Religious Books

Forgiveness confronts us at once with our weaknesses and strengths. Forgiveness exercises our covenant with God and with one another. It is a risk we take in order to move deeper into life. Forgiveness is prophetic; it is a way of communicating endless love to a needy world. Forgiveness opens our hearts and expands our spiritual horizon, pestering us to live the gospel more consciously and fully. Forgiveness requires prayer, grace and perseverance. When we forgive, we can heal our memories and discover a path to freedom and peace. This book, intended for a general audience, will show that the Bible tells us all this and much more about forgiveness.

Christ's contemporaries ascribed many names and titles to Him, as we see recorded in the New Testament. Each one tells us something different about who Jesus is. In this book, Eric Sammons frames a series of thoughtful reflections on the names of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew with references from the Church Fathers, saints, and Doctors of the Church. He translates the depth of the mystery of the Faith so readers can discover new dimensions of the person of Christ and new ways to recognize and welcome Him into their lives.

Now in paperback, Brandon Vogt's bestselling and award-winning Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too) serves as a compelling reproposal of the Church to former Catholics, a persuasive argument for truth and beauty to those who have become jaded and disenchanted with religion, and at the same time offers practicing Catholics a much-needed dose of confidence and clarity to affirm their faith against an increasingly skeptical culture.

Like many millennials, Vogt--content director of Bishop Robert Barron's Word on Fire Catholic Ministries--considered himself "spiritual, but not religious" until, as a mechanical engineering student at Florida State University, he began a passionate search for truth that led him--to his great surprise--to the Catholic Church in 2008.

Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too) traces Vogt's spiritual journey, making a refreshing, twenty-first-century case for the faith and answering questions being asked by agnostics, nones, and atheists--the audience for his popular website, StrangeNotions.com, where Catholics and atheists dialogue.

With references to Catholic thinkers such as G. K. Chesterton, John Henry Newman, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and Bishop Robert Barron, Vogt draws together lines of evidence to help seekers discover why they should be Catholic as an alternative. At the same time, he helps practicing Catholics affirm and strengthen their faith, giving them tools to answer the skeptics.

In 1963, following twenty-three years of hard labor and abuse in Russian prison camps, Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., finally returned to America. Had he come back a bitter man, or a man of diminished faith, it would have been hard to fault him. But he didn't. For the remainder of his years, until his death in 1984, Fr. Ciszek's grace, faith, and wisdom touched--often in profound and lasting ways--everyone who came into contact with him. With God in America is a collection of previously unpublished writings on Ciszek's post-imprisonment life and thoughts. The contents--which include articles he wrote, speeches he delivered at retreats, letters he sent to people he was counseling, and interviews with individuals who knew him personally--present a man unbroken by all that he had endured and eager to share God's love with others. From Ciszek's first days back home in the States to his final words before his death, With God in America demonstrates that saintliness isn't primarily about acting heroically in dramatic or devastating circumstances, but about honoring the ordinary, everyday aspects of life as treasured gifts from God.

Dutch-born Catholic priest and beloved author Henri J. Nouwen devoted much of his later ministry to emphasizing the singular concept of our identity as the Beloved of God. In an interview, he said that he believed the central moment in Jesus's public ministry to be his baptism in the Jordan, when Jesus heard the affirmation, "You are my beloved son on whom my favor rests." "That is the core experience of Jesus," Nouwen writes. "He is reminded in a deep, deep way of who he is. . . . I think his whole life is continually claiming that identity in the midst of everything."

You Are the Beloved is a daily devotional intended to empower readers to claim this truth in their own lives. Featuring the best of Nouwen's writing from previously published works, this devotional propels the canon forward as it draws on this rich literature in new and compelling ways. It will appeal to readers already familiar with Nouwen's work as well as new readers looking for a devotional to guide them into a deeper awareness of their identity in Jesus.