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The Christian life is a grand journey. And like any pilgrimage along unfamiliar roads, we can benefit from having experienced guides and trustworthy companions along the way. Through their classic spiritual texts, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross offer valuable maps of tried paths along the way. At the same time, they were both experienced and sought-after spiritual companions for many others. Their timeless insights into the qualities that should mark a good spiritual director—learned, experienced, and discerning—are the fruit of their own prayer, reflection, and rich personal experience as guides and as people guided by others.
Savior on the Silver Screen examines nine movies about the life of Jesus - ranging from the traditional to the provocativeand explores how the image of Jesus in each reflects the time and culture in which the film was produced. The selections encompass silent, foreign, epic, and musical films. Both entertaining and insightful, Savior on the Silver Screen is structured for easy use in classroom, small group, and individual settings and includes rental information and practical tips for using the book. For each film there is an introduction, pre-viewing and post-viewing questions, and a discussion of its major features. -- Provided by publisher.
Living a morally good life today is a challenge. But we become fully and authentically human precisely by the decisions we make every day--some of them relatively simple, others complex and difficult. Once a choice is made, we still must claim the moral resolve and strength of character to implement it. Virtues are precisely the sustained habits that help us maneuver life's many choices and to become the good people that we want to be. St. Thomas Aquinas offers the classic Christian presentation of the four principal virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. But these are precisely cardinal or "hinge" virtues that provide the foundational framework for Aquinas's much broader pre...
What does it mean to live for God alone? “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ”; “My God and my all”; “God alone suffices”—these statements from the saints express the single desire that unified their hearts and gave direction to their lives. “God alone” was the constant theme of Saint Rafael Arnaiz (1911–1938), the expression of the search for God that informs any monastic vocation. Saint Rafael was profoundly and thoroughly a monk, even though ill health repeatedly forced him to leave the monastery, and he was never formally professed. With his single-hearted love for Christ and for the Blessed Virgin, he faithfully walked a path of trials and suffering that matured his faith, sharpened his longing, taught him to wait and to hope in God, and opened his heart to love. To Live for God Alone invites the reader into the compelling story of Rafael’s personal journey and into his penetrating insight into the cross and the Christian vocation.
St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross are among the greatest teachers of prayer in the Christian tradition. For nearly five centuries, their writings on the spiritual life have guided those seeking greater union with God. Beyond the written corpus of these saints, the lived experiences of these reformers of the Carmelite Order also draws fascination. Living in sixteenth-century Spain among kings, prelates, explorers, inquisitors, and reformers, these two saints were formed and sanctified by the context and circumstances of their historical time and place. In Context: Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Their World explores the social, cultural, intellectual, and religious theme...
A skilled moral theologian, Benedictine Father Mark O’Keefe leads God-seekers to focus attention on St. John of the Cross’s teaching in The Ascent of Mount Carmel: The essence of the spiritual journey is union with God through the practice of the virtues, especially faith, hope, and love. It‘s virtuous living that enables us to truly love God and be conformed to God in divine union. For St. John, religious “experiences” are not the essence of the spiritual journey at all, nor is asceticism for its own sake. John’s emphasis on the nada is to lead us to liberating emptiness -- authentic human freedom-- that equips us to be filled with the divine life. At the journey’s summit, we find the God who is Love. This book is an insightful companion to The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Ideal for personal and group study, Carmelite formation, college courses, and a must for every library.
The Way of Transformation is a play on the title of St. Teresa’s classic The Way of Perfection. Written for her Discalced Carmelite nuns, it is nonetheless considered Teresa’s “operations manual” for anyone genuinely committed to the spiritual life. But by “perfection” she doesn’t intend the futile pursuit of idealized flawlessness, as some might think. Rather, Teresa means achieving an authentic human fulfillment—a true becoming of that person we are meant to be. Offering a fresh perspective on St. Teresa’s thought, Father Mark O’Keefe draws our attention to the central fact that she considers the virtues—especially love of neighbor, detachment, and humility—as the e...
In Prisms of Faith, a diverse and distinguished group of scholars approach the theme of religious education and Catholic identity from their respective disciplinary perspectives, offering compelling insights of interest to scholars, catechists, and the general reader alike. The first three chapters are more historical in nature, offering targeted studies that focus on the Apostolic Fathers as a resource in the formation of faithful Catholics, the preaching of St. Augustine, and religious education in modern Poland. The last four chapters have a more contemporary focus, approaching current initiatives and challenges in the formation of faithful Catholics. Issues under consideration include th...
Too many Catholics tend to believe that morality is primarily about keeping laws and avoiding sin. 'Catholic Moral Tradition, Revised', shows how from the beginning, the Christian moral life is first and foremost about living our lives according to the new law of grace. The gift of the Holy Spirit, given us at baptism, is a dynamic inner principle that transforms us into a new creation in Christ. This book presents an introductory summary of contemporary Catholic moral teaching based upon the renewal mandated by the Second Vatican Council. It also incorporates subsequent Church documents, especially the moral encyclicals of John Paul II--'Veritatis Splendor' and 'Evangelium Vitae'--along with his three encyclicals on Catholic social doctrine and the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church'.