Books General

"The Book of Catholic Customs and Traditions" explores a wealth of customs and traditions celebrated by Catholic families all over the world, including every liturgical season; Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time...

Discerning Disciples Listening for God's Voice in Christian Initiatiion Author Donna Steffen. This volume is an invaluable reference for sponsors and other guides who journey with RCIA candidates. It describes the decision-making process and how people have experienced it...

HeartPeace is written with great compassion…While Dick Gilbert shares the national bereavement circuit of lectures and training with a host of national figures, he shares more than just the facts and figures about ‘grief talk.’ He is a modern day disciple of the healing process; he is a believer that there is more power in that which lifts up than anything that could weigh us down. - Dr. Patrick Del Zoppo, clinical thanatologist and national leader in bereavement ministry HeartPeace is like having an open-ended discussion with a compassionate and brilliant clergyperson where we reap a harvest of redemptive insight, solace, and inspiration. What a pilgrimage from suffering to hop and healing! - Earl Grollman, rabbi and author of living When a Loved One Has Died Whether you’re mad at God or not, this gentle book will give you a new perspective on the peace that can soften the pain of grief. A gracious clarification of the difference between “religion” ..

These 30 services offer ministers to the sick, both professional and volunteer, a convenient and simple way to celebrate prayer and ritual experiences for residents in nursing homes and assisted care facilities and for elderly hospital patients. They can be used with two or three people or with thirty, depending on the situation in each facility. Services include prayers, hymns and songs, sung responses, petitions, litanies, scripture readings, and a great variety of ritual responses, including blessings with water and oil, the blessing of throats, and praying the rosary. Service titles include: Festival of Lights; Psalm Prayers for the weeks of Lent; Come, Spirit, Come; New Year’s Day; Feast of St. Blaise; Blessing of St. Joseph’s Table, and memorial Service. Clear directions and materials needed are included with every service. ..

Linda Schubert is a former member of the pastoral advisory board of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese of San Jose, California, actively involved in writing, workshops and prayer ministry...

The extraordinary story of how,among the Masai in Tanzania, an American missioner "rediscovers" the gospel message. Dear Bishop,...Suddenley I feel the urgent need to cast aside all theoories and discussions, all efforts at strategy and simply go to these people and do the work among them for whcich I came to Africa...... just go and talk to them about God and the Christian message. Outside of this, I have no theory, or plan, no strategy, no gimmick, no idea of what will come...I feel rather naked. I will begin as soon as possible.. Vincent Donovan, a Spiritan priest, spent seventeen years in Tanzania before returning to ministry in the United States. He died in 2000..

Loss can take many forms: a missing assignment, the loss of a friend, an accident, and the loss of a parent. One of the most difficult and delicate things a cate-chist has to do is be present to a teen during times of loss... ..

Marriage failure, divorce and remarriage have become ingrained features of western society and affect every person and every marriage. Andrew Cornes draws upon his profound Bible knowledge and wide pastoral experience to tackle 99 Questions About Divorce & Remarriage. They include: -When can it be right for a Christian to separate? -Does God permit me to remarry? -How does God view my second marriage? -How can I learn to forgive? Christ can support marriages that have almost collapsed. He can forge a new fulfilling life for the person devastated by separation and divorce, and can bring positive hope where there seemed only anger and contempt. This book is a popular version of the author’s Divorce and Remarriage, which received wide praise: ‘Indispensable reading for everybody who is anxious to develop a Christian mind on these topics. It is thorough, clear, faithful, realistic and passionate.’ - REV. DR JOHN STOTT ‘The hard questions and difficult cases are not dodged and Scripture i..

Decisions, decisions - we have to make hundreds of them every day! And, as the range of choices we make increases, so too does the accompanying stress... This handy book seeks to make the process more fruitful, more focused and less stressful. It uses a few simple tools that combine the wisdom of ancient spiritual traditions with the common sense of the 21st century and looks at questions such as: * How do we decide what choices to focus on? * How do we learn to be true to ourselves? * How do we implement our choices? * Can we change course if we get things wrong? Through offering suggestions - not rules - and short, accessible chunks of text, Margaret Silf encourages us to trust our own hearts and minds...

What is prayer? Why do we do it - or wish we could do it? How do we begin to turn the deepest stirrings inside us into the words and the silences of prayer? When we pray, who are we praying to? Where should we pray? Is prayer just as effective and real on the bus or at work as it is in church? Is prayer for the bad days as well as the good days? These are just some of the questions Margaret Silf explores in this handy book. Written in short chunks of text for the reader to dip in and out of, this book encourages the reader to begin to find their own answers to these questions. Publishing at the same time as On Making Choices by the same author...

Everyone feels upset when someone dies, especially when children are left behind. Yet, despite concern and sympathy, it can be hard to know what to say to the children. This book helps us to take a child’s eye view. It explains how the child’s understanding of death develops and gives practical advice on helping both grieving children and children who are themselves dying. Janet Goodall writes from many years’ experience as a consultant paediatrician. She illustrates the development of the child’s spiritual understanding with moving incidents from her work with families of terminally ill children. ..

Real People, Real Presence: Ordinary Catholics on the Extraordinary Power of the Eucharist ..

Nicholas Reid's biography gives a full account of Liston's work within the New Zealand church and his huge contribution to its development...

"This book is a fine tapestry weaving in and out, and illuminating a way through the great sadness that comes with the death of a child. The words take you gently by the hand, through the poems of growing up, parting and grieving. The stories reveal, with love, how things are when someone very near and very dear, dies." Kathleen Gallagher - Poet and Playwright...

This is a revised and updated edition of a pastoral classic. When an inactive Catholic seeks the sacraments there are many delicate and complex issues involved, each charged with emotional intensity. The Marginal Catholic summarizes official Church directives and provides practical, pastoral suggestions for resolving the concerns of all involved...

Heartfelt, incisive, and timeless, The Confessions of Saint Augustine has captivated readers for more than fifteen hundred years. Retelling the story of his long struggle with faith and ultimate conversion -- the first such spiritual memoir ever recorded -- Saint Augustine traces a story of sin, regret, and redemption that is both deeply personal and, at the same time, universal. Starting with his early life, education, and youthful indiscretions, and following his ascent to influence as a teacher of rhetoric in Hippo, Rome, and Milan, Augustine is brutally honest about his proud and amibitious youth. In time, his early loves grow cold and the luster of wordly success fades, leaving him filled with a sense of inner absence, until a movement toward Christian faith takes hold, eventually leading to conversion and the flourishing of a new life. Philosophically and theologically brilliant, sincere in its feeling, and both grounded in history and strikingly contemporary in its resonance, Th..