The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition
Donald Wuerl - 2011
And now, with the Church introducing revised language for the Mass, Catholics have a perfect opportunity to renew their understanding of this beautiful and beloved celebration. With eloquent prose and elegant black-and-white photography, bestselling authors Archbishop Donald Wuerl and Mike Aquilina guide readers through the different parts of the Mass, from the entrance procession to the blessing and dismissal, capturing the deep meaning of elements that are at once ordinary and mysterious: bread and wine, water and candles, altar cloths and ceremonial books. Step by step, they explain the specifics, such as the order of the Mass, the vessels used, the unique clothing worn, the prayers and responses, the postures and the gestures. Then they explore the rich historical, spiritual and theological background to each. Prayerful but practical, fact-filled but readable, The Mass prepares readers to participate more fully and appreciatively in the sacred rite at the heart of Catholic life.
Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology
Noelle Mering - 2021
Discourse seems futile when we are no longer a people with shared principles or even a shared understanding of reality. What seems obvious to one person is patently absurd to the next. This collapse of meaning is not accidental. It has been plotted and documented for decades, and now presents in its current form as Woke ideology. Awake, Not Woke unmasks this ideology by examining its history, major players, premises, and tactics, showing us that “Wokeness” at its core is an ideology of rupture. Indeed, it is an ideology with fundamentalist and even cult-like characteristics that is on a collision course with Christianity. With a wit and clarity that both exposes the absurd and mourns the brokenness of our culture, Noelle Mering provides answers to such questions as: Why does tolerance seem to only go in one direction?How does the ideology create enemies, eroding friendship across the sexes and races?Why is violence the natural end of Woke ideology?Why are the Woke considered blameless?Why have politics become all-absorbing?Why is the corruption of children a logical outgrowth of Woke principles?How is the movement fundamentally a rejection of the Logos? This is a spiritual battle, and it is not accidental. The architects of revolution have long known that the transformation of the West had to come by way of destabilizing the social, familial, and religious pieties of a citizenry. But there is a road to restoration, and it begins with identifying and understanding the operating principles of the Woke movement. While the revolution is a counterfeit religion resulting in alienation and division, the One True Faith brings restoration. It is this restoration -- of the person, the family, and the Faith -- for which we all hunger and is the most fitting avenue toward a more harmonious and whole society
Salvation Is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History from Abraham to the Second Coming
Roy H. Schoeman - 2003
It will give Christians a deeper understanding of Judaism, both as a religion in itself and as a central component of Christian salvation.To Jews it reveals the incomprehensible importance, nobility and glory that Judaism most truly has. It examines the unique and central role Judaism plays in the destiny of the world. It documents that throughout history attacks on Jews and Judaism have been rooted not in Christianity, but in the most anti-Christian of forces.Areas addressed include: the Messianic prophecies in Jewish scripture; the anti-Christian roots of Nazi anti-Semitism; the links between Nazism and Arab anti-Semitism; the theological insights of major Jewish converts; and the role of the Jews in the Second Coming.
7 Secrets of Divine Mercy
Vinny Flynn - 2015
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".
Happy Are You Poor: The Simple Life and Spiritual Freedom
Thomas Dubay - 1981
But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn't simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?The renowned spiritual writer Dubay gives surprising replies to these questions. He explains how material things are like extensions of our persons and thus of our love. If everyone lived this love there would be no destitution.After presenting the richness of the Gospel message, more beautiful than any other world view, he explains how Gospel frugality is lived in each state of life.
Humanae Vitae: Of Human Life
Pope Paul VI - 1968
Pope Paul VI saw clearly the problems inherent in the rising culture of death.
Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father
Donald H. Calloway - 2019
Donald Calloway, MIC, calls on all of us to turn to St. Joseph, entrust ourselves, our Church, and our world to our spiritual father's loving care, and then watch for wonders when the Universal Patron of the Church opens the floodgates of Heaven to pour out graces into our lives today. Definitely a book for our time, Consecration to St. Joseph is dedicated to meeting the challenges of the present moment and restoring order to our Church and our world, all through the potent paternal intercession and care of St. Joseph. This book has everything you need to take your love and devotion to St. Joseph to a whole different level: a thorough program of consecration to St. Joseph; information on the 10 wonders of St. Joseph; and prayers and devotions to St. Joseph. Accessible, motivating, this book will kick off a great movement of consecration to our spiritual father and change the world.
A Summa of the Summa
Peter Kreeft - 1990
Combines selected philosophical passages from Thomas' Summa Theologica with detailed footnotes and explanations for modern readers.
