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Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When God Speaks
Priscilla Shirer - 2006
In it she writes:Through His longsuffering and steadfastness, God has invited me to know Him better. And the more intimate I've become with Him, the more acquainted I've become with His voice. He has proven Himself to me not because I'm more special than anyone else, but because He loves proving His Word is true-to all His children. To you.One of Priscilla's bestselling titles, Discerning the Voice of God is now completely revised with updated content and reflection questions. Each section contains insights that will aid you in your desire to hear Him speak: Realize the Way He Speaks, Recognize the Sound of His Voice, Remember What He Wants to Accomplish, and Ready Yourself for Even More. Discover the treasure of recognizing how God keeps in touch with his beloved people and watch as He communicates with you.
Essence of Prayer
Ruth Burrows - 2006
Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.
Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
Maxwell Staniforth - 1968
They are a selection from a group known as the Apostolic Fathers, so-called because several of the authors were most likely disciples of the Apostles themselves. Like much of the New Testament, their writings take the form of letters, and for the most part deal with practical problems of the life of the early Church, as it struggled in the face of persecution to establish itself in the Roman world. They give us a picture of Christianity still drawing on the theology and traditions of its parent religion, Judaism.
Something Beautiful for God
Malcolm Muggeridge - 1971
Something Beautiful for God interprets her life through her conversations with Malcolm Muggeridge, the quintessential worldly skeptic who experienced a remarkable conversion to Christianity because of her exemplary influence. He hails her as a "light which could never be extinguished."
The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn't Exist
Craig Groeschel - 2010
After over a decade of successful ministry, he had to make a painful self admission: although he believed in God, he was leading his church like God didn’t exist.To Christians and non-Christians alike, to the churched and the unchurched, the journey leading up to Groeschel’s admission and the journey that follows—from his family and his upbringing to the lackluster and even diametrically opposed expressions of faith he encountered—will look and sound like the story of their own lives.Now the founding and senior pastor of the multicampus, pace-setting LifeChurch.tv, Groeschel's personal journey toward a more authentic God-honoring life is more relevant than ever.Christians and Christian Atheists everywhere will be nodding their heads as they are challenged to take their own honest moment and ask the question: am I putting my whole faith in God but still living as if everything was up to me?
Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor: How I Discovered the Hidden Treasures of the Catholic Church
Allen R. Hunt - 2010
Why? What is it that attracts them to Catholicism? In Confessions of a Mega-Church Pastor, Allen Hunt unveils the treasures of Catholicism that many life-long Catholics are simply unaware of. At the same time he demonstrates the genius of Catholicism and encourages us to move beyond taking our faith for granted.With a personal touch that is profound and disarming, Hunt takes his readers on a journey that is sure to change the way we experience our faith. At a time when so many are disillusioned about where the Catholic Church is and where it is going, Allen Hunt brilliantly reminds us that personal holiness is the key to the bigger future God wants to leads us to both as individuals and together as a Church.
The Soul of The Apostolate
Jean-Baptiste Chautard - 1937
In this age of relentless activity it is easy for Christians, particularly those involved in good works, to fall into the pattern of the activist. But mere activity and material results are not sufficient for a successful apostolate.In his classic work
The Soul of the Apostolate,
Dom Chautard demonstrates that the very foundation of all apostolic work must be the Interior Life. The apostle of Christ will grow to become an instrument and true channel of God’s graces to the world only through prayer, meditation and the cultivation of the Interior Life. When one is involved in works of spiritual or corporal charity, his work can only be truly efficacious when he anchors his Interior Life in Christ. Without Christ we can do nothing. Inside you’ll learn about the:Pre-eminence of the Interior Life over the Active Life Dangers of the Active Life: for you and your apostolateThe Devil’s special temptations for those working for Our LordSteps necessary in order to develop and grow in the Interior LifeNecessity of the Interior Life to a successful and spiritually fruitful apostolateFor anyone who would work for Our Lord and His Church there is simply no book more important to read and to follow than
The Soul of the Apostolate
.
Leonie Martin: A Difficult Life
Marie Baudouin-Croix - 1993
Therese of Lisieux. She was an emotionally disturbed child who suffered and and caused anguish to her family. Her mother, the heroic Zelie Martin, suffered most of all. Marie Baudouin-Croix, well-known French poet, has examined Zelie's correspondence with her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the awkward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Therese's Little Way. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Leonie was finally accepted by the Visitation Order in Caen. She succeeded in conquering a 'tough' temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy eight, she was regarded as a saint and her convent at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.
Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul
John Eldredge - 2001
Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a "nice guy." It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death. In this provocative book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!
The Temperament God Gave You: The Classic Key to Knowing Yourself, Getting Along with Others, and Growing Closer to the Lord
Art Bennett - 2005
This book offers a Catholic understanding of the four ancient temperaments that will bring you closer to God and help you discover the path to holiness that's right for you. Learn how to identify and understand the four temperaments that determine our reactions, guide our choices, color our understanding, and serve as the foundation of our moral and spiritual life.
