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We are living in an era whose atmosphere is saturated with the flames of hatred. It is an age of violence whose tempo of disruption is so rapidly escalating that there is scarcely a city anywhere in the world where humans can be assured of normal, physical security.Nietzsche is the prophet who foresaw and foretold the coming of the beast of violence. Indeed, he proclaimed its greatest commandment whose faithful practice would create a society of savages. "The time has come," he wrote, "to opp...

Letters to the Duchess of Orléans and Meditations on Christian Life The present volume presents a wide selection of letters glowing with affection that Mectilde addressed to Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess of Orléans (1615-1672).

Identity, Technocracy, and the Church Identity politics and novel identities are everywhere today. The Decomposition of Man takes on these issues in a new and illuminating way. The social crisis we are facing involves weakening traditional identities-man, woman, husband, wife, Catholic, American-and asserting constructed ones like "Latinx" and "nonbinary." This is liberating, we are told. In reality, however, as the familial, religious, and communal arrangements by which people have hitherto ...

One of the most coldly calculated acts of Henry VIII during the Reformation was the dissolution of the monasteries. Monks and nuns were driven from their cloisters; the abbeys were plundered and turned over to greedy courtiers. From these ignoble proceedings came Robert Hugh Benson's inspiration for this great historical novel, the story of a house divided against itself. The Torridon brothers are sworn to serve different masters; one is a monk, in love with the Mass and the Faith of Ages, t...

The fates of two young people caught in a conflict of ideals is the theme of this stirring and tragic novel, set in the England of Elizabeth I. At a time when following the Old Religion resulted in penalties stretching from heavy fines to imprisonment and death, Puritan-bred Anthony and Isabel Norris find themselves drawn to the Church of their forefathers. Underlying their struggles and conflicts with Protestant England is the strength and vitality of Catholic Church supporting and drawing t...

The Eddan Collective is a campus novel, a prophecy of the university in the near future, and a reflection on intellectual pride. In the year 2016, one Annika Trent, scholar of the late Roman Empire, founds the Eddan Collective, a group of Marxist faculty planning for the imminent collapse of American society. Annika's memoir details her struggles with her Eddan collaborators, her chronic illness, and her ability to "send herself away" to fifth-century North Africa, where she converses with St...

Renowned preacher Msgr. Ronald Knox explores the profound beauty and significance of marriage in this collection of twenty-four insightful wedding sermons. Each sermon delves into the spiritual and emotional dimensions of love, commitment, and the enduring bond between husband and wife. With Knox's characteristic wit and wisdom, "Bridegroom and Bride" offers timeless reflections on the sacrament of marriage, making it an ideal gift for engaged couples, newlyweds, and anyone seeking a deeper u...

For centuries, the Catholic Church served the cultural role of the principal patron of the arts. It is a historical fact that many of the world's most admired and treasured artistic masterworks are Christian in theme, origin, and location. There has never been a time in history when artists have not found inspiration and flourishing in the Catholic tradition. From the rustic art of the ancient Christian catacombs to majestic Byzantine basilicas, from the soaring Gothic cathedrals of the Middl...

"Even to me, Protestant as I am, it did seem completely suitable that an event so stupendous could scarcely be approached by any other process than that of a sacred dramatic dance, with an accompaniment of rigid and minute Court etiquette. To leave the conduct of such a thing to the individual personality and the private taste of a simple clergyman in a surplice, would be nothing else than bathos of the worst description; human outlines must be obliterated by some overpowering uniform, person...

Confessions of a Convert is Robert Hugh Benson's autobiographical account of his journey from an Anglican brought up in "the moderate High Church school of thought" to a Catholic priest living under "the sunlight of Eternal Truth." Benson was raised as a faithful, yet unreflective member of the Anglican communion, whose childhood was dominated by his father's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, unquestioning commitment to doctrine. Theology was merely the family business, and hints at a more per...

