The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life


Kendra Tierney - 2018
    If you have no idea what the liturgical calendar is, this still might be the book for you, if you are looking for ways to bring your faith home from Sunday Mass, in every season, all year long.Catholic blogger and mother of many, Kendra Tierney shares how her family incorporates traditional Catholic practices into today's family life throughout the Church year—from Advent and Christmas, through Lent and Easter, to Pentecost and beyond. She provides ideas for stories, decorations, activities, and foods that will help you to celebrate your Catholic faith with your family and friends without expertise or much advance planning. She also offers tips and tricks from her fifteen years in the Catholic mommy trenches on things like surviving bringing young children to Mass and saying a family Rosary.Whether you're a convert or a revert, an expert theologian or a brand-new Catholic, a member of a big family or a little one, a stay-at-home or a working parent, you're sure to find ways to make your Catholic faith a memorable and meaningful part of your busy family life.  And have fun doing it!

Miracles Do Happen: God Can Do the Impossible


Briege McKenna - 1987
    For over 25 years, since she was healed of crippling arthritis, Sister Briege has ministered hope and healing to countless people all over the world, from huge rallies in Latin America to retreats in Korea. Miracles Do Happen tells the story of Sister Briege's encounter with the healing power of God. It also shares her insights about faith, the power of the Eucharist and the importance of prayer. Most of all, it points the way to a closer relationship with Jesus, greater knowledge of his love, and deeper faith in his power to do the impossible. A Servant Book.

The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture


Haley Stewart - 2018
    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.

The Way


Josemaría Escrivá - 1934
    The book appeared first in 1934 under the title Consideraciones espirituales and later (in 1939) received its definitive title, after being greatly expanded. Over the years, more than four and a half million copies have been sold, in 43 different languages. This is one of the main attractions of the book-its direct, conversational style, its personal and deeply human character. As a reviewer in Osservatore Romano (March 24, 1950) put it: "Msgr. Escriva de Balaguer has written something more than a masterpiece; he has written straight from the heart, and straight to the heart go the short paragraphs which make up The Way."(from the author's preface:) "Read these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in the end you will be a more worthy soul."

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus


Jean Croiset - 1789
    It is intended to instruct the faithful, and satisfy their pious desires. There might, perhaps, have been some reason to fear, at the very outset, that the mere title of Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, however it might attract many persons to read this book, might also deter many others. Arrested by the first words, they might be led to form an inaccurate idea of the devotion. To remove this difficulty, it has been thought well to explain in the beginning, what is understood by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Experience has proved, that there is no one, who, after seeing in what it consists, does not agree, that it is reasonable, solid, and most useful, for our salvation, as well as for our perfection

The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints


Ralph Martin - 2006
    This book provides encouragement and direction for the pilgrim who desires to know, love, and serve our Lord. Whether the reader is beginning the spiritual journey or has been traveling the road for many years, he will find a treasure of wisdom in The Fulfillment of All Desire. It is destined to be a modern classic on the spiritual life.

Choosing Your Faith: In a World of Spiritual Options


Mark Mittelberg - 2008
    Yet, while we hear these pleas, we're already functioning with existing beliefs—even if they are beliefs by default. So how do we choose what to believe—especially in the area of faith? Do we need to choose? In "Choosing Your Faith, " Mark Mittelberg encourages us, as Socrates does, not to lead an unexamined life. He invites us to examine why we believe what we believe. This examination will resonate with Christians and seekers alike.

The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur: The Woman Whose Goodness Changed Her Husband from Atheist to Priest


Elisabeth Leseur - 1914
    For Elisabeth Leseur had two great loves: God, and her husband Felix. Felix loved Elisabeth as well; yet to their mutual sorrow, he couldn't share the life of the Spirit that Elisabeth cherished.

Resisting Happiness


Matthew Kelly - 2016
    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.

Heart of the World


Hans Urs von Balthasar - 1979
      Sewn Softcover

What is the Point of Being a Christian?


