“The priesthood is going through a dark time,” write Pope Emeritus Benedict and Cardinal Robert Sarah. “Wounded by the revelation of so many scandals, disconcerted by the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy, many priests are tempted by the thought of giving up and abandoning everything.”In this book, Pope Emeritus Benedict and Cardinal Robert Sarah give their brother priests and the whole Church a message of hope. They honestly address the spiritual challenges faced by priests today, including struggles of celibacy. They point to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ as the key to faithful and fruitful priestly ministry and church reform. From the Depths of Our Hearts is an unprecedented work by the Pope Emeritus and a Cardinal serving in the Vatican. As bishops, they write “in a spirit of filial obedience” to Pope Francis, who has said, “I think that celibacy is a gift for the Church … I don’t agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.” Responding to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from the Amazonian Synod, two wise, spiritually astute pastors explain the biblical and spiritual role of the priesthood, celibacy, and genuine priestly ministry. Drawing on Vatican II, they present priestly celibacy as more than “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law”. They insist that renewal of the Church is bound to a renewed understanding of priestly vocation as sharing in Jesus’ priestly identity as Bridegroom of the Church. This is a book whose crucial message is for clergy and laity alike.

    Brian Doyle’s The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be is a book of cadenced notes on the swirl of miracle and the holy of attentiveness; a book about children and birds, love and grief and everything alive, which is to say all prayers.

    Lehner reintroduces Christians to the true God—not the polite, easygoing, divine therapist who doesn’t ask much of us, but the Almighty God who is unpredictable, awe-inspiring, and demands our entire lives.  Stripping away the niceties with a sling blade, Lehner shows that God is more strange and beautiful than we imagine, and wants to know and transform us in the most intimate way. With his iconoclastic new book God Is Not Nice, Lehner, one of the most promising young Catholic theologians in America, challenges the God of popular culture and many of our churches and reintroduces the God of the Bible and traditional Christianity. As Lehner writes in the book’s introduction, "We all need the vaccine of the true transforming and mysterious character of God: The God who shows up in burning bushes, speaks through donkeys, drives demons into pigs, throws Saul from his horse, and appears to St. Francis. It’s only this God who has the power to challenge us, change us, and make our lives dangerous. He sweeps us into a great adventure that will make us into different people." This book is not safe. It may startle and annoy many people—including those who purport to teach and preach the Gospel, but are missing it, according to Lehner. God Is Not Nice intends to overthrow all of our popular misconceptions about God, inviting us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with him. When you're finished with God Is Not Nice, you may find the idols you constructed in God’s name smashed, replaced with a God who will ask you to live an entirely different life full of hope and transformation.God Is Not Nice has been translated into several foreign languages.

    He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that "the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril."A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. "The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations."While making clear the gravity of the present situation, the cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without hope. He calls for a renewal of devotion to Christ through prayer and the practice of virtue.

    Thought-provoking activities and questions for group discussion or individual reflection are included at the end of each chapter.Paperback

    Gloria Polo Ortiz, a dentist from Bogota Columbia.She was taking shelter from a storm with her nephew, when both of them were struck by lightning. What happened to her afterwards was a miracle which led to her conversion and a life of abandonment to the will of God.She now tells her story in many different countries around the world, and has the approval of her diocese in Bogota, Colombia, and her spiritual director.Her testimony is an inspiration for all of us, and will increase our faith in Christ Jesus and His Holy Catholic Church.

    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 .

    It is in this framework that we need to consider our present economic plight and the charting of our path forward.In his penetrating analysis of contemporary society, author John Horvat focuses on the present crisis with great insight and clarity. He claims modern economy has become cold, impersonal, and out of balance. Gone are the human elements of honor and trust so essential to our daily lives. Society has discarded the natural restraining influence of the human institutions and values that should temper our economic activities.Return to Order is a clarion call that invites us to reconnect with those institutions and values by applying the timeless principles of an organic Christian order. Horvat presents a refreshing picture of this order, so wonderfully adapted to our human nature. He describes the calming influence of those natural regulating institutions such as custom, family, community, the Christian State, and the Church.A return to order is not only possible but crucial. Horvat shows us how to make it happen.Based on nearly twenty years of ground-breaking research, this book is being recognized as one of the most important and influential on the subject to be published in the past ten years. Its original insight into both the present crisis and remedies for the future thrust Return to Order into the center of the raging debate over how to restore America to prominence as a proud and great nation.

    Once again Ladinsky reveals his talent for creating profound and playful renditions of classic poems for a modern audience. Rumi's joyous, ecstatic love poems; St. Francis's loving observations of nature through the eyes of Catholicism; Kabir's wild, freeing humor that synthesizes Hindu, Muslim, and Christian beliefs; St. Teresa's sensual verse; and the mystical, healing words of Sufi poet Hafiz—these along with inspiring works by Rabia, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Mira, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Tukaram are all “love poems by God,” from writers considered to be "conduits of the divine." A spiritual treasure to cherish always.

    Pope Clement XI and Benedict XIV gave like decisions.

    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.

    This why every great story in the Kingdom is by grace through faith. Scripturally, faith is fake if it is void of proofs. According to Dr David Oyedepo; 'faith sees the invisible, dares the impossible, and delivers the incredible' Therefore, faith is the master key to a world of unlimited possibilities. This is the essence of this book.

