Saints

Set Aside Every Fear is a simple, thirty-day devotional based on the classic spirituality of St. Catherine of Siena, who was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970. In only a few minutes each day, this book offers you a glimpse of St. Catherine's passion for living steeped in the intimate connection between love of God and service to others, which has inspired people of faith for more than six centuries.

Originally published in 1997 and now back in print, Set Aside Every Fear is the perfect prayer companion for busy people who want to root their spiritual practice in the solid ground of St. Catherine of Siena's timeless--and timely--teachings on divine and human relationships. Catherine brought together two frequently unconnected charisms--mysticism and active ministry--and embodied both throughout her life. Her intimacy with God through prayer enabled her to minister to the poor and sick more deeply and to boldly speak truth to Church authorities. When the papacy fled Rome for Avignon because of political conflict, Catherine tirelessly encouraged the popes to return to Rome, and was ultimately successful.

Set Aside Every Fear offers prayers in the voice of God and responses in the voice of humanity based on Catherine's own words, which encourage you in your own practice of dialogue with God. As you reflect on the mystery of divine love, Catherine shares her own relationship with God in a way that challenges you to place your trust in God and abandon your worries as you follow him.

All the titles in the 30 Days with a Great Spiritual Teacher series contain a brief morning meditation, a simple mantra to use throughout the day, and a night prayer to focus your thoughts as the day ends. John Kirvan is the series editor.

2012 Reprint of 1958 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. St. Therese of Lisieux, "The Little Flower", was recently declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II, the third woman to receive this honor in 2000 years. She thus ranks with such intellectual and theological giants as St. Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. This elevation is all the more astonishing when we consider her background; born to a bourgeois family in provincial 19th century France, she entered a cloistered convent at the age of 15, and died in obscurity at age 24. The posthumous publication of her spiritual journals created a sensation in the Catholic world comparable to that produced in the postwar world by "The Diary of Ann Frank." Adopted as a universal "little sister" by the French soldiers of World War I, St. Therese's naive, charming, but profound words were carried next to many an infantryman's heart. Therese's story and the effect of her powerful personality and passionate devotion have lost none of their force. "At last I have found my calling," she declared. "My calling is love." The core of her spiritual message, the "little way" is the recognition that any act, no matter how trivial, is infinitely valuable if done out of love. Her influence on other great 20th century figures such as Theresa of Calcutta and Edith Stein is obvious. This is a unique book, to be read with pleasure, with joy, and with the assurance of great spiritual benefit. The homely and human details of Therese's short life lead to the path of enlightenment. In her memoirs, she describes spiritual life: she lived each day with an unshakable confidence in God's love. "What matters in life," she wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love." Therese lived and taught a spirituality of attending to everyone and everything well and with love. She believed that just as a child becomes enamored with what is before her, we should also have a childlike focus and totally attentive love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love.

Written by the co-founder of her priest's community at Mother Teresa's personal request to share her message with the world. Gain unprecedented access and understanding to Mother Teresa's secret source of passion, spirit, and impact.

Scripture speaks of miracles wrought through relics: a dead man was raised when Elisha s bones touched him, and the clothing of Jesus and His apostles healed the sick. In the early Church, Masses were celebrated over the bones of the martyrs, and phials of their blood have effected countless miracles. Direct successors of the Apostles themselves speak of venerating relics; Church Fathers encourage it; throughout the ages of Catholic legacy, relics of the saints are always present.The Church takes diligent care in preserving and documenting the authenticity of her relics. Best-selling author Joan Carroll Cruz takes full advantage of these resources. With painstaking research, she exposes the details behind hundreds of the Church s most famous and beloved relics. She covers 38 second-class relicsof our Lord and Lady, such as the Holy Grail and Our Lady s Veil, and relics of all sorts from 75 favorite saints, such as St. Mary Magdalene, St. Agnes, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Maria Goretti, and many more!Relics is a unique collection of years of dedicated research about the lives of the saints and the mementos they left behind, to remind us of their presence and intercession for us."

I look on my whole life as giving, and I want to give and give until there is nothing left to give.
--Solanus Casey, from the Introduction

Padre Pio and André Bessette would have readily agreed with Solanus Casey even though, on the surface, none of the three had much to give. All grew up in humble circumstances, each suffered poor health, and none achieved academic distinction or prominent positions in their religious orders. They were, to all appearances, the sort of people others overlook.

