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"The arguments for monarchy are basically of three kinds: providentialist-monarchy has been the state form most used by the providence of God to further the Christianization of peoples; sacramental-monarchy permits the symbolic clothing of civil authority with the mantle of Christ the Servant-King, thus setting in a most desirable way the ethos of the state; pragmatic-monarchy transcends factions (no one has voted either for or against the king) as well as the ravages of time (the royal insti...

The exhilarating scope of the title - Words and the Word - may seem almost undercut by its sober subtitle: The Use of Literature as a Practical Aid to Preaching. But the value of this book lies in its very bi-polarity. On the one hand, here are practical ways of enhancing the word delivered from the 'mountain' of the pulpit (usually not so lofty these days); on the other, here are some of the great themes that pervade theology and life. This duality seems utterly right. And both aspects are i...

Saint Benedict is the incarnation of western monastic life. Abbot Xavier shows us the heart of Benedictine wisdom through the saint's life and that of the most distinguished members of his order. He presents the great insights of his Rule, full of realism and astonishingly contemporary. The treasures of praise, communion, fraternity and humility can be ours. This is an authoritative guide for those who wish, without leaving the world, to follow Christ in the spirit of Saint Benedict: 'Dare to...

The Carthusian's traditional doctrine on prayer - from its very beginnings to the simplicity of its highest forms. Far from being abstract and theoretical, we learn about the prayer process by sharing the novices' concrete spiritual journey. Their problems and difficulties, and the many pitfalls they encounter on the way, are expressed in an ongoing dialogue with their guide who relates to each one individually. Illuminating, even dazzling, insights, in one of the most profound books on Chris...

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadDon Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray--he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants--Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world togethe...

A young Roman soldier falls in love only to discover that his sweetheart belongs to a strange new cult--a group that meets in secret to worship their one and only god. The romance of Marcus Vinicius and Lygia unfolds amid the decadence of ancient Rome, where bloodthirsty crowds flock to gladiatorial contests and a mad emperor sets fire to his own city. With its captivating blend of fictional and real characters, this historical novel contrasts the worldly opulence of the Roman aristocracy wit...

Italy's greatest novel and a masterpiece of world literature, The Betrothed chronicles the unforgettable romance of Renzo and Lucia, who endure tyranny, war, famine, and plague to be together. Published in 1827 but set two centuries earlier, against the tumultuous backdrop of seventeenth-century Lombardy during the Thirty Years' War, The Betrothed is the story of two peasant lovers who want nothing more than to marry. Their region of northern Italy is under Spanish occupation, and when the vi...

The turbulent historical masterpiece of Norway's literary master A Penguin Classic In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tina Nunnally's award-winning definitive translation brin...

Like all this contemplative's writings, the collection of meditations gathered here was never intended as a book. They began life as short meditations, only written down because he found it helpful to commit his thoughts to paper while they were fresh in his mind. The sermons which follow, although delivered as such to the lay-brothers of the Grande Chartreuse, were really meditations made aloud. Those who assisted at these never forgot them, not so much for what they said but for what they r...

A popular myth put about by secularists is that between the Church and science, the relationship has been, and continues to be, a stormy one. Nothing could in fact be further from the truth. An analysis of historical data shows that modern science developed in the medieval period against a background of Christian faith in the creation. Pope Sylvester II was a brilliant mathematician whose discoveries led to the number system we use today. Pope Innocent III founded a hospital in Rome which was...

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I it was high treason, and therefore death, to be a Catholic priest in England. It was consequently vital that there be somewhere to hide when the pursuivants came battering at the door. One name is prominent in the construction of priest-holes ‒ that of Nicholas Owen. A very short and later crippled man, he built the majority of these shelters, so saving the lives of untold numbers of priests and fugitives. His early apprenticeship as a joiner and h...

MONASTIC TRADITION invites newcomers to grow in their search for God through prayerful reading of three books: the book of nature, the book of the Scriptures and the book of one's own life. In these meditative poems, Sr Laurentia draws on thirty years of monastic life to integrate the three 'books', creating harmonies which can resonate with the experience of people today. Beginning with Advent, the poems unfold through the seasons, natural and liturgical. Pivotal is the central sequence, 'Ca...

Carthusian spirituality and wisdom have a great attraction for our age. The goal of Carthusian life is union with God in Love. A union as profound and continual as is possible in this life. It has its source in God who is the first to call us to intimacy with Him. The Carthusian's life, the Carthusian's love, is a response to that Love - cultivating solitude, silence, poverty, chastity, obedience, fraternal charity, spiritual reading, study, work and, above all, prayer. Prayer of adoration, p...

