Voyage to Alpha Centauri
Voyage to Alpha Centauri

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2013-11-04

Total Pages: 765

ISBN-13: 1681496143

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Set eighty years in the future, this novel by the best-selling author Michael O'Brien is about an expedition sent from the planet Earth to Alpha Centauri, the star closest to our solar system. The Kosmos, a great ship that the central character Neil de Hoyos describes as a "flying city", is immense in size and capable of more than half light-speed. Hoyos is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who has played a major role in designing the ship. Hoyos has signed on as a passenger because he desires to escape the seemingly benign totalitarian government that controls everything on his home planet. He is a skeptical and quirky misanthropic humanist with old tragedies, loves, and hatreds that are secreted in his memory. The surprises that await him on the voyage-and its destination-will shatter all of his assumptions and point him to a true new horizon. Science fiction and fantasy literature are genres that have become dominant forces in contemporary worldwide culture. Our fascination with the near-angelic powers of new technology, its benefits and dangers, its potential for obsession and catastrophe, raises vital questions that this work explores about human nature and the cosmos, about man's image of himself and where he is going-and why he seeks to go there.

Elijah in Jerusalem
Elijah in Jerusalem

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1586179462

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Elijah in Jerusalem, the long awaited sequel to the acclaimed best-selling novel, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse , is the continuing story of the priest, Fr. Elijah. A convert from Judaism, and a survivor of the Holocaust, he has for decades been a Carmelite monk on the mountain of the prophet Elijah. In the events of the preceding novel, Father Elijah, the central character confronted the President of the European Union, a man rising toward global control as President of the soon to be realized World Government. The Pope recognized in the President certain qualities that are anti-Christ, and asked Fr. Elijah to call the man to repentance, though his attempts at this prove to be unsuccessful. In this sequel, now-Bishop Elijah, accompanied by his fellow monk Brother Enoch, enter Jerusalem just as the President arrives in the city to inaugurate a new stage of his rise to power. They hope to unmask him as the Antichrist prophesied by Scripture and to warn the world of the imminent spiritual danger to mankind. As the story unfolds, people of many kinds meet the undercover priest, and in the process their souls are revealed and tested, bringing about change for the good or for evil. Elijah perseveres in his mission even when all seems lost. The dramatic climax is surprising, yet it underlines that God works all things to the good for those who love Him, testifying to the truth that in the end Wisdom will be justified and Satan confounded.

The Sparrow
The Sparrow

Author: Mary Doria Russell

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2008-05-27

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0345510887

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A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end. Praise for The Sparrow “A startling, engrossing, and moral work of fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review “Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them.”—Entertainment Weekly “Powerful . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Provocative, challenging . . . recalls both Arthur C. Clarke and H. G. Wells, with a dash of Ray Bradbury for good measure.”—The Dallas Morning News “[Mary Doria] Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense.”—USA Today

Island of the World
Island of the World

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2010-04

Total Pages: 847

ISBN-13: 1586174908

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Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was a political prisoner of the Communist regime in Vietnam for thirteen years, nine of which he spent in solitary confinement. His remarkable faith sustained him during those long years when he would celebrate mass in secret with three drops of wine in the palm of his hand and the host smuggled inside a flashlight by his faithful. His spiritual writings, penned on the back of old calendars, have spread throughout the world inspiring millions. Road of Hope: The Spiritual Journey of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan is an original Salt and Light documentary exploring the man and his message. This powerful film traces the history of Thuan from his privileged upbringing in a powerful political family to decades of war, betrayal and suffering - all experiences which helped form his singular conviction that "Love Conquers All." Featuring interviews with those who knew him best, never before seen family videos, and rare archival footage of Thuan sharing his most revealing insights, Road of Hope offers an unprecedented glimpse into the life of a modern day martyr and saint.

The Father's Tale
The Father's Tale

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2011-08-31

Total Pages: 1077

ISBN-13: 1681490099

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"A modern retelling of the parables The Good Shepherd and The Prodigal Son." - Michael O'Brien Canadian bookseller Alex Graham is a middle-age widower whose quiet life is turned upside down when his college-age son disappears without any explanation or trace of where he has gone. With minimal resources, the father begins a long journey that takes him for the first time away from his safe and orderly world. As he stumbles across the merest thread of a trail, he follows it in blind desperation, and is led step by step on an odyssey that takes him to fascinating places and sometimes to frightening people and perils. Through the uncertainty and the anguish, the loss and the longing, Graham is pulled into conflicts between nations, as well as the eternal conflict between good and evil. Stretched nearly to the breaking point by the inexplicable suffering he witnesses and experiences, he discovers unexpected sources of strength as he presses onward in the hope of recovering his son--and himself.