Yet in their lifetimes, untold numbers found physical and interior healing through their ministries, and since their deaths their fame has grown enormously. Their secret was the secret of every successful Christian life: In complete humility, they abandoned themselves to the will of God.

Bessette and Casey literally answered the door at their monasteries, and Pio was something of a spiritual doorkeeper in the confessional. God's Doorkeepers reveals how these miracle-workers, in spite of their lowly circumstances, inspired and continue to inspire those who seek a healing encounter with God.

While there are many books on saints, this one is different. Keeping in mind the questions he has been asked by people over the years, George Evans has written a book in popular question-and-answer format that treats not only the saints' existence, place, and functions, but also the kind of honor given to them in the Church's liturgy and life. The author treats such topics as beatification and canonization; hagiography, the study of the lives of the saints; and the role of saints in art. An informational text as well as a book to pick up now and then for entertaining reading, this book offers readers a deeper sense of why the saints and the honoring of them has been influential in the lives of Catholics and others who strive to follow Jesus Christ and experience his love. It is a happy medium between the scholarly and devotional books that are its competition. +

This companion to the Illustrated Lives of the Saints, with over 60 beautiful illustrations and large, easy-to-read type, offers a new journey to travel as you walk with Saints and Blesseds each day of the year. A ribbon marker makes it easy to keep one's place in this rich treasury of Saints' lives.

Read about the lives of Saints and Blesseds with whom you may not be familiar.

Let their short, inspiring biographies touch you.

Learn from their trials and triumphs, their joys and sorrows.

Ponder the daily reflections and embrace the prayers.

The famous French author's unique writing style captivates the reader with the heroic story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a modern apostle of Catholic evangelization, Marian spirituality, and a martyr of charity. With the encouragement of Pope John Paul II and the help of documentation (some unpublished) given to him by the Vatican, Frossard chronicles the dramatic and moving life of this Polish Franciscan who volunteered to die in place of a fellow prisoner in Auschwitz.

While his heroic martyr's death is well known, Frossard shows how Kolbe's whole life was one of extraordinary generosity in devotion to his ideal of "love without limits." Kolbe was that rare combination of mystic, intellectual genius, theologian, and down-to-earth practicality. His tremendous creative energies (despite constant bouts of tuberculosis and less than one lung) enhanced the lives of all those who knew him, the millions who read his publications, and the countless persons inspired by his example. Forget Not Love reveals the interesting and impressive details of Kolbe's childhood, vision of Mary, brilliance in his studies, his founding of the largest monastery in the world (700 Franciscans), massive printing apostolate, missionary journeys to Japan, and his final act of love in Auschwitz. Frossard has captured the heart of the man whom Pope John Paul II declared "the patron saint of this difficult century."

The San Damiano crucifix is a stage where a story is being told. There are different sets and players on the stage and we are the audience viewing it; and it too has an audience upon it that is both viewing the crucifixion and playing a part in it....Francis walked onto that stage a person who had within him the violence of war, unrest and severe doubts. And on this stage he became a person of peace. His prayer before the crucifix is also our prayer, 'What will be ours to be and do'?
--from the Introduction

Francis and the San Damiano Cross: Meditations on Spiritual Transformation is an invaluable prayer resource that uses the cross of San Damiano--the cross that spoke to Francis of Assisi--as inspiration for personal reflection. Susan Saint Sing, a former resident of Assisi and follower of Francis, takes the reader on a journey to the place where Francis prayed before the San Damiano Cross. Not only does she recall her own personal journey to Assisi, she recounts the spiritual and physical transformation of Francis in his quest to rebuild the Church--a quest that began in the small, broken-down church of San Damiano but was the catalyst for a much broader reconstruction.

These meditations not only detail and explain the images on the cross itself, but they explain the powerful message of the cross--transformation: It speaks to us still, beckoning us to repair our lives, our relationships, our failings--in honor of Him who gave his life there on the cross in order for us to become more in the fullness of his presence, to be instruments of peace. Christ's death and resurrection, celebrated on this gilded cross is a call to each of us, like it was to Francis, to become great through Him. We are called to live like Francis, to be like him and to be transformed.