Catholic Spiritual Practices

Catholic Spiritual Practices

Author: Colleen M. Griffith

Publisher: Paraclete Press

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1612613241

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How did the maestro advise the young violinist? There is a story of a young violinist who had an audition at Carnegie Hall. As she hurriedly exited the subway, she was momentarily disoriented. To her relief, she saw an old man with a violin under his arm and thought that surely he would know. “Sir, can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” she asked. “Practice,” he said, with a grin. It’s the same way with Catholic spirituality–growing in faith is all about practice. This collection by today’s most respected Catholic writers offers a compendium of these practices, traditional and contemporary, that can enable us to sustain and grow a vibrant spiritual life. This must-have volume will quickly become a trusted companion for an entire lifetime of engagement with the beauty and richness of the Catholic faith. Contents: Catholic Spirituality in Practice / Colleen M. Griffith Practices of Prayer The Lord’s Prayer / N. T. Wright Praying with the Saints / Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ The Jesus Prayer / Joseph Wong, OSB, CAM Intercessory Prayer / Ann Ulanov and Barry Ulanov Centering Prayer / Joseph G. Sandman The Rosary/ Thomas H. Groome Liturgy of the Hours / Elizabeth Collier Praying with Images / Colleen M. Griffith Everyday Prayers / Compiled by Thomas H. Groome Practices of Care Living the Sacramental Principle / Esther de Waal Practicing Hospitality / Ana María Pineda, RSM Practicing Forgiveness / Marjorie J. Thompson Family Life as Spiritual Practice / Wendy M. Wright Día de los Muertos / Alex Garcia-Rivera Practicing Care for the Environment / United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Practices of Spiritual Growth The Ignatian Examen / Dennis Mamm, SJ Spiritual Direction / Kathleen Fischer Retreats / Anne Luther Lectio Divina / Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM Discernment / David Lonsdale Eucharistic Adoration / Brian E. Daley, SJ The Angelus / Thomas H. Groome Stations of the Cross / Thomas H. Groome Fasting / Joan Chittister, OSB Thanksgiving after Communion / Thomas H. Groome Spiritual Practice Goes Digital / Barbara Radtke Conclusion: Keep on Practicing, You’ll Get Better at It / Thomas H. Groome


From Grief to Grace

From Grief to Grace

Author: Jeannie Ewing

Publisher: Sophia Institute Press

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1622822943

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Grief touches all of our lives, but it does not have to paralyze us with fear or inaction. God allows suffering because He knows how powerful it can be to our spiritual lives and to helping us fully embrace His love and mercy. In this insightful and practical book, you’ll learn how to live a life of redemptive suffering that will draw you through grief into a state of tenacity, meaning, holiness, and joy. Author Jeannie Ewing is no stranger to suffering. Her family has long struggled with bipolar disorder and depression, and her baby daughter was born with a rare genetic disorder that caused her bones to prematurely fuse together. Despite the many layers of sadness, loss, confusion, and anger, Jeannie responded to God’s calling and transformed her life into one with profound purpose and joy. Combining her training in psychology and counseling with real-life examples, Jeannie will show you that there is much life to be lived in the midst of loss, and that all things – even the most painful life experiences – are working together for a greater good. You’ll also learn: The all-too-often misunderstood difference between grief and depression.The spiritual benefits to uniting your crosses with Jesus’s Passion and Death.The counterintuitive notion that grief and joy can coexist.The spiritual danger of internalizing our pain and hiding it from othersHow great saints like St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Liseux struggled to make sense out of suffering.The six spiritual principles that will assist you on the journey of navigating grief.How to know when you should seek professional help.Ways in which God is calling you to bring hope and joy to those dwelling in darkness.How to confidently confront the nothingness and emptiness you feel in your interior life.And Meditations on the Stations of the Cross, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Seven Sorrows of Mary that will help you reflect on how redemptive suffering can help you embrace God’s love and mercy.


Sacred Rhythms

Sacred Rhythms

Author: Ruth Haley Barton

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2009-12-14

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0830878297

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Picking up on the monastic tradition of creating a "rule of life" that allows for regular space for the practice of spiritual disciplines, Ruth Haley Barton takes you more deeply into understanding seven key spiritual disciplines along with practical ideas for weaving them into everyday life.


Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

Author: Donald S. Whitney (Professor)

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1615216170

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Drawn from a rich heritage, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life will guide you through a carefully selected array of disciplines. By illustrating why the disciplines are important, showing how each one will help you grow in godliness, and offering practical suggestions for cultivating them, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life will provide you with a refreshing opportunity to become more like Christ and grow in character and maturity. Now updated and revised to equip a new generation of readers, this anniversary edition features in-depth discussions on each of the key disciplines.


Spiritual Disciplines Handbook

Spiritual Disciplines Handbook

Author: Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0830899111

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Adele Calhoun's Spiritual Disciplines Handbook has become a standard for those who want to expand their knowledge of spiritual practices. Now this beloved resource has been revised throughout and expanded to include thirteen new disciplines along with a new preface by the author, giving us practical guidance in our continuing journey toward intimacy with Christ.


