Benedict has for centuries been the guide of religious communities. St. Benedict's rules of obedience, humility, and contemplation are not only prerequisites for formal religious societies, they also provide an invaluable model for anyone desiring to live more simply. While they presuppose a certain detachment from the world, they provide guidance and inspiration for anyone seeking peace and fulfillment in their home and work communities. As prepared by the Benedictine monk and priest Timothy Fry, this translation of The Rule of St. Benedict can be a life-transforming book. With a new Preface by Thomas Moore, author of The Care of the Soul."God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land. The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home."--Archbishop Desmond Tutu

    It is the art of “practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end.” He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our souls. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. As a humble cook, Brother Lawrence learned an important lesson through each daily chore: The time he spent in communion with the Lord should be the same, whether he was bustling around in the kitchen—with several people asking questions at the same time—or on his knees in prayer. He learned to cultivate the deep presence of God so thoroughly in his own heart that he was able to joyfully exclaim, “I am doing now what I will do for all eternity. I am blessing God, praising Him, adoring Him, and loving Him with all my heart.” This unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day.

    Even as she struggled, Norris recognized her familiar battle with acedia. She had discovered the word in an early Church text when she was in her thirties. Having endured times of deep soul-weariness since she was a teenager, she immediately recognized that this passage described her affliction: sinking into a state of being unable to care. Fascinated by this “noonday demon,” so familiar to those in the early and medieval Church, Norris read intensively and knew she must restore this forgotten but utterly relevant and important concept to the modern world’s vernacular. Like Norris’s The Cloister Walk, Acedia & me is part memoir and part meditation. As in her Amazing Grace, here Norris explicates and demystifies a spiritual concept, exploring acedia through the geography of her life as a writer; her marriage and the challenges of commitment in the midst of grave illness; and her keen interest in the monastic tradition. Unlike her earlier books, this one features a poignant narrative throughout of Norris’s and her husband’s bouts with acedia and its clinical cousin, depression. Moreover, her analysis of acedia reveals its burden not just on individuals but on whole societies— and that the “restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia, and enervating despair that we struggle with today are the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress.”

    For de Caussade, living in the moment meant having a complete trust and faith in God, for God's will defined and guided all things. The practical advice contained in his guidebook for the faithful was originally a series of letters written for the Nuns of the Visitation of Nancy, meant to help them navigate the confusing and difficult work of spiritual enlightenment, and comes together here in two distinct parts, one for the theoretical foundations of abandoning oneself to the present moment and one with practical advice on how to live such a life. Though a departure from the standard Christian perspective, Abandonment to Divine Providence remains a deeply spiritual work with a message that many Christians may find freeing and inspiring.

    Pope Clement XI and Benedict XIV gave like decisions.

    Under her guidance, the Eternal Word Television Network grew at a staggering pace, both in viewership and in influence, to where it now reaches over a hundred million viewers in hundreds of countries around the globe.Raymond Arroyo combines his journalist’s objectivity and eye for detail with more than five years of exclusive interviews with Mother Angelica. He traces Mother Angelica’s tortured rise to success and exposes for the first time the fierce opposition she faced, both outside and inside of her church.

    Now these two outstanding Catholic apologists tell in their own words about the incredible spiritual journey that led them to embrace Catholicism. Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister, the top student in his seminary class, a brilliant Scripture scholar, and militantly anti-Catholic ... until he reluctantly began to discover that his enemy had all the right answers. Kimberly, also a top-notch theology student in the seminary, is the daughter of a well-known Protestant minister, and went through a tremendous dark night of the soul after Scott converted to Catholicism. Their conversion story and love for the Church has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of lukewarm Catholics and brought them back into an active participation in the Church. They have also influenced countless conversions to Catholicism among their friends and others who have heard their powerful testimony. Written with simplicity, charity, grace and wit, the Hahns' deep love and knowledge of Christ and of Scripture is evident and contagious throughout their story. Their love of truth and of neighbor is equally evident, and their theological focus on the great importance of the family, both biological and spiritual, will be a source of inspiration for all readers.

    Whilst rejection and imprisonment played their part in the life of this sixteenth-century Spanish friar, John's poetry and prose reveal the beauty and power of a wondrous God. It gives us courage to believe in the possibility of change in our own lives, however unlikely or impossible this may seem. Father Iain Matthew uses this classic inspirational Christian writing as his starting point, and offers five interpretations which make its richness relevant to the modern reader.

    Nouwen, one of the greatest of all spiritual writers, invites us to search deeply for the well-springs that nourish true ministry in his classic The Way of the Heart. Interweaving the solitude, silence, and prayer of the fifth-century Egyptian Desert Fathers and Mothers with our contemporary search for an authentic spirituality, The Way of the Heart not only leads us to a fuller encounter with God, but to a more creative ministry with our fellow human beings. Here is one of the most profound works from a writer known for his fresh and perceptive insights—and who stands alongside C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton as an essential Christian scholar and thinker.

    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.

    295-373) Bishop of Alexandria, spiritual master and theologian, was a major figure of 4th-century Christendom.Contents:Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction --The life and affairs of our holy father Antony --A letter of Athanasius, our holy father, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Marcellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms.

    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.

    Faithful to the Biblical account of the Passion, it fills in many hitherto unknown details. Edifying, inspiring, surprising, and heart-rending, Emmerich's descriptions of our Lord's Passion will melt a heart of stone. This book is the best on the Passion we have seen. It also wonderfully portrays the Blessed Mother's role in our redemption. Includes a short biography of Sr. Emmerich. A great book for the whole family! Impr. 404 pgs, PB.

    Dubay's many years of study and experience in spiritual direction and in it he synthesizes the teachings on prayer of the two great doctors of the Church on prayer--St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila--and the teaching of Sacred Scripture.But the teaching that Fr. Dubay synthesized is not collected from Teresa and John for contemplatives alone. It is meant for every Christian and is based on the Gospel imperative of personal prayer and the call to holiness. All the major elements of these great teachers are ordered, commented on and put in the context of their scriptural foundations. Here is an outstanding book on prayer and the spiritual life written by one of the best spiritual directors and retreat masters of our time, and based on the writings of the Church's two greatest mystical doctors.

    Outside her window, two nuns were discussing what they could write in her obituary that could possibly be of any interest, since the twenty-four-year-old nun had never done anything worth noting. Therese was pleased, for she had always kept a low profile. With the posthumous publication of her spiritual autobiography in 1898, however, that low profile would vanish instantly. She became one of the most beloved saints of all time, and her influence will expand dramatically because of Pope John Paul II's declaration that she is a Doctor of the Church. Amid growing interest in her writings comes the collected correspondence between her and a humble young seminarian, Maurice Belliere. Though they never met in person, they exchanged twenty-one letters that opened a window on the heart of Saint Therese that would have remained forever closed had Maurice not written to the Mother Superior at the convent asking for a nun to pray for him. The Mother Superior chose Therese, and in these conversational letters the Little Flower reveals herself in a way that we would never have known from her autobiography. In his accompanying text, Bishop Patrick Ahern expertly leads the reader into the worlds of Maurice and Therese and reveals the full beauty of this saint's spirituality.