Cuts through the foggy religious thinking rampant today! Impr. 204 pgs, PB

    This amazing narrative will stir your heart and soul while it chronicles the experience of a simple Polish nun.

    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!

    In this volume, popular author Walter Brueggemann writes that the Sabbath is not simply about keeping rules but rather about becoming a whole person and restoring a whole society. Importantly, Brueggemann speaks to a 24/7 society of consumption, a society in which we live to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess. We want more, own more, use more, eat more, and drink more. Keeping the Sabbath allows us to break this restless cycle and focus on what is truly important: God, other people, all life. Brueggemann offers a transformative vision of the wholeness God intends, giving world-weary Christians a glimpse of a more fulfilling and simpler life through Sabbath observance.

    Joseph, yet his life is full of spiritual treasures. Michel Gasnier O.P., here shows you where to find them and how they can enrich your own relationship with God. In this series of brief meditations he explores St. Joseph's work as a carpenter, his marriage, his character, the flight into Egypt, his return to Nazareth, Simeon's prophecy, and more. He gives you an enlightening portrait of this man who remains one of the Church's most extraordinary saints and intercessors.

    When his existing homilies were exhausted, Knox began to write new ones for his students based on the Apostles' Creed. The homilies were so well-received that they were later published as The Creed in Slow MotionWith resurgent interest in the life and writings of Knox, as well as forthcoming changes to the English translation of the Creed, the new edition of this classic could not be more timely.

    O'Keefe and R. R. Reno explain the structure and logic of the early Church fathers' interpretations of the Bible. These interpretations are considered foundational to the development of Christianity as a religion and offer insight into how the early church fathers thought about Christian doctrine and practice. By analyzing selected portions of patristic exegesis, the authors illustrate specific reading techniques employed by the church fathers to expound the meaning they believed intrinsic to biblical texts.This approach is organized around three basic analytic strategies: literal, typological, and allegorical. The literal strategy is an intensive and broad analysis that identifies particular word associations that intensify scriptural meaning. The typological strategy interprets distinct patterns of events within scripture and applies those patterns to other events in scripture and the history of the church. The allegorical approach to biblical reading, like the topological strategy, seeks patterns in the text, but these patterns are more diverse and represent larger themes or beliefs of the early church.Within this analytic framework, the authors explain the larger structure of patristic exegesis and argue for the importance of this structure in the emergence of Christian orthodoxy.

    Sloth is not mere laziness, however, but a disgust with reality, a loathing of our call to be friends with God, and a spiteful hatred of place and life itself. As described by Josef Pieper, the slothful person does not "want to be as God wants him to be, and that ultimately means he does not wish to be what he really, fundamentally is." Sloth is a hellish despair. Our own culture is deeply infected, choosing a destructive freedom rather than the good work for which God created us. Acedia and its Discontents resists despair, calling us to reconfigure our imaginations and practices in deep love of the life and work given by God.

    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.

     "Clear, profound and practical--you do not want to miss this book."--Dr. Scott Hahn, author of The Lamb's Supper and The Fourth CupJesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist shines fresh light on the Last Supper by looking at it through Jewish eyes. Using his in-depth knowledge of the Bible and ancient Judaism, Dr. Brant Pitre answers questions such as: What was the Passover like at the time of Jesus? What were the Jewish hopes for the Messiah? What was Jesus' purpose in instituting the Eucharist during the feast of Passover? And, most important of all, what did Jesus mean when he said, "This is my body... This is my blood"?To answer these questions, Pitre explores ancient Jewish beliefs about the Passover of the Messiah, the miraculous Manna from heaven, and the mysterious Bread of the Presence. As he shows, these three keys--the Passover, the Manna, and the Bread of the Presence--have the power to unlock the original meaning of the Eucharistic words of Jesus. Along the way, Pitre also explains how Jesus united the Last Supper to his death on Good Friday and his Resurrection on Easter Sunday.Inspiring and informative, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist is a groundbreaking work that is sure to illuminate one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith: the mystery of Jesus' presence in "the breaking of the bread."

    The life of a woman today isn't really all that different from that of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord's feet...but the daily demands of a busy world just won't leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him...yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. Then comes Jesus, right into the midst of your busy Mary/Martha life-and he extends the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters of Bethany. Tenderly he invites you to choose "the better part"-a joyful life of "living-room" intimacy with him that flows naturally into "kitchen service" for him. How can you make that choice? With her fresh approach to the familiar Bible story and its creative, practical strategies, Joanna shows how all of us -Marys and Marthas alike- can draw closer to our Lord, deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy. This book includes a twelve-week Bible study. Also look for the ten-week DVD study pack companion product to this book, which includes three DVDs and a separate, revised and expanded study guide.

    The autobiography of one of the most popular saints in history, now available in a new translation.Beyond being recognized as the patron saint of Ireland (perhaps for having chased some nonexistent snakes off the Emerald Isle), little else is popularly known about Saint Patrick.  And yet, Patrick left behind a unique document, his Confession, which tells us much about both his life and his beliefs.  This autobiography, originally written in the fifth century, and short by modern standards, is nonetheless a work that fascinates with its glimpse into the life of an intriguing man, and inspires with its testament of faith.  Here, in this new edition from internationally acclaimed translator John Skinner, the character of Patrick, his era, and his world vividly come to life.  Also included in this volume is the only other document known to have been written by Patrick, a letter he wrote to the soldiers of Coroticus--also Christians--who had raided parts of Ireland and taken away prisoners who were then sold into slavery.  This letter is a wonderful demonstration of Patrick's rhetorical fire.  Quite irate, Patrick harangues his fellow Christians, and the results are every bit as autobiographically revealing as the Confession.  John O'Donohue, author of Anam Cara, provides an insightful foreword that re-creates the unique spirituality of Patrick and of the Irish people, and shows how it applies to our lives today.

    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.

    Here he discusses the seeming scientific naiveté behind the creation story, God’s love and goodness, and humanity’s creation, its free will, and its blessedness. Bonhoeffer also tackles difficult questions that are raised from the first book of the Bible, questions about the seemingly redundant second story of creation, about God’s own beginning, about the source of the light that was created the first day. The author then expounds upon Adam and Eve’s fall from grace: How could they, creatures made in God’s image, have thought to oppose God so foully? Where did the first evil come from? How did humanity lose its right to live in paradise?In “Temptation,” Bonhoeffer questions how temptation appeared in the midst of Eden’s innocence, and he explores the very nature of evil. Bonhoeffer explains that Jesus Christ helps us to understand and conquer physical and spiritual temptation through His grace and goodness.

    All human beings, knowingly or not, minister as priests to one another. All of us, knowingly or not, receive priestly ministrations from one another. Unless we begin here, we are not likely to understand the confusions and uncertainties and opportunities we have been encountering in the life of the church itself in recent years. We shall be in danger, in fact, of creating makeshift solutions to half-understood problems, easy answers to misleading questions, temporary bandages for institutions that need to be healed from the ground up. - L. William Countryman There is a lot of tension in churches today about whose ministry is primary-that of the laity or of the clergy. L. William Countryman argues that we can only resolve that problem by seeing that we are all priests simply by virtue of being human and living, as we all do, on the mysterious and uncertain border with the Holy. Living on the Border of the Holy offers a way of understanding the priesthood of the whole people of God and the priesthood of the ordained in complementary ways by showing how both are rooted in the fundamental priestly nature of human life. After an exploration of the ministry of both laity and ordained, Countryman concludes by examining the implications of this view of priesthood for churches and for educating those studying for ordination.