Almost Catholic

Almost Catholic

Author: Jon Sweeney

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-05-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780470240991

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Jon Sweeney, a self-described “evolved Protestant” and noted religious writer, has long been fascinated by the Catholic Church. However, it wasn’t until he was a young missionary in the Philippines that he truly began to understand the Church’s traditions, mysteries, and religious beliefs and its hold on those who follow the tradition. As he explains, Catholic spirituality is all about responding to the fundamental mystery of Jesus, the incarnation, and what it all meant in the beginning as well as what it means today. In Almost Catholic, Sweeney offers an appreciation of Catholicism, weaving in the story of his own explorations with those of others who have also been attracted to this tradition. He finds himself drawn to the Church’s ancient and medieval traditions out of a desire to connect with the deepest and widest paths on the way. Two millennia of saints and practices and teachings and mystery form a connection for him to the very beginnings of Christianity.


Becoming a New Self

Becoming a New Self

Author: Moshe Sluhovsky

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 022647299X

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In Becoming a New Self, Moshe Sluhovsky examines the diffusion of spiritual practices among lay Catholics in early modern Europe. By offering a close examination of early modern Catholic penitential and meditative techniques, Sluhovsky makes the case that these practices promoted the idea of achieving a new self through the knowing of oneself. Practices such as the examination of conscience, general confession, and spiritual exercises, which until the 1400s had been restricted to monastic elites, breached the walls of monasteries in the period that followed. Thanks in large part to Franciscans and Jesuits, lay urban elites—both men and women—gained access to spiritual practices whose goal was to enhance belief and create new selves. Using Michel Foucault’s writing on the hermeneutics of the self, and the French philosopher’s intuition that the early modern period was a moment of transition in the configurations of the self, Sluhovsky offers a broad panorama of spiritual and devotional techniques of self-formation and subjectivation.


Sacred Pathways

Sacred Pathways

Author: Gary Thomas

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2020-09-08

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0310361184

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Sacred Pathways reveals nine distinct spiritual temperaments--and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies--to help you improve your spiritual life and deepen your personal walk with God. It's time to strip away the frustration of a one-size-fits-all spirituality and discover a path of worship that frees you to be you. Experienced spiritual directors, pastors, and church leaders recognize that all of us engage with God differently, and it's about time we do too. In this updated and expanded edition of Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas details nine spiritual temperaments and--like the Enneagram and other tools do with personality--encourages you to investigate the ways you most naturally express yourself in your relationship with God. He encourages you to dig into the traits, strengths, and pitfalls in your devotional approach so you can eliminate the barriers that keep you locked into rigid methods of worship and praise. Plus, as you begin to identify and understand your own temperament, you'll soon learn about the temperaments that aren't necessarily "you" but that may help you understand the spiritual tendencies of friends, family, and others around you. Whatever temperament or blend of temperaments best describes you, rest assured it's not by accident. It's by the design of a Creator who knew what he was doing when he made you according to his own unique intentions. If your spiritual walk is not what you'd like it to be, you can change that, starting here. Sacred Pathways will show you the route you were made to travel, marked by growth and filled with the riches of a close walk with God. A Sacred Pathways video Bible study is also available for group or individual use, sold separately.


The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments

The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments

Author: Scott Weeman

Publisher: Ave Maria Press

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1594717265

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Winner of a 2018 Catholic Press Association Award: Sacraments. (Second Place). In the first book to directly integrate the Twelve Steps with the practice of Catholicism, Scott Weeman, founder and director of Catholic in Recovery, pairs his personal story with compassionate straight talk to show Catholics how to bridge the commonly felt gap between the Higher Power of twelve-step programs and the merciful God that he rediscovered in the heart of the sacraments. Weeman entered sobriety from alcohol and drugs on October 10, 2011, and he's made it his full-time ministry to help others who struggle with various types of addiction to find spiritual wholeness through Catholic in Recovery, an organization he founded and directs. In The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments, Weeman candidly tackles the struggle he and other addicts have with getting to know intimately the unnamed Higher Power of recovery. He shares stories of his compulsion to find a personal relationship with God and how his tentative steps back to the Catholic Church opened new doors of healing and brought him surprising joy as he came to know Christ in the sacraments. Catholics in recovery and those moving toward it, as well as the people who love them will recognize Weeman's story and his spiritual struggle to personally encounter God. He tells us how: Baptism helps you admit powerlessness over an unmanageable problem, face your desperate need for God, and choose to believe in and submit to God’s mercy. Reconciliation affirms and strengthens the hard work of examining your life, admitting wrongs, and making amends. The Eucharist provides ongoing sustenance and draws you to the healing power of Christ. The graces of Confirmation strengthen each person to keep moving forward and to share the good news of recovery and new life in Christ. Weeman's words are boldly challenging and brimming with compassion and through them you will discover inspiration, hope, sage advice, and refreshingly practical help.