    Nearly two decades later, he would be received into the Catholic Church. In From Fire, by Water, he recounts this unlikely passage, from the strident Marxism and atheism of a youth misspent on both sides of the Atlantic to a moral and spiritual awakening prompted by the Mass. At once a young intellectual’s finely crafted self-portrait and a life story at the intersection of the great ideas and events of our time, the book marks the debut of a compelling new Catholic voice.“Sohrab Ahmari is emerging as one of the finest minds and writers of his generation, and the story of his conversion recounted here will stay with the reader for a very long time.” —Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, from the Foreword"[A] striking memoir." —Ross Douthat, The New York Times“Lives — indeed, as I believe, eternal destinies — will be changed by this book. I wish every angry young man who hates God could read this moving, challenging personal confession of a still-young man who has been where they are, and who gained wisdom and release.” —Rod Dreher, The American Conservative“If I could, I would order a copy for everyone graduating college this year. An urgent and compelling account of the search for truth.” —Ed Condon, Catholic News Agency“The author’s extraordinary gift for writing truly approaches, as best as one can at any given time, a true account of the incomparable beauty of the reality he recounts.” —Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke“Relentlessly honest, deeply moving, Sohrab Ahmari’s story of his intellectual and spiritual journey from dismissive disbelief to vibrant Catholic faith — a journey propelled by some intriguing companions, including Nietzsche, Camus, and Koestler — is food for both mind and soul and an important testimony to the invigorating power of truth.” —George Weigel, Author, Witness to Hope and The End and the Beginning“This book is a testimony of Eucharistic triumph. God seeks us and will transform us if we let Him. Sohrab Ahmari’s beautiful memoir will help all of us trust in God alone better.” —Kathryn Jean Lopez, Editor-at-Large of National Review “Remarkable. . . . From Fire, by Water is a spiritual memoir perfectly suited to our time.” —Jonathan V. Last, Commentary“[B]rave, honest and often very dramatic . . . a powerful story, powerfully told.” — The Tablet “Ahmari’s memoir took me to places I have never been, and gave me a fresh look at people and places that seemed very familiar. Most especially, Ahmari’s book explored a restless human heart, searching and seeking, until, quite unexpectedly, coming to rest in the Lord.” —JD Flynn, Catholic News Agency“Buy Sohrab’s superb book for its story of personal faith but also its revelations of life under a farcical theocracy.” —Tim Stanley, The Catholic Herald“If you're going to write a book about your religious conversion it'd better be a great yarn. And if you're going to write a memoir while you’re still in your early thirties you'd better be a great writer. In From Fire, by Water, Sohrab Ahmari has both boxes checked. . . . Ahmari is a precise and evocative writer, which makes From Fire, by Water easy reading and good reading.”—Matthew Hennessey, The University Bookman“Memoirs written by people who are still in their thirties are almost never of interest to anyone. Sohrab Ahmari’s, however, is a grand exception.” —Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University“A thought-provoking story . . . a breath of fresh air . . .The author is a gifted wordsmith, ably portraying a variety of colorful scenes and scenarios — physical and philosophical.”—Lela Gilbert, Newsmax“[A] forthright and well-written spiritual memoir.” —Hannah Niemeier, The New Criterion“His book offers a long, candid, and unsparing look at the young Ahmari, at the Shi'ite Muslim society into which he was born in Iran, and the secular America where he came into maturity.” —Philip F. Lawler, Catholic Culture“From Fire, By Water is a book that I would place in the hands of any young, over-confident, over-zealous skeptic. It's a book that college-age kids need to read as they flirt, perhaps for the first time, with new ideas that sound avant-garde and rebellious for rebellion's sake, but only end up disappointing.” —Andrew Walker, The Public Discourse“[E]loquent prose and a compelling story.” —Madeleine Kearns, National Review“An arresting sort of modern-day permutation of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Like Augustine’s spiritual autobiography, Ahmari’s compellingly written memoir is punctuated with soul-aches and poignant laments for misspent time. It brims with final awe at the irruption of grace into a soul so wounded by sin.” —Julia Meloni, Crisis Magazine“A wonderful read for anyone who is seeking a deeper meaning to life, whether they be persons of devout faith or of none at all.” —Christine Rousselle, The Washington Examiner“An engaging account of [Ahmari’s] journey to faith. . . . extraordinary talents as a writer.” —R.R. Reno, First Things“Ahmari writes beautifully, and the story he tells is fascinating. . . . Although Ahmari’s context is a different one from [Thomas] Merton’s, more than once while reading the book I saw correlations between their autobiographies.” —Gregory Hillis, America“I thought From Fire, By Water was a story about conversion. But it's far more than that. It's about the journey of civilization and the great problems of our time.” —Seth Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post

    This one-volume survey of the history of the Catholic Church--from its beginning through the pontificate of John Paul II--explains the Church's progress by using Christopher Dawson's division of the Church's history into six distinct "ages," or 350-400 year periods of time.

     In the words of Shakespeare, a retrograde is one of God’s spies. The retrograde has the unique capacity for understanding the stark chasm between the degenerate, socialist-infiltrated world of decay on one side and the well-meaning, good-hearted, but clueless Christian world on the other. In a time of such profound decay, being one of God’s spies is a last resort and a pure necessity: it involves not “deep cover,”—i.e., acting like the enemy—but rather “half cover”: acting as a “contra” in the secular arena, a crypto-Christian counterinsurgent willing to fight like a Navy Seal and to think like a counterintel officer. Retrogrades . . . to the streets: our aim is to reverse the deliberate, deuced machinations of “radicals” like Saul Alinsky who, by penning the rulebook of radicalism, threw down a challenge that has, until now, gone unanswered. Rules for Retrogrades is the handbook men of good will need to win the culture war! Here is a sampling from the call to action found within these pages: No truth is “off-limits”; we must never be ashamed to be candid. It is a damnable lie that humility disallows Christians from standing up (for what they believe) in the cultural and political forum! Control of language is control of thought; don’t let radicals control the language. Never trust a man who is unwilling to have enemies. Radicals form coalitions but retrogrades form fellowships. The root of cultural decay is feminism: end feminism to end radicalism.