Congregations & Orders Books - Page 5

Butler's Lives of the Saints: December (Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Consider another book. 2 out of 5 stars.
14 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Butler's Lives of the Saints: New Concise Ed., edited by Paul Burns, ISBN 0-8146-2903-2, Copyright 2003

Consider another book. Despite "Butler's" being in the title, it seems to bear no relation to the Butler's Lives of the Saints published in the 1950s and 1800s.

Defects:
1. There is no index or alphabetical list of saints. If you want to look up a saint by name, you have to scan the list of 366 saints in the table of contents, which is six pages long. An index would have provided quick access.

2. Saints are not listed under their actual commemoration day. Why? Because the saints did not "die on conveniently spaced dates" (page xi). Nothing in the description of the saint alerts you to the date being wrong. To determine the correct day, you have to closely read a paragraph at the beginning of the month.

3. The book does not bear an imprimatur from a bishop or "nihil obstat" showing that it's free from error. To illustrate why this is a problem, one-third of the entry for St. Maria Goretti is not about her; it's a critique of her sainthood and of the Church. Example: in "feminist circles ... Maria has been seen more as a martyr to patriarchal society" (p. 310).

Editorial Review:

For more than two centuries, Butler's Lives of the Saints has been hailed as the authority on the Christian patron saints. Now, in this new edition of the original classic, Michael Walsh has culled the ruch resources of earlier editions to accentuate the more modern and best-documented saints. Echoing the charm and style of the eighteenth-century edition, Walsh's volume has been edited to make the fascinating and inspiring lives of the saints easily accessible to readers today. This edition features saints from many nations and backgrounds and includes new articles on recently canonized saints. The index offers the list of saints from the complete edition, and includes all new canonizations and new dates, making it eh most up-to-date listing of saints available. Butlter's Lives of the Saints remains a remarkable reference source and, through its comprehensive biographies, a valuable aid to devotion and a rich source of historical information.

The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church

Malachi Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

forget what you think you know 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

All of my life I've heard things about Malachai Martin. To hear my elders tell it he was either a mad man or a prophet. One day I decided to ignore all that and read the man's book and let him "speak" to me himself. First, I have to say that Martin was a talented and eloquent writer. He also must have possessed a sense of humour and was an enormously clever man. In the Jesuits he explains how the remarkable order went from being a dream in Ignatius's brilliant head to the mess it is today.

It's a sobering portrait and whether you believe that the Jesuits should be supressed again or that there really is hope for reform this book will chill you. For those who complain that JPII didn't do enough to discipline, The Jesuits shows that he was up against some very hard nuts. I don't know if I'll read any more of Martin's books and I have not made up my mind about Malachai Martin, the man or the priest but this is a very good book. Put aside what you think you know and give this book a chance.

Editorial Review:

In The Jesuits, Malachi Martin reveals for the first time the harrowing behind-the-scenes story of the "new" worldwide Society of Jesus. The leaders and the dupes; the blood and the pathos; the politics, the betrayals and the humiliations; the unheard-of alliances and compromises. The Jesuits tells a true story of today that is already changing the face of all our tomorrows.

A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Interest in the ways of the early church has never been more intense. What did early Christians believe about the divinity of Christ? What were the beliefs of those who sat at the feet of Jesus’ disciples? Now, for the first time, a unique dictionary has been developed to allow easy access to the ancient material and furnish ready answers to these questions and others like them. David W. Bercot has painstakingly combed the writings of these early church leaders and categorized the heart of their thinking into more than 700 theological, moral, and historical topics to create A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. Wonderfully suited for devotional or thematic study as well as sermon illustration, this resource offers a window into the world of the early church and affords a special opportunity to examine topically the thoughts of students of the original apostles, as well as other great lights in the life of the early church.

• Collects relevant comments on key Christian concepts from prominent figures such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Rome, and Hippolytus.
• Includes key biblical verses associated with a given topic.
• Offers brief definitions of unfamiliar terms or concepts, allowing easy access to the ancient material.
• Provides a "Who's Who" of ante-Nicene Christianity to put in context the ancient Christian writers.
• Discusses more than 700 key theological, moral, and historical topics.
• Gives strategic cross-reverences to related topics.
• Functions as a topical index to the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

Padre Pio: A Man of Hope

Renzo Allegri

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Absolutely Amazing! 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Padre Pio is a modern day saint. With the exception of Mother Teresa, no other person in the religious life has commanded so much respect in recent times. Rather than focusing on the controversies, Renzo Allegri focus on the man in Padre Pio: Man of Hope. It is truly an inspiring read.