A Volume of Religious Essays Do you question the Church's possession of the Truth? So did Pilate. Do you think Her too worldly? Consider Christ enthroned as King. Does it seem as though She is hopelessly outdated, doomed to pass away? Remember that Christ was crucified and then He rose again! This book is a source of hope for faithful Catholics, a scourge for detractors, an exegetical work of art. In these essays, Robert Hugh Benson counters some of the strongest attacks that have been levied...

This book invites the reader into a cloister of poems, there to look with eyes of faith through the arches of rhythm and rhyme onto the wide vistas, terrible chasms, and hazy mountains of Mystery, Beauty, and Love. Written by monks of Silverstream Priory, some poems let memory and imagination search the corners of the earth, there to glean the sorrows, hopes, and joys of men, and so present them to the Father. Others draw from the deep wells of tradition, with verse translations of ancient La...

What does it mean to live as a child of God? In this book, Fr. Piotr Rostworowski offers timeless advice and spiritual counsel to a nun under his direction, aimed at helping her live a life of perfect unity with God. In simple, loving, honest language, this holy father sets out clear guidance and practical methods for how to attain perfection. Likewise, the universality of the issues with which Fr. Rostworowski deals, issues ranging from how to overcome one's own will in temptation to recogni...

Nine Tasks for Every Catholic Revitalizing Catholicism in America provides nine practical action items every faithful Catholic can undertake - nine steps which form the building blocks of a renewed Catholic subculture. No matter what your specific gift or walk of life, you have a role to play in revitalizing Catholicism in America. This book will show you how.

Recovering the Christian Mystery of Personhood The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self is a collection of stories, fictional and factual, highlighting two themes: the autonomous self, now in a profound crisis; and the person, whose Christian sources and contours have too long been overlooked. The ongoing cultural and confessional evisceration of Christianity all too graphically proves the validity of Christ's warning: "Apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). For these words were addressed t...

Make Better Decisions with the Desert Fathers Father Augustine Wetta reaches back into monastic history to answer one of the most critical questions facing young people today: "How do I make up my mind?" With his characteristic wit and novel approach to classical art, Father Augustine looks to the wisdom of the Desert Fathers to unearth an ancient and highly efficient method for resolving life's most pressing dilemmas--even in the midst of distractions, temptations, and disruptions. Profoundl...

A young man...a painter. Having converted, he tries his vocation as a monk, but decides that monastic life is not for him. Thrown back on his own resources, he quickly becomes enmeshed in difficulties-not least, when he discovers an unusually sympathetic ear in a young married woman-and he struggles to find a place in the contemporary Church. Throughout his searching, he turns to the Benedictine Dom Hubert for counsel, wondering what to do with his feelings. Dom Hubert, also an artist, offers...

Sermons & Meditations on Seeking Christ & His Mother Born in the silence and simplicity of rural New-England, this book gathers some brief reflections and sermons of a parish Priest. The sermons fix their attention upon the Mother of God, and the author's approach is essentially liturgical. Side-stepping the language of apologetics and controversy, he studies the texts of the Roman liturgy and shares what he finds there. The meditations-concentrated and pithy-consider, beneath the lig...

A Presentation for Beginners "If personal holiness is thought of as being a name at the top of a list it is understood wrong. If it is thought of as something which merits a feast in the Church's calendar it is understood wrong....There is nothing 'superior, ' in the sense of being one up on everybody else, about it. The way to think of sanctity is as something which, by being generous and faithful to grace, gives back to God the love which he has given to the soul." While the glamorous and s...

"The end of penance is God, not more penances. Thus the approach to penance has to be by way of love, not by way of steeling the will to toughness. Penance must have its roots in charity, not austerity." With characteristic Benedictine discretion, Van Zeller here sets straight common misapprehensions of penance, steering the reader past the Scylla of extremism on the one hand and the Charybdis of avoiding this essential virtue of the Christian life on the other hand. "Take up your cross and f...

