Miriam James Heidland’s life as a successful college athlete proved unfulfilling, she went searching for something deeper and ended up falling in love with Jesus. By charting her own journey toward wholeness, Heidland invites young Catholics to pursue their own relationship with Jesus.   Although originally full of athletic ambition and goals for a career in sports news, Heidland was transformed in a very slow but deep way during her undergraduate years, moving from party girl to bride of Christ. In Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus, Heidland helps readers learn from her experience of seeking love in the wrong places and instead finding it in Christ. She shares her struggles—learning she was adopted, battling alcoholism, and healing from childhood sexual abuse—as signs of hope that anyone who desires to know Christ can find him and be loved intimately by him in return. By bringing readers into Heidland’s healing process, Loved as I Am provides a gentle and subtle template for finding peace and freedom in Jesus.

    Although the idea of virginity is unpopular and even despised in modern society, Dubay emphasizes that the importance of evangelical virginity is rooted in its Biblical foundation, both in the Old and New Testaments.Examining in detail what the call to virginity is and how it is integrated into the whole of consecrated life, Dubay presents his study in such a way as to be of importance to men as well. Noting that a woman, because of her feminine nature and traits, can image and live the Church's wedded relationship to Christ more realistically, Dubay points out that men with the celibate charism are also members of the virgin Church that is wedded to Christ, just as in the Old Testament the People of God was a virgin bride wedded to Yahweh. The common and distinct elements of male and female consecrated love are fully captured in these pages.

    

    "There is a whole sensible world around me that I should be able to turn to Your praise." Written between 1946 and 1947 while O'Connor was a student far from home at the University of Iowa, A Prayer Journal is a rare portal into the interior life of the great writer. Not only does it map O'Connor's singular relationship with the divine, but it shows how entwined her literary desire was with her yearning for God. "I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually . . . I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You."O'Connor could not be more plain about her literary ambition: "Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted," she writes. Yet she struggles with any trace of self-regard: "Don't let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story."As W. A. Sessions, who knew O'Connor, writes in his introduction, it was no coincidence that she began writing the stories that would become her first novel, Wise Blood, during the years when she wrote these singularly imaginative Christian meditations. Including a facsimile of the entire journal in O'Connor's own hand, A Prayer Journal is the record of a brilliant young woman's coming-of-age, a cry from the heart for love, grace, and art.

    The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders—the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time. Translated into more than twenty languages, it has touched millions of lives.

    Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.

    During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa be

    And though I miss her physical presence, the writing of this work has allowed me to once again spend long hours with her and share her essence with others. This final book in the canon captures the last bittersweet years of a faithful woman who, in her grand silence and through her pain, touched more lives and did more good than anyone imagined. It also gives us an opportunity to have one last visit with the sister we called ‘Mother.’” – Raymond Arroyo   For more than a decade, the beloved, wise cracking nun who founded EWTN, the world’s largest religious media empire, was confined to her cell at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama.  Though Mother Angelica is still seen and heard by millions each week in reruns on seven continents, the private drama within her monastery, her personal supernatural encounters, and the prolonged suffering she endured has remained hidden. Until now.   In a moving, dramatic conclusion to his four New York Times bestselling Mother Angelica books, Raymond Arroyo completes the saga of this singular nun with his most intimate book yet. Here are Mother Angelica’s spiritual battles in her cell—including encounters with the devil. Revealed for the first time is the personal request Mother made of God—which sheds light on her long silence.  Here are the unrevealed episodes of hilarity and inspiration; from playing possum (to avoid undesirable visitors to her room), to undertaking a secret trip to the far East, to blessing her nuns as they leave her care to create new monasteries, Mother Angelica’s spunky spirit shines through the narrative.   Mother Angelica Her Grand Silence, the touching, climactic coda to the Mother Angelica canon also offers readers the personal testimonies of people around the world who were spiritually transformed by Mother during her long public absence. And for the first time, the author writes movingly of his personal relationship with Mother—the highs and the lows.   Eleven years after the release of the definitive biography of Mother Angelica, audiences want to know the rest of her story. This is it.From the Hardcover edition.

    In 2006, Pope Benedict stressed that "Divine Mercy is not a secondary devotion, but an integral dimension of Christian faith and prayer." Now Pope Francis has proclaimed an extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, which will begin on December 8, 2015. These three Popes have made it very clear that Divine Mercy is a major part of the Christian faith, and now this powerful new book reveals why.Best-selling author Vinny Flynn continues his popular "7 Secrets" series with a book that brings him back to his roots. Vinny was one of the original editors of the official English edition of the actual Diary of St. Faustina, and he has written and edited a vast number of the Divine Mercy materials that are used today.Through his "secrets" of Divine Mercy, Vinny shows how Divine Mercy is not just another worthy "private devotion"; it is the key devotion, the umbrella devotion over everything else. Every other devotion in the Church, every ritual, every activity, every teaching is under that umbrella of Divine Mercy. It’s all there to help us understand and enter into Divine Mercy. He shows us how everything in our lives can become more meaningful, more powerful, more life-changing once we really embrace the gift of Divine Mercy — the overflow of love from the Holy Trinity.In this compelling and timely book, Flynn draws from Scripture, the teachings of the Church, and the Diary of St. Faustina to not only reveal the heart of Divine Mercy, but to offer you an invitation and a road map so that this mercy can transform your life.If you're not yet convinced of the impact Divine Mercy can have on your life, if you've never heard of this message and devotion, or if you're curious to learn more about it, this book is perfect for you. It shows us all how to respond to the call of Pope Francis "to live lives shaped by mercy", and benefit greatly from the "Year of Mercy".