Padre Pio is the most recent man to bear the stigmata or wounds of Jesus Christ. The mystery of the stigmata alone makes Padre Pio's life compelling. Padre Pio lived the life of a monk in Italy. Even in his youth, Padre Pio experienced visions which made his relationship with God different. With the stigmata came the pain the that he suffered in his unique relationship with the Lord. The pain of this burden was also a blessing. His relationship with God allowed him to perform miracles and healings that are documented in the book for skeptics. To witnesses and believers, this is testimony to the power of God.

This is truly an amazing story. I would hope believers and non-believers alike are inspired by this book in the same way I was. Knowing of this amazing man, I will think of him in my prayers and works. I will hope Padre Pio would guide me in my work.

St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography

Philip Freeman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Ireland's patron saint has long been shrouded in legend: he drove the snakes out of Ireland; he triumphed over Druids and their supernatural powers; he used a shamrock to explain the Christian mystery of the Trinity. But his true story is more fascinating than the myths. We have no surviving image of Patrick, but we do have two remarkable letters that he wrote about himself and his beliefs -- letters that tell us more about the heart and soul of this man than we know about almost any of his contemporaries. In St. Patrick of Ireland Philip Freeman brings the historic Patrick and his world vividly to life.

Born in Britain late in the fourth century to an aristocratic family, Patrick was raised as a Roman citizen and a nominal Christian, destined for the privileged life of the nobility. But just before his sixteenth birthday, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and abducted to Ireland, where he spent six lonely years as a slave, tending sheep. Trapped in a foreign land, despondent, and at the mercy of his master, Patrick's ordeal turned him from an atheist to a true believer. After a vision in which God told him he would go home, Patrick escaped captivity and, following a perilous journey, returned to his astonished parents. Even more astonishing was his announcement that he intended to go back to Ireland and devote the rest of his life to ministering to the people who had once enslaved him.

One of Patrick's two surviving letters is a declaration written to jealous British bishops in defense of his activities in Ireland; the other is a stinging condemnation of a ruthless warlord who attacked and killed some of Patrick's Irish followers. Both are powerful statements remarkable for their passion and candor. Freeman includes them in full in new translations of his own.

Combining Patrick's own heartfelt account of his life as he revealed it himself with the turbulent history of the British Isles in the last years of the Roman Empire, St. Patrick of Ireland brilliantly brings to life the real Patrick, shorn of legend, and shows how he helped to change Irish history and culture.

THE WISDOM OF THE DESERT (Shambhala Pocket Classics)

Thomas Merton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Wisdom for all 4 out of 5 stars.
22 of 23 people found this review helpful.

No, this is not a book for a `Survivor' wannabe, nor is it a guide for those who dream of crossing the great deserts of the world. But it is a guide of sorts, or more a companion for our pathways in life. This is a new reprinting of a collection of sayings from the desert fathers and mothers of the fourth century.

You might ask, "Who are the desert fathers and mothers, and what written in the fourth century could be of any use to us today?" and they would both be good questions. The desert fathers were people who felt Christianity was losing its way, so they decided to return to a simpler life and went to the desert to seek solitude and god. However to some extent their plan failed; soon people realized these men and women had wisdom and guidance if one could ask them. So some of them developed great followings.

This collection is unique among those I have seen. in that it does not sort the sayings by author, or by subject, but rather it is a random smattering that the reader can meander through in order, or randomly flip open and read whichever one they come across. Merton in his introduction states, "This collection of sayings from the Verba Seniorum is by no means intended as a piece of research scholarship--this book is designed entirely for the reader's interest and edification." I believe it lives up to that goal.

At just under 200 pages, this book is short and sweet. Some of the more obscure sayings have been omitted and what is left is a collection of thoughts, meditations and reflections that can help us examine our lives. A few examples of the wisdom are:

"XLVI
Abbot Pastor said: `If you have a chest full of clothing, and leave it for a long time, the clothing will rot inside it. It is the same with the thoughts in our heart. If we do not carry them out by physical action, after a long while they will spoil and turn bad'."

And

"XLVII
He said, again: `Malice will never drive out malice. But if someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you may destroy his malice'."
For more, pick up the book and check it out.

Editorial Review:

In the fourth century, the wildernesses of Egypt and Palestine were inhabited by a strange breed of spiritual nonconformists: the first Christian hermits. Thomas Merton's affection for these "Desert Fathers" shines in this much-loved treasury of their acts and words of wisdom. His free translation from the Latin source Verba Senorium illuminates their radical lives with insight and humor and sets them in close relation to Zen recluses, Hindu renunciants, and all those who have ever fled conventional life in search of higher wisdom.

The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi (Large Print Inspirational Series)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Little lessons learned through little flowers 5 out of 5 stars.
34 of 37 people found this review helpful.

