Religion Catholicism

Each of the four Gospels tells only part of the story of Jesus...and all of them leave out background facts that are essential to understanding events surrounding Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Which is why Fr. Ralph Gorman has here crafted a single, unforgettable, detailed account that combines material from all four Gospels with critically important Old Testament passages, plus relevant facts from Jewish and Roman history, laws, traditions, and practices.

What does the Bible really say about the birth of Jesus? How did the celebration of Christmas become associated with things like Santa Claus and decorated trees? In The True Meaning of Christmas: The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season, biblical scholar Michael Patrick Barber offers an inspiring look at the Bible's accounts of Jesus' birth and the development of the Christmas season. As Dr. Barber will show, to find our way "home" at Christmas, we need to first return to Christmas' home in the story of the Bible.

From National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer comes the gripping story of Pope Pius XI’s secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives, including reports from Mussolini’s spies inside the highest levels of the Church, will forever change our understanding of the Vatican’s role in the rise of Fascism in Europe.

See How She Loves Us is an amazing collection of approved apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ranging across 23 countries and two millennia, the visions chronicled here show Mary's deep love for mankind, her Son, and the Church. Joan Carroll Cruz has meticulously researched 50 apparitions of Our Lady. Perfect for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, See How She Loves Us sheds light on the many mysteries of the Catholic Church and Catholics love for the Blessed Mother.

1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply.

Women have been shamans since time immemorial, not only because women have innate intuitive gifts, but also because the female body is wired to more easily experience altered states, such as during the process of birth. Whether female or male, the altered states produced by psychedelics and ecstatic trance expand our minds to tap into and enhance our feminine states of consciousness as well as reconnect us to the web of life.

The Golden Arrow tells of both the life of Sister Mary of Saint Peter and her life's work: the devotion, granted to her by Jesus himself, to his Holy Face. Approved by Pope Leo XIII and promoted by St. Therese of Lisieux half a century later, the devotion to the Holy Face may be the single most important devotion of our time that still remains relatively unknown.

Aquinas at Prayer draws attention to important aspects of Aquinas's life and work which have been all too often overlooked or forgotten. Today Aquinas is almost exclusively regarded as an outstanding scholastic philosopher and theologian. But what is little known is that Aquinas was, first and last, a teacher of the Bible - a Master of the Sacred Page. Moreover there is a distinctly mystical character to his theology. And, as a writer, he was not only a poet but, arguably, the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages.

The Little Office of Our Lady, also known as the Hours of the Virgin, is a liturgical devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in imitation of, and usually in addition to, the Divine Office in the Roman Catholic Church. It is a cycle of psalms, hymns, scripture, and other readings that came into general use in the 10th century, and was so well received that eventually by the 14th century the Little Office was obligatory for all clergy. Although no longer an obligatory prayer book, it is still widely used by those who wish to draw closer to Christ and to the Virgin Mary.

Jesus: The Way, the Truth, and the Life by Marcellino D Ambrosio is a book of approximately 200 pages that stands alone but also accompanies the 10-week video study program presented by Catholic experts Marcellino D Ambrosio, Jeff Cavins, and Edward Sri. In this book, Catholics walk step by step with Jesus from his infancy to the Ascension. Anchored in the life of Christ as presented in the Gospels, it explores the entirety of Jesus life who he is, what he is really like, what he taught, what he did for our salvation, and what this means for us as Catholics today.

These notebooks belong to a category of mystical literature which the Catholic Church has long been familiar with: that of so-called "private revelations". A private revelation is not binding for the faith of Christians, but its value is to be measured by its capacity to instruct and inflame souls, spurring them to love God more and apply divine teachings to their everyday lives.

No word in our language is more misunderstood than the word “heart". And almost no word is more important, for it refers to what is at the very center of our soul. We have mapped the outer world, in fact the whole universe, with amazing exactness...but we have neglected the world within. This new book by venerable Catholic thinker Peter Kreeft offers a map of that inner world, of the self. In it, he takes up the mantle of Dietrich von Hildebrand and plumbs the depths of that most misunderstood (by the world) and overlooked (by philosophers and theologians) part of the human being.

Ce petit livre audio veut aborder un thème fondamental de l'existence chrétienne, celui de la liberté intérieure. Le but est simple : il me paraît essentiel que chaque chrétien découvre que, même dans les circonstances extérieures les plus défavorables, il dispose en lui-même d'un espace de liberté que personne ne peut lui ravir, car c'est Dieu qui en est la source et le garant. Sans cette découverte, nous serons toujours à l'étroit dans la vie et nous ne goûterons jamais un vrai bonheur.

The Most Holy Rosary is one of the greatest prayers in the history of the Church. Garnished as it is with the testimony of saints and popes for the last thousand years, the only greater prayers are the Mass and the Divine Office. It is a prayer for the people, to be said over and over, and yet many still seek ways to enter into the deeper mansions of spiritual richness to be found in this devotion. If you seek to reap the full harvest of this bountiful prayer, focus on the mysteries to better follow the life of our Lord through the eyes of Our Blessed Lady.

This two-volume work is not written to persuade Jews to convert to Christianity. It is written to persuade Christians of the inevitability and desirability of that conversion. It is written to persuade Catholics to pray properly for it. If we do, then in God’s time the conversion will happen, followed soon after by the awesome return of our lord Jesus Christ on clouds of glory. If we do not pray properly for the conversion of the Jews then we will have hell on earth until we do.

In his first Encyclical, Pope Benedict helps to clarify the meaning of love. He examines the nature of various kinds of love—human love and divine love, eros, friendship, and charity. He writes beautifully and inspirationally of how man was made for love by the God who is love, the God who became one of us out of love—Jesus Christ.

Originally published in 1951, this book covers the nature of God, the nature of man, the meaning of life; the nature of religion, the sources of Faith, the necessity of prayer, the duty of belief; the consequences of sin, the Commandments of God, the Holy Trinity, belief in Christ, the Redemption; the supremacy of the Pope, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Sacraments, the Mass, the priesthood, devotion to Mary and the Saints, what happens after death, the devotional life of a Catholic. Very interesting and very popular!

Christine Valters Paintner, best-selling Catholic author and online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, uses reflections, stories, guided activities, prayer experiences, and a variety of creative arts to help you patiently and attentively listen to God's invitation. Everyone wants to understand God's will for their lives. Christine Valters Paintner shares one of the most ancient paths to understanding from her study of monasticism and immersion into Celtic spirituality while living in Ireland.

Novena Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a powerful prayer devotion recited by Roman Catholics who wish to meditate on the passion of Christ and obtain great mercy and favors from him. This Catholic prayer guide promises great miracles to all who recites the novena to the precious blood of Jesus.

In My Sisters the Saints, author Colleen Carroll Campbell blends her personal narrative of spiritual seeking, trials, stumbles, and breakthroughs with the stories of six women saints who profoundly changed her life: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Edith Stein of Germany, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Mary of Nazareth. Drawing upon the rich writings and examples of these extraordinary women, the author reveals Christianity's liberating power for women and the relevance of the saints to the lives of contemporary Christians.