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
Tony Hendra - 2004
Father Joe is Tony Hendra’s inspiring true story of finding faith, friendship, and family through the decades-long influence of a surpassingly wise Benedictine monk named Father Joseph Warrillow.Like everything human, it started with sex. In 1955, fourteen-year-old Tony found himself entangled with a married Catholic woman. In Cold War England, where Catholicism was the subject of news stories and Graham Greene bestsellers, Tony was whisked off by the woman’s husband to see a priest and be saved.Yet what he found was a far cry from the priests he’d known at Catholic school, where boys were beaten with belts or set upon by dogs. Instead, he met Father Joe, a gentle, stammering, ungainly Benedictine who never used the words “wrong” or “guilt,” who believed that God was in everyone and that “the only sin was selfishness.” During the next forty years, as his life and career drastically ebbed and flowed, Tony discovered that his visits to Father Joe remained the one constant in his life—the relationship that, in the most serious sense, saved it.From the fifties and his adolescent desire to join an abbey himself; to the sixties, when attending Cambridge and seeing the satire of Beyond the Fringe convinced him to change the world with laughter, not prayer; to the seventies and successful stints as an original editor of National Lampoon and a writer of Lemmings, the off-Broadway smash that introduced John Belushi and Chevy Chase; to professional disaster after co-creating the legendary English series Spitting Image; from drinking to drugs, from a failed first marriage to a successful second and the miracle of parenthood—the years only deepened Tony’s need for the wisdom of his other and more real father, creating a bond that could not be broken, even by death.A startling departure for this acclaimed satirist, Father Joe is a sincere account of how Tony Hendra learned to love. It’s the story of a whole generation looking for a way back from mockery and irony, looking for its own Father Joe, and a testament to one of the most charismatic mentors in modern literature.From the Hardcover edition.
Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste
Thomas Day - 1990
This book is about the culture of American Christianity and what it does to our understanding of God, self, and community as reflected in the way Christians worship.
The Everlasting Man
G.K. Chesterton - 1925
Chesterton starts with in this classic exploration of human history. Responding to the evolutionary materialism of his contemporary (and antagonist) H.G. Wells, Chesterton in this work affirms human uniqueness and the unique message of the Christian faith. Writing in a time when social Darwinism was rampant, Chesterton instead argued that the idea that society has been steadily progressing from a state of primitivism and barbarity towards civilization is simply and flatly inaccurate. "Barbarism and civilization were not successive stages in the progress of the world," he affirms, with arguments drawn from the histories of both Egypt and Babylon. As always with Chesterton, there is in this analysis something (as he said of Blake) "very plain and emphatic." He sees in Christianity a rare blending of philosophy and mythology, or reason and story, which satisfies both the mind and the heart. On both levels it rings true. As he puts it, "in answer to the historical query of why it was accepted, and is accepted, I answer for millions of others in my reply; because it fits the lock; because it is like life." Here, as so often in Chesterton, we sense a lived, awakened faith. All that he writes derives from a keen intellect guided by the heart's own knowledge.
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love
Carl A. Anderson - 2009
Confronted with a hostile colonial government and Native Americans wary of conversion, the newly-appointed bishop-elect of Mexico wrote to tell the King of Spain that, unless there was a miracle, the continent would be lost. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, that miracle happened, and it forever changed the future of the continent.It was then that the Virgin Mary famously appeared to a Native American Christian convert on a hilltop outside of what is now Mexico City. The image she left imprinted on his cloak or tilma has puzzled scientists for centuries, and yet Our Lady of Gudalupe’s place in history is profound. A continent that just months before the apparitions seemed completely lost to Christianity suddenly and inexplicably embraced it by the millions. Our Lady of Guadalupe's message of love replaced the institutionalized violence of the Aztec culture, and built a bridge between two worlds — the old and the new — that were just ten years earlier engaged in brutal warfare.Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to inspire the devotion of millions.From Canada to Argentina — and even beyond the Americas — one finds great devotion to her, and great appreciation for her message of love, unity and hope. Today reproductions of the Virgin’s miraculous image can be seen throughout North and South America, in churches and homes, on billboards and even clothing apparel. Her shrine in Mexico City, where the miraculous image is housed to this day, is one of the most visited in the world.In Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love, Anderson & Chavez trace the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the sixteenth century to the present discuss of how her message was and continues to be an important catalyst for religious and cultural transformation. Looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe as a model of the Church and Juan Diego as a model for all Christians who seek to answer Christ's call of conversion and witness, the authors explore the changing face of the Catholic Church in North, Central, and South America, and they show how Our Lady of Guadalupe's message was not only historically significant, but how it speaks to contemporary issues confronting the American continents and people today.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous
François Trochu - 1957
Bernadette and Lourdes. Beautifully illustrated with 77 photographs and images, including lovely photos of St. Bernadette's incorrupt body. Our Lady told her, "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next." This young French visionary is sure to steal your heart! 416 pgs, PB.
Then Tweets My Soul: The Best of the Church Curmudgeon
Church Curmudgeon - 2016
With more than nine thousand tweets and ninety thousand followers, he's proven himself a stalwart of holy hilarity. This poetic collection of the Curmudgeon's best 140-character compositions will make you ROFL as you recognize the regular cast of churchy characters, including the worship leader, the usher team, and maybe even yourself. One more to whet your appetite: "Usually when the writing is on the wall, it portends the death of a culture. But hey, fine, throw out the hymnals and use a projector." Author bio: Church Curmudgeon is the old guy who sits on the back pew of the sanctuary, farthest from the drums (he measured). You can find his complaints on Twitter (@ChrchCurmudgeon) and Facebook.