I was on two committees at my parish. I read the Catechism of Catholic Church. I didn't eat meat on Fridays during LentToo often we approach our faith like we would a checklist or a resume.While the knowledge of our faith and the experience of faith is certainly important, how would our lives be different if we had a real, living relationship with God?As a Catholic, a lay leader, a parish staff member, or a pastor, it is critical to understand this growing chasm that is allowing even active parishioners to slowly fade away from the Church.This book provides parishes and individuals with a foundation on which to build a new formation process that establishes a relationship with God. Ultimately every person can become a true disciple of God, leading to a profound change in the individual and the parish, creating a vibrant and active faith community.

    In this inspiring book, Kay Warren teaches women what joy really is, where to find it, and how to choose it in the good times and the bad. With compassion and wisdom, she shows readers--even those who live with the constant companions of discouragement and depression--that true joy is deeper, richer, and more accessible than they might think. Perfect for small groups or individual reading, "Choose Joy" will empower women who feel like their emotions and well-being are at the mercy of others by helping them understand the life-giving truth that joy is within their grasp--every day.

    But if you are like the rest of us, every day presents a mountain of to-do items, jobs to go to, errands to run, projects to complete, meals to cook, children to raise... You forge ahead and get it done, but you know that things aren’t as they should be. Even when you check every item off your daily list, you still feel as though something meaningful and essential is missing from the very center of your life.   Spiritual director and writer Becky Eldredge has felt that same longing, and she knows what people are missing—a relationship with God through prayer. In Busy Lives & Restless Souls, Eldredge interprets principles of Ignatian spirituality in a fresh way to equip us with prayer tools that are accessible and practical within the relentless realities of our daily routines. Just as important, she shows us how we can bring our relationship with God to life by becoming what St. Ignatius called “contemplatives in action.” For all who sense that there is a missing peace in their lives, Busy Lives &Restless Souls will help them find it—right where they are.

    He travels thousands of miles to capture the inspiring stories of everyday people whose values have been radically changed and who have discovered the “how” and “why” behind God’s amazing grace. You’ll encounter racists, addicts, and even murderers who have found new hope and purpose. You’ll meet once-bitter people who have received God’s power to forgive those who have harmed them—and, equally amazing, people mired in guilt who have discovered that they can even forgive themselves.Through it all, you will be encouraged as you see how God’s grace can revolutionize your eternity and relationships… starting today.

    Author and Bible teacher Jennie Allen invites us into a different experience, one in which our souls overflow with contentment and joy. In Nothing to Prove she calls us to...* Find freedom from self-induced pressure by admitting we're not enough--but Jesus is. * Admit our greatest needs and watch them be filled by the only One who can meet them. * Make it our goal to know and love Jesus, then watch what He does in and through us.

    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.

    He is also a devoutly religious young man (“I am a Roman Catholic, baptized as an infant and raised in the faith, a faith which holds the exemplary and redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ at its core.” ) who fasts during Lent, leads his family in prayer every day, and wears a scapular—a medieval amulet said to protect the wearer from harm.In Lickona’s “true confessions,” we are introduced to a unique and singular voice, but one that is emblematic of a new generation of believers who combine a premodern faith with a postmodern sensibility. Swimming with Scapulars is a modern-day, Catholic, coming-of-age story that takes its author from the austere Catholicism of his Irish-French family in upstate New York to the exotic spiritual tapestry ofSouthern California. It is the story of the formation of an ardent young believer who is painfully honest about his spiritual shortcomings (“In times of suffering, I look first to myself. God is the backup, to be called upon when I find myself insufficient.”), yet who finds consuming joy in receiving the Eucharist and embracing “the ancient treasures of the faith.”Lickona doesn’t mind that many of his secular friends and acquaintances regard him as a religious fanatic. As he writes, “Perhaps, coming from a fanatic, the message of God’s love will regain some of its wonderful outrageousness. ‘Listen. I have a secret. I eat God, and I have his life in me. It’s the best thing in the world.’”

    He then describes the Church's developing self-awareness of its dual elements of the human and divine. Concerned with verifying the Church's claim to embody Christ, Giussani situates the locus of verification in human experience, arguing that a different type of life is born in those who try to live the life of the Church. Why the Church? is a seminal study that will engage both the scholar and the general reader.

    But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. Woods’s story goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you’ll learn: · Why modern science was born in the Catholic Church · How Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith · How the Catholic Church invented the university · Why what you know about the Galileo affair is wrong · How Western law grew out of Church canon law · How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is essential reading for recovering this lost truth.

