The Blessing of Christmas: Meditations for the Season


Benedict XVI - 2005
    Taken from his sermons as well as his writings, these beautiful meditations by the acclaimed spiritual teacher, writer and now Pontiff, give his usual fresh insights into the deeper meaning of this most wondrous event, and show the Pope to be a man who knows how to address both the mind and the heart. Includes many Illustrations. "Christmas is the most profoundly human feast of faith, because it allows us to feel most deeply the humanity of God. The cirb has a unique power to show us what it means to say that God wished to be "Immanuel" - a "God with us," a God we may address in intimate language, because he encounters us as a child. This makes Christmas a feast that invites us in a special way to meditation, to an internal act of looking at the Word. It awakens in us a deeper perception of the truth of the words from Scripture, "The goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior has appeared.'"

God is Good for You: A defence of Christianity in troubled times


Greg Sheridan - 2018
    It's a situation that's fraught both for Christians and our wider society, where the moral certainties that were the foundation of our institutions and laws are no longer held by the majority.At this point of crisis for faith, God is Good for You shows us why Christianity is so vital for our personal and social well-being, and how modern Christians have never worked so hard to make the world a better place at a time when their faith has never been less valued. It carries a vital torch for Christianity in a way that's closely argued, warmly human, good humoured yet passionate, and, above all, convincing.

Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church


Austen Ivereigh - 2019
    Through battles with corrupt bankers and worldly cardinals, in turbulent meetings and on global trips, history’s first Latin-American pope has attempted to reshape the Church to evangelize the contemporary age. At the same time, he has stirred other leaders’ deep-seated fear that the Church is capitulating to modernity—leaders who have challenged his bid to create a more welcoming, attentive institution.Facing rebellions over his allowing sacraments for the divorced and his attempt to create a more "ecological" Catholicism, as well as a firestorm of criticism for the Church’s record on sexual abuse, Francis emerges as a leader of remarkable vision and skill with a relentless spiritual focus—a leader who is at peace in the turmoil surrounding him.With entertaining anecdotes, insider accounts, and expert analysis, Ivereigh’s journey through the key episodes of Francis’s reform in Rome and the wider Church brings into sharp focus the frustrations and fury, as well as the joys and successes, of one of the most remarkable pontificates of the contemporary age.

The Wellspring Of Worship


Jean Corbon - 1988
    In his modern classic work The Wellspring of Worship, Fr. Jean Corbon explores the meaning of the Liturgy as the "wellspring" or source of the Church's life and worship of God. The Liturgy itself is a sharing in the mystery of the Triune God and in the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. Corbon writes that it is "the mystery of the river of life that streams from the Father and the Lamb", into which believers are to be drawn. In this way, the divine river waters their entire lives, renewing and transforming them.The Wellspring of Worship is a masterful reflection on the mystery of God's Trinitarian life and how the Church's members participate in that life through the Liturgy.

The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven


Martin Von Cochem - 1987
    Keeping these sobering aspects of human destiny ever before our eyes, we will be that much less likely to fall into mortal sin and be lost eternally. Gives many facts we should meditate on as we contemplate death. This book has converted numerous Protestants in our day because of its cogent reasons for rectifying our lives. Impr. 223 pgs, PB

Holy Rosary


Josemaría Escrivá - 2002
    Josemaría in this pocket book of meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary, is a continuous act of faith, hope and love, of adoration and reparation. He reveals the secret of overcoming monotony and routine when praying the Rosary, and portrays each Mystery with illuminating eyes of faith — helping you become absorbed in contemplation when you pray to Our Lady. This handsome book is small enough to carry with you everywhere and use whenever you have a moment to spend with Our Lady. The new Mysteries of Light are included in this edition.

Interfaith Leadership: A Primer


Eboo Patel - 2016
    Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonality in their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today."

Meditations from a Simple Path


Mother Teresa - 1996
    This pocket-sized little book distills the very best of Mother Teresa's wisdom that was so apparet in A Simple Path. Of help and comfort not only to catholics but also to non-catholics who are interested in her profound, yet entirely practical views on how to help others as well as ourselves.