    But at every step he has been accompanied by some surprising friends—the saints of the Catholic Church. For many, these holy men and women remain just historical figures. For Martin, they are intimate companions. “They pray for me, offer me comfort, give me examples of discipleship, and help me along the way,” he writes. The author is both engaging and specific about the help and companionship he has received. When his pride proves trouble­some, he seeks help from Thomas Merton, the monk and writer who struggled with egotism. In sickness he turns to Thérèse of Lisieux, who knew about the boredom and self-pity that come with illness. Joan of Arc shores up his flagging courage. Aloysius Gonzaga deepens his compassion. Pope John XXIII helps him to laugh and not take life too seriously. Martin’s inspiring, witty, and always fascinating memoir encompasses saints from the whole of Christian history— from St. Peter to Dorothy Day. His saintly friends include Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Mother Teresa, and other beloved figures. They accompany the author on a lifelong pilgrimage that includes stops in a sunlit square of a French town, a quiet retreat house on a New England beach, the gritty housing projects of inner-city Chicago, the sprawling slums of Nairobi, and a gorgeous Baroque church in Rome. This rich, vibrant, stirring narrative shows how the saints can help all of us find our way in the world. “In a cross between Holden Caulfield and Thomas Merton, James Martin has written one of the best spiritual memoirs in years.” —Robert Ellsberg, author of All Saints “It isn’t often that a new and noteworthy book comes along in this genre, but we have reason to celebrate My Life with the Saints. It is earmarked for longevity. It will endure as an important and uncommon contribution to religious writing.” —Doris Donnelly, America “An account . . . that is as delightful as it is instructive.” —First Things “In delightful prose Martin recounts incidents, both perilous and funny, that have prompted him to turn to the saints, and in doing so shows us a new way of living out a devotion that is as old and universal as the Church.” —Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, Fordham University “An outstanding and often hilarious memoir.” —Publishers Weekly “Martin’s final word for us is as Jungian as it is Catholic: God does not want us to be like Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. God wants us to be most fully ourselves.” —The Washington Post Book World

    His reflections on daily life with the Trappists are funny, wise, and often profound--resembling Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk, but a bit less thematically structured and more down to earth. Nouwen's goal is simply to record what it's like to pass the time in a cloistered community. He spends part of his stay there reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which helps awaken a hunger for a richer experience of life that he subsequently satisfies by learning to slow down. In his first week at the monastery, Nouwen writes, "I have so many ideas I want to write about, so many books I want to read, so many skills I want to learn--motorcycle maintenance is now one of them--and so many things I want to say to others now or later, that I do not SEE that God is all around me and that I am always trying to see what is ahead, overlooking him who is so close." Then, looking forward to being planted in one place among the Trappists, he writes, "Maybe I need to get stuck," to learn to see God. He does, and he does. --Michael Joseph Gross

    It provides a glimpse into the life and spirituality of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, who has often been called "The greatest mystic of the 20th Century." More than thirty individuals, all who had met Padre Pio, were interviewed for this first edition book. The author and her husband, Deacon Ron Allen, have traveled to many parts of the United States in order to record the personal testimonies of Padre Pio's friends from near and far.

    John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world -- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community -- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.* A New York Times bestseller for 23 weeks* A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

    The Albanian girl who entered an Irish order to go to India as a missionary and became an "Angel of the Poor" for countless people. She was greatly revered by Christians as well as Muslims, Hindus and unbelievers, as she brought the message of Christian love for one's neighbor from the slums of Calcutta to the whole world. Fr. Leo Maasburg was there as her close companion for many decades, traveling with her throughout the world and was witness to countless miracles and incredible little-known occurrences. In this personal portrait of the beloved nun, he presents fifty amazing stories about her that most have never heard, wonderful and delightful stories about miracles, small and great, that he was privileged to experience at Mother Teresa's side. Stories of how, without a penny to her name, she started an orphanage in Spain, and at the same time saved a declining railroad company from ruin, and so many more.They all tell of her limitless trust in God's love, of the way the power of faith can move mountains, and of hope that can never die. These stories reveal a humorous, gifted, wise and arresting woman who has a message of real hope for our time. It's the life story of one of the most important women of the 20th century as it's never been told before.

    Her words and actions have inspired millions of people from every race and religion and country to help the poor and needy, a legacy that is her gift to all mankind for generations to come.From 1950, when she founded the order of Missionaries of Charity, to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and then, in 1985, being awarded the Medal of Freedom—the United States' highest civilian award—to her final days, Mother Teresa served the world as a beacon shedding the light of hope, comfort, and peace on all.Mother Teresa: In My Own Words is a timeless testament to the power of her words. Here are the same quotes, stories, and prayers that helped strengthen and inspire the poor, the dying, the suffering, and the doubting who she met during her lifetime, and that will continue to strengthen and inspire all who read them.