Strangers and Sojourners
Strangers and Sojourners

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2009-09-03

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13: 168149454X

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An epic novel set in the rugged interior of British Columbia, the first volume of a trilogy which traces the lives of four generations of a family of exiles. Beginning in 1900, and concluding with the climactic events leading up to the Millennium, the series follows Anne and Stephen Delaney and their descendants as they live through the tumultuous events of this century. Anne is a highly educated Englishwoman who arrives in British Columbia at the end of the First World War. Raised in a family of spiritualists and Fabian socialists, she has fled civilization in search of adventure. She meets and eventually marries a trapper-homesteader, an Irish immigrant who is fleeing the "troubles" in his own violent past. This is a story about the gradual movement of souls from despair and unbelief to faith, hope, and love, about the psychology of perception, and about the ultimate questions of life, death and the mystery of being. Interwoven with scenes from Ireland, England, Poland, Russia, and Belgium during the War, Strangers and Sojourners is a tale of the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. It is about courage and fear, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Father Elijah
Father Elijah

Author: Michael D. O'Brien

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2009-10-27

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 1681491729

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Michael O'Brien presents a thrilling apocalyptic novel about the condition of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of time. It explores the state of the modern world, and the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary religious scene, by taking his central character, Father Elijah Schäfer, a Carmelite priest, on a secret mission for the Vatican which embroils him in a series of crises and subterfuges affecting the ultimate destiny of the Church. Father Elijah is a convert from Judaism, a survivor of the Holocaust, a man once powerful in Israel. For twenty years he has been "buried in the dark night of Carmel" on the mountain of the prophet Elijah. The Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State call him out of obscurity and give him a task of the highest sensitivity: to penetrate into the inner circles of a man whom they believe may be the Antichrist. Their purpose: to call the Man of Sin to repentance, and thus to postpone the great tribulation long enough to preach the Gospel to the whole world. In this richly textured tale, Father Elijah crosses Europe and the Middle East, moves through the echelons of world power, meets saints and sinners, presidents, judges, mystics, embattled Catholic journalists, faithful priests and a conspiracy of traitors within the very House of God. This is an apocalypse in the old literary sense, but one that was written in the light of Christian revelation.

Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?
Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?

Author: Guy Consolmagno, SJ

Publisher: Image

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0804136963

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Witty and thought provoking, two Vatican astronomers shed provocative light on some of the strange places where religion and science meet. “Imagine if a Martian showed up, all big ears and big nose like a child’s drawing, and he asked to be baptized. How would you react?” —Pope Francis, May, 2014 Pope Francis posed that question—without insisting on an answer!—to provoke deeper reflection about inclusiveness and diversity in the Church. But it's not the first time that question has been asked. Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father Paul Mueller hear questions like that all the time. They’re scientists at the Vatican Observatory, the official astronomical research institute of the Catholic Church. In Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? they explore a variety of questions at the crossroads of faith and reason: How do you reconcile the The Big Bang with Genesis? Was the Star of Bethlehem just a pious religious story or an actual description of astronomical events? What really went down between Galileo and the Catholic Church—and why do the effects of that confrontation still reverberate to this day? Will the Universe come to an end? And… could you really baptize an extraterrestrial? With disarming humor, Brother Guy and Father Paul explore these questions and more over the course of six days of dialogue. Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial will make you laugh, make you think, and make you reflect more deeply on science, faith, and the nature of the universe.

Flying to Valhalla
Flying to Valhalla

Author: Charles R. Pellegrino

Publisher: Avon Books

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780380972203

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A brilliant hard-tech debut novel by the well-known author of Her Name, Titanic and Unearthing Atlantis. On Earth, the designers of an advanced space mission fear they've put awesome power in the hands of a maniac, and in the depths of space, a hostile species awakens to the discovery of a new enemy--Earthlings. Illustrated.