The biblical primal history, Genesis 1-11, from the Fall in Paradise to the Tower of Babel, describes a dynamics of evil that seems to correspond to modern experience. Yet original sin is now a problematic notion for many - in the 'dogma' of modernity, nature and freedom are separated. Raymund Schwager explores how, if approached in an interdisciplinary way, and understood at the profound levels of human experience and thought that they represent, evolutionary theory and the doctrine of origi...

A collection of key texts from early Carthusian writing in the IIth and 12th Centuries. St Bruno: Letter to his Carthusian sons at the Chartreuse, The Letter to Raoul le Verd, Profession of Faith. Bl. Guigo, fifth prior of the Grande Chartreuse: Letter on the solitary life. Guigo II, ninth prior of the Grande Chartreuse: The scale of the cloister. Other books of classic Carthusian spirituality published by Gracewing include The Call of Silent Love, Interior Prayer, The Prayer of Love and Sile...

St Bruno was born in Cologne around 1030. He studied at the university in Rheims, where he later taught, and was Rector of Studies for nearly twenty years. Chosen in 1080 as the new Archbishop, Bruno had other plans ̶ he had decided to follow Christ to the desert ̶ and with six of his companions settled in a mountainous and uninhabited spot in the lower Alps, in a place named Chartreuse, under the guidance of the young bishop of Grenoble, Hugh Châteauneuf. They built an oratory with small ind...

Mystery of the Church presents a global picture of the main themes of current ecclesiology. First, it deals with the institution of the Church and her essential nature. Subsequently the four hallmarks of the Church are described. Her unity and holiness are guaranteed by the sanctity of Christ her Head despite the sinfulness of her members. The catholicity of the Church is also examined from the perspective of Eastern Christendom. The apostolicity of the Church leads to a description of the Pe...

The Prayer of Love and Silence issues a powerful invitation to respond to the love of Christ. The volume is centered on the need for prayer and teaches that prayer should be a continual response to Christ's call to make him the center of one's life.

The Psalmist wrote: "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). Coming from the deep silence and asceticism of mediæval Carthusian monasteries, this book's prayers and meditations have a unique ardour that reflects the genuine spirituality of their authors. The piety of these monks, strongly grounded in Sacred Scripture and the early Fathers of the Church, cannot fail to impress and to inspire. Like that of Jesus, Carthusian prayer, but also any authentic prayer, is anchored in interiority,...

Neither a theological study of our Redemption nor a devotional commentary of the Cross and Resurrection, but rather an introduction to the liturgical celebration of Holy Week and Easter, this book is written in the double conviction that the depth of meaning of the Paschal Mystery is seriously weakened if it is not given its full liturgical and sacramental expression, and that the Holy Week liturgy demands from all who participate in it a more profound awareness of its biblical background and...

St Philip Neri (1515-1595) is known as the Apostle of Rome and the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory. This translation of his maxims and sayings is the work of Fr Faber, first published in 1847. His Maxims emphasise the constant teaching of the masters of the spiritual life, going back to the Desert Fathers (themselves always the favourite reading of St Philip). Full of good sense, they present us with an essential spirituality, presented as easily accessible reflections for each mon...

THIS SHORT, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED BOOK serves as an introduction to Francis for all those who may be interested in the saint. His Canticle is an apt 'way in' to him, for as Chesterton pointed out nearly a century ago, it is 'a supremely characteristic work' and 'much of St Francis can be reconstructed from it alone'. This book will also be a useful resource for Franciscans, in particular for those in the Secular Franciscan Order, for possible use in formation and discussion. In the vast lit...

'A VIBRANT PROPHET OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD' is how Pope John Paul II described Elizabeth of the Trinity. In this compelling book, we enter deeply into her life and spirituality and see just how relevant Elizabeth's message is for those of us living in today's highly secularised society. Attractive, lively, ardent, talented, yet with her share of faults, Elizabeth shows that when we give ourselves to God, he builds on our nature and transforms us gradually into himself. She challenges us to fol...

BORN IN BILBAO, the largest city of the Spanish Basque Country, in 1907, Pedro Arrupe trained as a doctor, but after witnessing miraculous cures at Lourdes he decided to become a healer of souls instead: he joined the Society of Jesus in 1927.Sent to Japan, the outbreak of the Second World War saw him placed in solitary confinement and interrogated, suspected of being an American spy. He wrote: "I believe that this was the month that I learned the most in all my life." Father Arrupe was just ...