Timothy Radcliffe - 2005
    For more information please visit: www.michaelramseyprize.org.uk What is the Point of being a Christian? One is pointed to God, who is the point of everything. If one thinks of religion as just 'useful' then one has reduced it to another consumer product. But if we are pointed to God, then this should make a difference to how we live. This is not a moral superiority. Christians are usually no better than anyone else. But the lives of Christians should be marked by some form of hope, freedom, happiness and courage. If they are not then why should anyone believe a word they say? In this new book, Timothy Radcliffe is at his best, writing with a prophetic edge. His argument for Christian belief is profoundly Catholic and profoundly human. But what is just as remarkable, Radcliffe's argument for and interpretation of Christian Gospel is couched in a deep understanding of human nature and the problems and anxieties of modern men and women. Radcliffe is far distant from the theologian's ivory tower and yet his understanding of the Gospel is profoundly theological. The frame of reference for this book is wide, and it is based amongst other things on Fr Radcliffe's pastoral experience of dealing with people with problematic marriages, those struggling with celibacy, those trying to understand the nature of religious authority and those trying to remain loyal to the Church which finds their sexual orientation 'irregular'.

Love and Responsibility


Pope John Paul II - 1960
    He writes in the conviction that science--biology, psychology, sociology--can provide valuable information on particular aspects of relations between the sexes, but that a full understanding can be obtained only by study of the human person as a whole. Central to his argument is the contrast between the personalistic and the utilitarian views of marriage and of sexual relations. The former views marriage as an interpersonal relationship, in which the well-being and self-realization of each partner are of overriding importance to the other. It is only within this framework that the full purpose of marriage can be realized. The alternative, utilitarian view, according to which a sexual partner is an object for use, holds no possibility of fulfillment and happiness. Wojtyla argues that divorce, artificial methods of birth control, adultery (pre-marital sex), and sexual perversions are all in various ways incompatible with the personalistic view of the sexual self-realization of the human person. Perhaps the most striking feature of the book is that Wojtyla appeals throughout to ordinary, human experience, logically examined. He draws support for his views on the proper gratification of sexual needs, on birth control, and on other matters, from the findings of physiologists and psychologists. His conclusions coincide with the traditional teachings of the Church, which invoke scriptural authority. His approach ensures that non-Christians also can consider his arguments on their own merits.

The Spirit of the Liturgy


Benedict XVI - 1918
    In his own foreward to the book, Cardinal Ratzinger compares this work to a much earlier classic of the same title by Romano Guardini because Ratzinger feels that his insights here are similar with what Guardini achieved in his time regarding a renewed understanding of the Liturgy. My purpose here is to assist this renewal of understanding of the Liturgy. Its basic intentions coincide with what Guardini wanted to achieve. The only difference is that I have had to translate what Guardini did at the end of the First World War, in a totally different historical situation, into the context of our present-day questions, hopes and dangers. Like Guardini, I am not attempting to involve myself with scholarly discussion and research. I am simply offering an aid to the understanding of the faith and to the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the Liturgy.

The Lord


Romano Guardini - 1937
    Unlike other books seeking to strip Jesus' story to reveal only the human being, Romano Guardini's The Lord gives the complete story of Jesus Christ—as man, Holy Ghost, and Creator. Pope Benedict XVI lauds Guardini's work as providing a full understanding of the Son of God, away from the prejudice that rationality engenders. Put long-held myths aside and discover the entire truth about God's only begotten Son.

The Sign of the Cross: The Fifteen Most Powerful Words in the English Language


Francis de Sales - 1892
    Francis de Sales' heroic efforts to bring Calvinists back to the Faith comes this succinct, eloquent defense of the age-old Catholic practice of making the Sign of the Cross, which 16th century Calvinists denounced as a Popish invention and many Protestants scorn even today. Along with St. Francis's other lucid explanations of the Catholic Faith and his undaunted love even for those who hated him, this modest book helped restore to their native Catholic faith tens of thousands of people who not long before were intent on killing him.As they did for the Calvinists in St. Francis's day, so in our day these ably translated pages will bring you a better understanding of and a renewed love for the Sign of the Cross, that brief and lively exterior prayer by which, from time immemorial, God has been invoked by serious Christians before all of their endeavors.