    I expected to love the children who hung on my legs after Sunday morning services until they grew up and had children of their own. I even expected to be buried wearing the same red vestments in which I was ordained.Today those vestments are hanging in the sacristy of an Anglican church in Kenya, my church pension is frozen, and I am as likely to spend Sunday mornings with friendly Quakers, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists as I am with the Episcopalians who remain my closest kin. Some-times I even keep the Sabbath with a cup of steaming Assam tea on my front porch, watching towhees vie for the highest perch in the poplar tree while God watches me. These days I earn my living teaching school, not leading worship, and while I still dream of opening a small restaurant in Clarkesville or volunteering at an eye clinic in Nepal, there is no guarantee that I will not run off with the circus before I am through. This is not the life I planned, or the life I recommend to others. But it is the life that has turned out to be mine, and the central revelation in it for me -- that the call to serve God is first and last the call to be fully human -- seems important enough to witness to on paper. This book is my attempt to do that.After nine years serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta, Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia (population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life to country dweller is something of a shock -- Taylor is one of the only professional women in the community -- but small-town life offers many of its own unique joys. Taylor has five successful years that see significant growth in the church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep her faith she may have to leave.Taylor describes a rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that life is about both disappointment and hope -- and ultimately, renewal.

    As they pursued their dreams, they planted their lives in the city and in their church community. Their son, James, came along unexpectedly in the fall of 2007, and just 6 months later, everything changed in a moment for this young family.On April 21, 2008, as James slept in the other room, Katherine collapsed, suffering a massive brain stem stroke without warning. Miraculously, Jay came home in time and called for help. Katherine was immediately rushed into micro-brain surgery, though her chance of survival was slim. As the sun rose the next morning, the surgeon proclaimed that Katherine had survived the removal of part of her brain, though her future recovery was completely uncertain. Yet in that moment, there was a spark of hope. Through 40 days on life support in the ICU and nearly 2 years in full-time brain rehab, that spark of hope was fanned into flame.Defying every prognosis, with grit and grace, Katherine and Jay, side by side, struggled to regain a life for Katherine as she re-learned to talk and eat and walk. Returning home with a severely disabled body but a completely renewed purpose, they committed to celebrate this gift of a second chance by embracing life fully, even though that life looked very different than they could have ever imagined. In the midst of continuing hardships and struggles, both in body and mind, Katherine and Jay found what we all long to find...hope, hope that heals the most broken place, our souls.An excruciating yet beautiful road to recovery has led the Wolf family to their new normal, in which almost every moment of life is marked with the scars of that fateful April day in 2008. Now, eight years later, Katherine and Jay are stewarding their story of suffering, restoration, and Christ-centered hope in this broken world through their ministry Hope Heals.

    What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed--a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back.Colton, not yet four years old, told his parents he left his body during the surgery--and authenticated that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life, sharing events that happened even before he was born. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read.With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton tells of meeting long-departed family members. He describes Jesus, the angels, how "really, really big" God is, and how much God loves us. Retold by his father, but using Colton's uniquely simple words, "Heaven is for Real" offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, "Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses.""Heaven is for Real" will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering you the chance to see, and believe, like a child.

    F.X. Schouppe, S.J., (Purgatory—Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints), has written here a similar book on the subject of Hell. While the basic Catholic doctrines on Hell are reviewed, he mainly recounts numerous true stories that reinforce belief in Hell and the eternity of its horrors. The subject of Hell is frightening but the purpose of this work is not sensationalistic or to terrify, but rather to present lucidly to readers the reality of Hell and to instill in them a firm dread of the loss of Heaven.We trust that reading this short volume will motivate many in their faith, bring others back to God and help people truly desire Salvation.

    She wants help and healing. She wants to hear and be heard, to see and be seen. She wants things set right.   She wants to know what is true—not partly true, or sometimes true, or almost true. She wants to see Truth itself, face-to-face. But here, now, these things are all cloudy. Hope is tinged with hurt. Faith is shaded by doubt. Lesser, broken things masquerade as love.   How does she find something permanent when the world around her is always changing, when not even she can stay the same? And if she finds it, how does she hold on?    She Reads Truth tells the stories of two women who discovered, through very different lives and circumstances, that only God and His Word remain unchanged as the world around them shifted and slipped away. Infused with biblical application and Scripture, this book is not just about two characters in two stories, but about one Hero and one Story. Every image points to the bigger picture—that God and His Word are true. Not because of anything we do, but because of who He is. Not once, not occasionally, but right now and all the time.   Sometimes it takes everything moving to notice the thing that doesn’t move. Sometimes it takes telling two very different stories to notice how the Truth was exactly the same in both of them. For anyone searching for a solid foundation to cling to, She Reads Truth is a rich and honest Bible-filled journey to finally find permanent in a world that’s passing away.

    Among the many recent books about Angels, this has to be one of the very best, if not the very best yet. Definitely another Mrs. Cruz bestseller! Impr. 314 pgs 44 Illus, PB