For more than fifteen hundred years Christianity has cultivated a rich and varied teaching on the practice of stillness and inner calm. Here we can find answers to the contemporary psychological struggle for inner peace.In a fresh and engaging reading of this contemplative path, Jean-Yves Leloup explores the writings of many spiritual masters from across the centuries, in particular the Desert Fathers, the fourth-century monk Evagrius, St John Cassian, and the anonymous nineteenth-century aut...

The thoughts contained in this book were from the pen of one who, in the silence of the Charterhouse, had already arrived at the summits of the spiritual heights, and dwelt there unceasingly. Souls who have reached such perfection in this life are rare; not so rare, however, are those who ardently aspire thereto. It is chiefly for such as these - to encourage and help them to arrive at those same heights - that these thoughts have been preserved and collected. They Speak by Silences was first...

THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS lie at the centre of Christian life and experience, for here God the Holy Trinity touches human lives and hearts. This book is one of the few at the present time to offer a global synthesis of the main themes in the sacramental mystery in which the human and divine, the material and the spiritual realms are intimately intertwined. Paul Haffner outlines how the sacraments are the chief means in the Church through which God's people are reconciled to the Father, through His...

The Art of God Incarnate proposes that visual art is a good way to think of how the incarnation--the central truth-claim of Christianity--can be said to reveal the divine. In the book of Genesis, the human being, fresh from the hands of the Creator, is the image of God in the temple of the world. In an environment of distorted images the prophets sought to make visible by symbolic gestures the divine attitude toward Israel, as well as looking forward to a new divine intervention to redeem his...

Drawing on Evangelical and Catholic exegetes, Church Fathers, and the ancient liturgies as well as later theological masters, Deep Mysteries shows how the events of the life of Jesus Christ have causal power to enter human existence now. History, metaphysics, and worshipful meditation are joined together herein.

Thomas Aquinas is one of the great figures in western thought, whose ideas continue to excert a powerful influence on theologians, contemporary writers and thinkers of very different backgrounds and traditions. This book is a lively and authoritative introduction to Aquinas, his life and thought and shows why many see him as a vital partner in contemporary debate about the future of Christianity.

What sacred images should surround the faithful at worship and be available to them for instruction, in meditation and in prayer? This historical study is driven by questions of catechetical, doctrinal and liturgical urgency. Aidan Nichols, one of the most respected and prolific Catholic writers of our time, has investigated the relation between Christianity and the visual arts in a number of books covering the history of Christian art from its beginnings through to the partial triumph of the...

This book explores the Liturgy as the manifestation by cultic signs of Christian revelation, the 'setting' of the Liturgy in terms of architectural space, iconography and music, and the poetic response which the revelation the Liturgy carries can produce. The conclusion offers a synthetic statement of the unity of religion, cosmology and art. Aidan Nichols makes the case for Christianity's capacity to inspire high culture - both in principle and through well-chosen historical examples which d...

This is the first comprehensive study of the theological significance of Paul Claudel, a poet frequently cited by literary-minded theologians in Europe and theologically-minded poets (such as von Balthasar, de Lubac and Eliot). His writing combines cosmology and history, Bible and metaphysics, liturgy and the drama of human personality. His work, which continues to arouse discussion in France, was acclaimed in his lifetime as the 'summa poetica' of a new Dante. Aidan Nichols' study demonstrat...

The author at the centre of this study, Russian priest-theologian Nikolai Nikolaevich Afanas'ev, was perhaps the most influential thinker about the Church Russia has produced. In Aidan Nichols's careful evaluation, he emerges as a key figure in the rapprochement of Christian East and West, and most notably of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Nichols illustrates how Afanas'ev has been influential in two key respects: first of all in his conviction that the Eucharist constitutes the foundati...

When in 1993 Aidan Nichols revived the long-dormant idea of an Anglican Uniate Church, united with the See of Peter but not absorbed, the reaction of many was incredulity. The ideal of modern Ecumenism was, surely, the corporate reunification of entire Communions. This he roundly declared to be unrealistic, for the Protestant and Liberal elements in Anglican history (and Anglicanism's present reality) could never be digested by Roman stomachs. What was feasible was, rather, the reconciliation...

The horror presented by the increasing institutionalisation of abortion in contemporary society poses some of the strongest moral and theological questions of our time. Moral reason convinces the Catholic Church of the intrinsic evil of abortion, but so too do the witness of the Scriptures and the divine revelation of redemption.The innocent suffering of children killed in the womb raises fundamental questions. Here are the reflections of a group of distinguished theologians who met at the Ab...