The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation
Rod Dreher - 2017
The light of the Christian faith is flickering out all over the West, and only the willfully blind refuse to see it. From the outside, American churches are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. From the inside, they are being hollowed out by the departure of young people and a watered-down pseudo-spirituality. Political solutions have failed, as the triumph of gay marriage and the self-destruction of the Republican Party indicate, and the future of religious freedom has never been in greater doubt. The center is not holding. The West, cut off from its Christian roots, is falling into a new Dark Age. The bad news is that the roots of religious decline run deeper than most Americans realize. The good news is that the blueprint for a time-tested Christian response to this decline is older still. In The Benedict Option, Dreher calls on traditional Christians to learn from the example of St. Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century monk who turned from the chaos and decadence of the collapsing Roman Empire, and found a new way to live out the faith in community. For five difficult centuries, Benedict's monks kept the faith alive through the Dark Ages, and prepared the way for the rebirth of civilization. What do ordinary 21st century Christians -- Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox -- have to learn from the teaching and example of this great spiritual father? That they must read the signs of the times, abandon hope for a political solution to our civilization's problems, and turn their attention to creating resilient spiritual centers that can survive the coming storm. Whatever their Christian tradition, they must draw on the secrets of Benedictine wisdom to build up the local church, create countercultural schools based on the classical tradition, rebuild family life, thicken communal bonds, and develop survival strategies for doctors, teachers, and others on the front lines of persecution. Now is a time of testing, when believers will learn the difference between shallow optimism and Christian hope. However dark the shadow falling over the West, the light of Christianity need not flicker out. It will not be easy, but Christians who are brave enough to face the religious decline, reject trendy solutions, and return to ancient traditions will find the strength not only to survive, but to thrive joyfully in the post-Christian West. The Benedict Option shows believers how to build the resistance and resilience to face a hostile modern world with the confidence and fervor of the early church. Christians face a time of choosing, with the fate of Christianity in Western civilization hanging in the balance. In this powerful challenge to the complacency of contemporary Christianity, Dreher shows why those in all churches who fail to take the Benedict Option aren't going to make it.
Bernadette Speaks
René Laurentin - 1999
The culmination of his work is contained within this masterpiece factual account that reads like a novel. Translated from French to English for the first time, this fascinating biography covers the entire life of the visionary and messenger of the Immaculate Conception, accompanied by over 100 photographs.
The Major Works
Anselm of Canterbury
He considered the doctrines of faith an invitation to question, to think, and to learn; and he devoted his life to confronting and understanding the most elusive aspects of Christianity. His writings on matters such as free will, the nature of truth, and the existence of God make Anselm one of the greatest theologians and philosophers in history, and this translation provides readers with their first opportunity to read his most important works within a single volume.
Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of St. Francis
Kent Nerburn - 1999
Francis of Assisi. The Prayer of St. Francis boldly but gently challenges us to resist the forces of evil and negativity with the spirit of goodwill and generosity. And Nerburn shows, in his wonderfully personal and humble way, how we each can live out the prayer's prescription for living in our everyday and less-than-saintly lives. "Where there is hatred, let me sow love...Where there is injury, let me sow pardon..." Expanding upon each line of the St. Francis Prayer, Nerburn shares touching, inspiring stories from his own experience and that of others and reveals how each of us can make a difference for good in ordinary ways without being heroes or saints. Struggling to help a young son comfort his best friend when his mother dies, moved by the courage of war enemies who reconcile, being wrenched out of self-absorbed depression by responding to someone else's tragedy, taking a spirited old lady on a farewell taxi ride through her town-these are the kinds of everyday moments in which Nerburn finds we can live out the spirit of St. Francis.By incorporating the power and grace of these few lines of practical idealism into our thoughts and deeds, we can begin to ease our own suffering-and the suffering of those with whom we share our lives. And, remarkably, find a way to true peace and happiness by tapping into our basic human goodness. As we open our hearts and embrace his words, St. Francis "touches our deepest humanity and ignites the spark of our divinity."Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.Where there is hatred let me sow love, Where there is injury let me sow pardon, Where there is doubt, faith, Where there is despair, hope, Where there is darkness, light, And where there is sadness, joy...In this beautifully written book, Kent Nerburn leads us into the heart of the St. Francis Prayer and line by line demonstrates how St. Francis's words can resonate in our lives today.
Arise from Darkness: What to Do When Life Doesn't Make Sense
Benedict J. Groeschel - 1995
Benedict Groeschel draws on his own years of personal experiences in dealing with people's problems, tragedies and darkness as he offers help and guidance for any Christian troubled or burdened by life. If you are struggling with fear, anxiety, grief, loss of loved ones, hurt, anger or anything that makes life difficult or the road through it dark, then this book was written for you. Fr. Benedict offers practical suggestions on how to keep going and even grow with the help of God's grace, even when this help seems remote. The Christian response to the problem of evil and suffering began with the cross of Christ. Our answer is inseparable from the cross-from Jesus' own encounter with evil and his triumph over it. In this light, Fr. Benedict recalls some of our most frequently encountered sorrows and griefs: the failure of friends, financial and personal insecurity, the failure of some in the Church, our own inconsistent behaviors and weaknesses, and the death of loved ones. As we examine these painful experiences, he shows that we can find solutions in the Gospel and in the lives of saints, heroes, and very brave ordinary people.