Priest of the Eucharist From a young age, (now St) Pierre-Julien Eymard wanted nothing more than to be a priest. Once ordained, young Fr Eymard quickly developed a deep devotion to his Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Consumed by his great love, Fr Eymard devoted his life to increasing devotion to Jesus in all tabernacles. In this biography of the "Priest of the Eucharist", Fr Tesnière, a novice trained by St Pierre-Julien, showcases the prayerful devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament that charac...

"These pages do not pretend to furnish theologians and doctors with a new Mariology. My aim is much more modest; I am trying to reach many small souls, for whom a few rays of Holy Mary's beauty will suffice; that they may endlessly admire and better pronounce her name-after the Name of Jesus, the most beautiful of names." Dom Eugene Vandeur's Hail Mary is not another scholarly exegesis on each part of that ancient prayer; it is a poetic, passionate, expressive, rhythmic hymn of praise. In the...

"If my correspondence is anything to go by," writes Benedictine artist and author Dom Hubert Van Zeller, "the problem which men and women living in the world most want to discuss is that of how to handle the affections." The fruit of Dom Hubert's experience as a spiritual director, these 42 short reflections are culled from his correspondence, and engage with questions surrounding the cultural upheaval which followed World War II, the first stages of the sexual revolution, and the modern worl...

An Historical, Liturgical and Devotional Explanation of the Mass according to the Roman Missal "In a word, the service of God is meant to be beautiful, because a true instinct of man makes him realize, even when he is in a state of retrogression and barbarism, that all that is best and noblest must be made subservient to the worship of the Lord and Creator of all." Dom Ernest Graf begins his work The Priest at the Altar with this declaration that beauty is the fundamental form of the Liturgy....

How to Remember and Treasure its Rites In Memorize the Latin Mass! Dr. Kevin Vost harnesses the powerful memory methods of Sts. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas to help readers learn and remember all the parts and rites of the Traditional Latin Mass as they delve deep into the meaning and history of each one of them, gleaned from the wisdom of the Church and her saints. Crafted to supplement a Missal and to stimulate further reading, this book is a primer for readers, their children, grand...

Dom Germain Morin's classic study of the monastic life shows its foundations in the life of the first generation of Christians as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Drawing from his baptismal consecration, the monk does nothing more than live his Baptism to the full and draw from it the ultimate conclusions. This book makes it clear that, far from being a medieval invention, monastic life is grounded in the teaching of the apostles, and as such, is valid for every generation of Christians.

Christ desires to be our Friend. But how can we respond? Taking up themes from great mystical writers, Benson gives a prophetic corrective for those in the Church who mistake "Christ's gifts for Christ, religiosity for religion, and the joys possible on earth for the joys awaiting us in heaven." Benson steers the soul away from temptations to despair and from presumption upon Christ's friendship, pointing to the consoling truth: "I am in all things His debtor, but He bids me call Him Friend....

On re-reading this book, Dom Hubert confessed "to being surprised at the tone of attack which runs through a lot of it." But he continues, "I would like to say in this connexion that any blows which are met with in these pages are primarily aimed at myself. All the more combative passages were occasioned by my saying to myself: 'This won't do-it's a misconception (or a mood or a willy) and must be exploded at once.' Then I have sat down and written my piece." Such a candid effort on the autho...

Spiritual Conferences on the Monastic and Religious Life "Every vocation, even the simple Christian vocation, comes from God. Our Lord Himself says 'No man can come to Me, except the Father draw him.' But it is God's love for us-and as we are born miserable, it is His merciful love-which is the origin of this call." A work which goes to the heart of the Rule of St Benedict, this classic of the Irish Benedictine Blessed Columba Marmion has fed generations of God-seeking souls. Capable of touch...

"Prayer must necessarily involve a discipline, but it need not involve a system...In our prayer we must return to the primary purpose of what we are trying to do: we are trying to bring worship to God. The greatest act of worship that man can give to God is to refer back to him what God has already given. Man has nothing of his own to offer, nothing that has not been lent by God." Almost everyone who has believed in God has wondered how to pray to him. But in the same way that no two relation...