"You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely like Jerusalem." -- Song of SongsThe highly regarded spiritual writer and theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P. presents an overview of the Old Testament by showing what it is and its relationship to the New Testament. He explains that it is essential for one to be familiar with the Old Testament in order to understand properly, and in a deeper way, the richness and message of the New. In particular, Fr. Nichols shows how important it is to grasp tha...

An exemplary summary of the state of Catholic theology and what appears to be its future.This historical treatment of Catholic theology looks not to the content of that theology but rather to the form in which that content is contained and how ...Show MoreThis item is ReturnableAdditional Information BISAC Categories:- Religion | Christian Theology | General- Religion | Christianity | Catholic - GeneralLC Subjects:-Catholic Church -Doctrines-History -Theology, DoctrinalINGRAM Categories:- The...

Following his acclaimedThe Word Has Been Abroad: A Guide Through Balthasar's Aesthetics, No Bloodless Myth by Aidan Nichols summarizes and illuminates the five-volume series Theo-Drama, which develops the heart of Balthasar's ...Show MoreThis item is ReturnableAdditional Information BISAC Categories:- Religion | Christian Theology | General- Religion | PhilosophyLC Subjects:-Balthasar, Hans Urs von -Religion and dramaINGRAM Categories:- Religious Orientation | Catholic- Religious Orientation ...

A lively debate continues in the Roman Catholic Church about the character of the teaching provided by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Did it represent a decisive rupture with previous doctrine, or the continuation of its earlier message under new conditions? Much depends on whether the Council texts are read in the light of subsequent events, which shook and sometimes smashed the life, worship and devotion of traditional Catholicism - rather than considered for themselves, in their o...

Hans Urs von Balthasar is widely recognized as perhaps the greatest Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. No writer has better revealed the spiritual greatness of the revelation to which the art of the church and the historic liturgies bear witness. Yet students and nonspecialist readers often find Balthasar daunting and difficult. This volume is the ideal introduction to his work. It unlocks the treasure of his theology by focusing on the beautiful, the good, and the true. These are ...

Maximus the Confessor (580-662), giant among early Byzantine theologians, stands at the summit of the Greek patristic tradition. He is spokesman of the Greek-speaking ""East"" in something of the way Thomas Aquinas came to speak for the Latin ""West."" His extreme importance as a spiritual writer is evidenced by the huge space assigned to him in the Philokalia. Believing in the intimate link between dogma and prayer, Maximus opposed the heresies of his day with his own unmatched synthesis of ...

Aidan Nichols has been contributing to theological literature since the beginning of the 1980s.Now in his seventy-fifth year, he looks back not only at his writings but at the three-quarters of a century of life from which they came. He explains how, despite a nominally Anglican background, his early sense of the transcendent was really of God in nature. Only through an experience in the Russian church in Geneva did he become a confessing Christian.Back home, where he was left a teenage orpha...

The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the middle ages and renaissance. It describes the 'image' discarded by later years as 'the medieval synthesis ...Show MoreFormats:Binding/Format Priced FromPaperback More Paperback $19.99Audio More Audio $19.99View All FormatsThis item is ReturnableAdditional Information BISAC Categories:- Literary Criticism | Medieval- Literary Criticism | English, Iris...

St. Thomas More is widely recognized as the good-humored Renaissance humanist scholar who wrote Utopia and two decades later died a martyr's death in defense of papal primacy. Yet More's sacrifice of his life was but the culminating act of a lifelong dedication to his faith. This work seeks to provide a new portrait of Thomas More by engaging upon a comprehensive exploration of More's books and letters, a veritable library of Catholic spirituality and Church doctrine.All of More's spiritual w...

The inspiration for the film starring Anthony Hopkins, journalist Matt Baglio uses the astonishing story of one American priest's training as an exorcist to reveal that the phenomena of possession, demons, the Devil, and exorcism are not merely a remnant of the archaic past, but remain a fearsome power in many people's lives even today.Father Gary Thomas was working as a parish priest in California when he was asked by his bishop to travel to Rome for training in the rite of exorcism. Though ...

In Volume Two of Poe's masterpieces, journey deeper into the enigmatic realms of his mind. Unearth the psychological complexity of The Fall ofthe House of Usher and the eerie allure of The Masque of the Red Death. Each story and poem unveils Poe's unparalleled talent for captivating storytelling and haunting imagery.