anything. We can go straight into the smartphones, tablets, and computers of every Israeli, sharing the saving good news of Yeshua the Messiah! In the past, the message of the gospel came to Israel from outside our borders, delivered by people who didn’t understand our language, our culture, our heritage or our way of thinking. Today the messengers look very different. Now it is Jewish and Arab Israelis who are bringing the gospel back to where it started – back to our own people Israel. We can explain the gospel to our people in a way that makes sense to them, in our own native tongues of Hebrew and Arabic as only Israelis can, and help our people understand who Yeshua really is. The Orthodox rabbis in Israel operate an “anti missionary” organization called Yad L'Achim, specifically to fight against the spread of the gospel among the Jewish people. This very well-funded organization, works very closely with the Minister of Interior in the Israeli government. They seek to prevent Jewish people from leaving the confines of Rabbinic Judaism by any means necessary (not always legally), and relentlessly persecute us, the Jewish believers in Jesus in Israel. With over 90% of the names, photos and addresses of all the Messianic Jews in Israel on file, Yad L’Achim began sending a magazine called “Searching” to the homes of believers in Israel back in 2014. The magazine contains objections and refutations from Orthodox rabbis about the messiahship of Jesus, the credibility of the New Testament, and trying to ridicule and destroy the belief in Jesus. This caused several Jewish believers, even including some who had been missionaries, to deny their faith in Jesus and revert to rabbinic Judaism. Over the past five years, I decided to go over all of their magazines, books and videos, in order to answer their arguments and prove their objections false. Since 2015 we have released about 150 short videos where we share the gospel and directly refute these rabbinic objections to Jesus, New Testament and Christianity.

    Catholic homeschooler Cari Donaldson here relates how her friend’s newborn baby, a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and the words of the Miraculous Medal called her forth from a selfish, small way of life into the welcoming arms of the Church.

    

    Gives stirring glimpses of Fr Arseny's life in a Soviet prison camp and tells the stories of whose lives were transfigured through their connection with him.