Dom Columba Marmion's classic work Christ the Life of the Soul aims at showing forth "the fundamental character of the Christian life, according to the Gospel, the Epistles of St Paul, and the conclusions of theological teaching." Marmion wanted to emphasize that the "Christian life is essentially supernatural, and can only be found in Christ," who is both the model and cause of all holiness. Christ in His Mysteries continues this teaching, demonstrating that Christ's life is manifested to us...

A History of Catholicism in the Thirteen Colonies In this comprehensive history, Fr. Charles Connor details the life of Catholics in the American Colonies. It's a tale that begins with the flight of English Catholics to religious freedom in Maryland in 1634, and continues through the post-Revolutionary period, by which time the constitutions of all but four of the first 13 states contained harsh anti-Catholic provisions. Catholic readers will be proud to learn from that despite almost two cen...

New Nations and a Transatlantic Discourse of Empire Why is the capital of the United States named in part after Christopher Columbus, a Genoese explorer commissioned by Spain who never set foot on what would become the nation's mainland? Why did Spanish American nationalists in 1819 name a new independent republic "Colombia," after Columbus, the first representative of the empire from which they had recently broken free? These are only two of the introductory questions explored in The Lega...

Writing of his real-life pilgrimage on the Camino, Nick Maione offers sharp-eyed detail and characterization, incisive poetic image, humor, and wisdom.

Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life After Death Today, there is more science-based evidence for God, the soul, and life after death than ever before. Then why are scores of people turning to unbelief because of "science"? The answer is simple: they do not know the science. Science at the Doorstep to God presents in depth the latest evidence to turn the rising tide of unbelief. Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., synthesizes eight recent studies confirming an intelligent creator ...

An award-winning historian's examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era--tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft--even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by i...

A bohemian artist obsessed with a lonely woodland pond haunted by preternatural entities... an old man and his grandson who maintain their strong connection after the former's death... a revenant summoned for vengeance through a carefully guarded secret "conjuring song"... a priest mysteriously called upon to rescue the soul of a woman guilty of a decades-old brutal murder... These are just some of the stories told in this chilling collection. All the tales are set in the early 1960s, in the ...

City of God, cities of men "If God is one, the worlds are many." Meta-Politics: City of God, cities of men explores the philosophical and spiritual basis for political representation and pluralism. Drawing on ancient as well as modern sources, it traces how universal functions have been understood to be "indexed" to particular persons and institutions, and why universals must manifest in a plurality of forms. It argues that, ultimately, the idea of absolute transcendent oneness is the necessa...

Excerpt from the Introduction: Father Valuy's work gives the religious practical means of achieving detachment from their own wills in order to practice the type of charity Our Lord demands of them. He strikes at the heart of that duplicity of spirit which can so easily put on the semblance of piety but which in reality is hypocritical in its dealings with other men. Fr. Valuy asks: "Am I one of those proud spirits who expose the faults of others in order to show off their pretended virtues?"...

Short Sermons For the Sundays of the Year on Texts from the Epistles This book consists of a series of short sermons based on the epistles throughout the Liturgical Year. Originally published in 1927, it was written by Fr. Michael Andrew Chapman, a former Episcopalian minister. Newly typeset, with new cover art, and featuring a foreword by Fr. John Hunwicke (priest of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham). Here is an excerpt from his foreword: Because the Bible is the Church's book, the ...

This is the second edition of Dom Hubert van Zeller's short commentary on the Hail Mary which was part of his "In Other Words" series. Originally published in 1963, it has long been out of print. Permission has been granted by Downside Abbey Trustees to republish this wonderful work.

Essays on the Beatitudes and The Gifts of the Holy GhostThe Collected Works of Carol Jackson Robinson, Volume 2 This book is the second in Carol Robinson's Collected Works series. Her penetrating and original analysis of the modern world shows the fruit of a mind absorbed in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas— her life-long companion. We hope that these essays will help Catholics understand how the Faith has importance for the totality of their lives which must not be hidden away from the publ...