Living in an age of weights, measures, logic and reason, a pragmatist may see little reason in reading The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi. However, recent terrorist attacks draws me and--most likely-many of us away from the methodical.

Vintage Spiritual Classics provides us with a preface and introduction of Francis Bernardone, showing us why he needed to become so close to God. They, the preface and introduction, explain this need on a level we may all understand. St. Francis wanted ecstasy and a life not burdened with want, greed, lust and avarice.

Each snippet throughout the body of the book provides a theme, an adventure and a moral that will pull the reader from this world to St. Francis's. Teaching us temperance, piety, and selfless rewards for good deeds and prayer.

I am hopeful that this book and others provided by Vintage will help provide solace and peace to those affected by the recent, tragic events.

Editorial Review:

With a new Preface by the noted writer Madeleine L'Engle, author of nearly fifty books of fiction and non-fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time. St. Francis of Assisi's ecstatic embrace of a life of poverty revolutionized Christianity even as it transformed the ethics of the West. In this luminous and lively book, St. Francis's followers preserved his legend and those of his first disciples, combining stories of miracles with convincing portraits of men who were no less human for having been touched by God.

"God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land.  The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home."
--Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford Paperback Reference)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Endlessly fascinating 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book is an interesting and engrossing catalogue of saints, primarily from the British Isles. Far from exhibiting the "bias" of which other reviewers accuse it, that focus on British/Irish saints was the_intent_of the book. Although the major saints of the universal Church are included, this book fills a vacuum by concentrating on the saints of the British Isles, the majority of which are obscure and of purely local interest and devotion. In the lives of these forgotten saints, Mr. Farmer has dug deeply through the layers of history to give us a fascinating snapshot of British piety and devotion since the earliest times. Although the tone of this book is scholarly rather than devotional, and some of the early legends and beliefs tend to amuse rather than edify, on the whole the lives of these saints cannot but inspire the faithful.

Editorial Review:

From the famous to the obscure, this new edition of the immensely popular Oxford Dictionary of Saints provides concise, readable accounts of the lives of 1,250 saints, more than any similar guide. In addition to the biographical sketches, the book also provides information on the cults and artistic associations of particular saints, making it especially comprehensive. The inclusion in the third edition of more saints from Europe, as well as a number of those recently canonized, confirms the dictionary's reputation as the standard one-volume work in English. A book to be dipped into again and again, The Oxford Dicitonary of Saints will intrigue anyone who delights in stories of the marvelous, the uncanny, and the bizarre.

Dictionary of Saints (Wordsworth Collection)

A. Jones

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The preeminent resource guide for more than twenty years, this one-of-a-kind book has been updated to include those recently canonized and beatified.

Since its original publication in 1980, John J. Delaney’s DICTIONARY OF SAINTS (more than 200,000 copies sold) has become the leading reference book for the scholar and general reader alike. With more than five thousand biographies of the saints—from the well known to the obscure—this new edition brings to life the inspiring accomplishments of these men and women of God. The martyrs and the monks, the mystics and the virgins, the doctors and the peasants are all contained in this essential volume. To know the saints, how they thrived in their achievements, how they lived in destitution, is to meet a fascinating company of people whose actions have influenced and enriched the history of the world.

Reset in an easy-to use-format, it contains substantial listings for the more popular saints, and thumbnail sketches for those less well known. From Aaron to Zosimus, this modern dictionary has been updated with the entries for the newly canonized, including Italian mystic Padre Pio, Mexican Nahuatl Juan Diego, Polish Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, and Americans Katharine Drexel and Rose Philippine Duchesne. It also contains a complete listing of feast days, an index of patron saints, and several other useful appendixes.

The Last Secret of Fatima

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

With an introduction by Pope Benedict XVI and including information previously suppressed, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, definitively reveals and explains one of the most controversial events in twentieth-century Catholicism—the 1917 apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima.

During World War I, three Portuguese children received a vision in which Mary, the Mother of Jesus, foretold great global turmoil. The first part of their vision—warnings about World War II, communism, and the spread of atheism—were widely publicized, but Vatican officials were hesitant to reveal the vision’s concluding images, thus creating the "secret" of Fatima. Speculation about this secret gripped many Catholics, and the aura of intrigue surrounding Fatima grew when the Church hierarchy barred the last surviving visionary from speaking publicly.

In THE LAST SECRET OF FATIMA, Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican equivalent of prime minister and a top advisor to Pope Benedict, breaks the Vatican’s official silence on the last secret. Rather than Armageddon, he claims, the final prophecy envisaged the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Bertone argues the apparition at Fatima was a call to renewal for the Church, and he was assigned the task of promulgating this message by the Pope.