This book is an initiative of the Polish Bishops' Commission for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The author follows the path of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata and presents consecrated life like a mosaic.In short articles under specific keywords, he elucidates the most important elements. These articles are assembled in the key of contemporary ecclesiology, using the Church's threefold identity as mystery, community and mission.
In 2014, the Roman Pontiff, Francis I issued a letter for the Year of Consecrated Life, which started throughout the universal Church on the first Sunday of Advent, 30th November, to end on the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 2 February 2016, a period of fourteen months. In this document, the Holy Father wrote that: ―During this Year, it would be appropriate for each charismatic family to reflect on its origins and history, in order to thank God who grants the Church a variety of gifts which embellish her and equip her for every good work (cf. Lumen Gentium, 12)‖. From the foregoing, it is evident that recounting our history is essential for preserving our identity, for strengthening our unity as a family and our common sense of belonging. More than an exercise in archaeology or the cultivation of mere nostalgia, it calls for following in the footsteps of past generations in order to grasp the high ideals, and the vision and values which inspired them, beginning with the founders and foundresses and the first communities. In this way we come to see how the charism has been lived over the years, the creativity it has sparked, the difficulties it encountered and the concrete ways those difficulties were surmounted. We may also encounter cases of inconsistency, the result of human weakness and even at times a neglect of some essential aspects of the charism. Yet everything proves instructive and, taken as a whole, acts as a summons to conversion. To tell our story is to praise God and to thank him for all his gifts. It is from this background that the first chapter of this work begins with the history of the Consecrated Life. As a background to this history that dates back concretely to the Eremitic Age, this chapter begins by discussing the typologies of the Religious Life and developing a model for the interpretation of this history. Scroll up and click on the BUY button
This is intended to be a very simple book, an elementary treatment of a few basic ideas in Christian spirituality. Hence it should be useful to any Christian, and indeed to anyone who wants to acquaint himself with some principles of the interior life as it is understood in the Catholic Church. Nothing is here said of such subjects as “contemplation” or even “mental prayer.” And yet the book emphasizes what is at once the most common and the most mysterious aspect in the Christian life: grace, the power and the light of God in us, purifying our hearts, transforming us in Christ, making us true sons of God, enabling us to act in the world as his instruments for the good of all men and for his glory. This is therefore a meditation on some fundamental themes appropriate to the active life. It must be said at once that the active life is essential to every Christian. Clearly the active life must mean more than the life which is led in religious institutes of men and women who teach, care for the sick, and so on. (When one is talking of the “active life” as opposed to the “contemplative life,” this is the usual reference.) Here action is not looked at in opposition to contemplation, but as an expression of charity and as a necessary consequence of union with God by baptism.
Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.
One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the "cancerous" Soviet police state. --Publisher
We admire these men for their greatness, but the truth is Augustine grappled with sexual passions. Martin Luther struggled to control his tongue. John Calvin fought the battle of faith with worldly weapons. Yet each man will always be remembered for the messages he declared-messages that still resound today. John Piper explores each of these men's lives, integrating Augustine's delight in God with Luther's emphasis on the Word and Calvin's exposition of Scripture. Through their strengths and struggles we can learn how to live better today. When we consider their lives, we behold the glory and majesty of God and find power to overcome our weaknesses. If ever you are complacent about sin, if ever you lose the joy of Jesus Christ, if ever you are dulled by the world's influence, let the lives of these men help you recapture the wonder of God. Part of the The Swans Are Not Silent series.
Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society. "As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, complex, shifting picture of the life of the mind in a society dominated by the ideal of practical success." —Robert Peel in the Christian Science Monitor