How to Read Your Way to Heaven: A Spiritual Reading Program for the Worst of Sinners, the Greatest of Saints, and Everyone in Between


Vicki Burbach - 2017
    Designed for individual or group settings, How to Read Your Way to Heaven will guide your quest to delve deeper into a relationship with Christ by meditating on the written word while organizing your reading around the four pillars of the Catholic Faith the Creed, the sacraments, morality, and prayer. How to Read Your Way to Heaven is not merely another book to read. It is designed to be an invaluable tool for guiding and organizing your reading to help you on your journey to become a saint. And best of all, this fully integrated do-it-yourself spiritual reading program that can be easily followed by the busiest of Catholics with the tightest of schedules.

How to Be Holy: First Steps in Becoming a Saint


Peter Kreeft - 2016
    This question is central to all the great religions, Kreeft demonstrates, for striving toward holiness, moving toward perfect love, is the whole purpose of life.Kreeft admits that he is only a beginner on the climb to holiness, and it is to novices like him that he has written this engaging and encouraging book. Using the insights and experiences of saints and great spiritual writers throughout history, Kreeft shows what holiness is and how it can be achieved. He especially draws upon the spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. The core of Caussade's timeless gem is that God reveals himself to all of us through the daily events of our lives. The surest way toward spiritual growth, therefore, is by perceiving and accepting the merciful will of God in every situation.Kreeft stresses the simplicity of his approach to holiness, which focuses mainly on the virtue of love. Sanctity is love, he asserts, and only that can give us what we all long for—deep and lasting joy.

Overcoming Sinful Anger


Thomas G. Morrow - 2015
    Morrow shows you how to pull the rug out from beneath your anger and reclaim a life of peace and grace. You’ll come to understand the root causes of angry behavior, ways to heal painful memories, and how to deal well with your hurts and humiliations.

Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life: A Practical Guide to Prayer for Active People


Robert J. Spitzer - 2008
    Some develop very quickly, but do not achieve significant depth; while others develop quite slowly, but seem to be almost unending in the depth of wisdom, trust, hope, virtue, and love they engender. The best way of explaining this is to look at each of the pillars individually.Before doing this, however, it is indispensable for each of us to acknowledge (at least intellectually) the fundamental basis for Christian contemplation, namely, the unconditional Love of God. Jesus taught us to address God as Abba. If God really is Abba; if His love is like the father of the prodigal son; if Jesus' passion and Eucharist are confirmations of that unconditional Love; if God really did so love the world that He sent His only begotten Son into the world not to condemn us, but to save us and bring us to eternal life (Jn 3:16-19); if nothing really can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rm 8:31-39); and if God really has prepared us "to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, and experience this love which surpasses all understanding, so that we may attain to the fullness of God Himself" (Eph 3:18-20), then God's love is unconditional, and it is, therefore, the foundation for unconditional trust and unconditional hope. There can be nothing more important than contemplating, affirming, appropriating, and living in this Unconditional Love. This is the purpose of contemplation; indeed, the purpose of the spiritual life itself.

Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers and Reflections, Revised and Expanded


Macrina Wiederkehr - 1991
    Using biblical passages, poetry, and excerpts from her journal, Wiederkehr provides meditative ideas and prayers as "postures" for realizing and approaching the holy in our daily lives.These reflections and prayers, then, have grown out of a daily listening to God in the changing seasons of my spiritual life, "writes the author. "These reflections have grown out of my conviction that our God is not some Almighty Being beyond us, but a Mystery within."

Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter That Changed Her Life, and How It Can Transform Your Own


Joseph Langford - 2007
    Published at Mother Teresa's personal request to share her message with the world, it contains personal stories, revealing insights and never-before-seen letters from Mother Teresa.

The Mystical City Of God: A Popular Abridgment


Mary of Agreda - 1912
    Pope Clement XI and Benedict XIV gave like decisions.