This volume represents a new name and a new focus for its predecessor, Current Perspectives on Aging and the Life Cycle (volumes 1-4). We begin our new series, now titled Advances in Life Course Research, with volume 5. Its statement of purpose is the publication of theoretical analyses, reviews, policy analyses and positions, and theory-based empirical papers on issues involving all aspects of the human life course. It adopts a broad conception of the life course, and invites and welcomes contributions from all disciplines and fields of study interested in understanding, describing, and predicting the antecedents of and consequences for the course that human lives take from birth to death, within and across time and cultures (construed in its broadest sense), regardless of methodology, theoretical orientation, or disciplinary affiliation.
Aimed at a wide audience of readers, The Anthropology of Catholicism is the first companion guide to this burgeoning field within the anthropology of Christianity. Bringing to light Catholicism’s long but comparatively ignored presence within the discipline of anthropology, the book introduces readers to key studies in the field, as well as to current analyses on the present and possible futures of Catholicism globally. This reader provides both ethnographic material and theoretical reflections on Catholicism around the world, demonstrating how a revised anthropology of Catholicism can generate new insights and analytical frameworks that will impact anthropology as well as other disciplines.
Father Sattler has written Parents, Children and the Facts of Life to help parents fulfill the extremely important duty of training boys and girls to be pure and innocent, and eventually to enter marriage with a noble and holy purpose if God calls them to that state of life. According to the official Catholic teaching, sex education is the duty of the parents, yet many parents still struggle to convey the facts of life to their children in a natural and inspiring way. Applying traditional Catholic principles to very practical questions, Fr. Sattler explains what parents should tell their children, when and how they should tell it, what moral and psychological dangers they must avoid, and what questions they should anticipate. His conversational and down to earth style provides parents with the confidence and practical wisdom to fulfill their role as their children's primary teachers of the facts of life.
When one reaches the highest degree of human maturity, one has only one question left: How can I be helpful?—TERESA OF ÁVILA Beloved author Ronald Rolheiser continues his search for an accessible and penetrating Christian spirituality in this highly anticipated follow-up to the contemporary classic, The Holy Longing. With his trademark acuity, wit, and thoughtfulness, Rolheiser shows how identifying and embracing discipleship will lead to new heights of spiritual awareness and maturity. In this new book, Rolheiser takes us on a journey through the dark night of the senses and of the spirit. Here, we experience the full gamut of human life, pleasure and fervor, disillusionment and boredom. But, as Rolheiser explains, when we embrace the struggle and yearning to know God we can experience too a profound re-understanding to our daily lives. “What lies beyond the essentials, the basics?” Rolheiser writes. “Where do we go once some of the basic questions in our lives have been answered, or at least brought to enough peace that our focus can shift away from ourselves to others? Where do we go once the basic questions in our lives are no longer the restless questions of youthful insecurity and loneliness? Who am I? Who loves me? How will my life turn out? Where do we go once the basic question in life becomes: How can I give my life away more purely, and more meaningfully? How do I live beyond my own heartaches, headaches, and obsessions so as to help make other peoples’ lives more meaningful? The intent of this book is to try to address exactly those questions: How can we live less self- centered, more mature lives? What constitutes deep maturity and how do we reach that place? And, not unimportantly, what constitutes a more adult, Christian discipleship? What constitutes a truly mature following of Jesus?” As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke suggests, “Live the questions now.” In Sacred Fire, Rolheiser’s deeply affecting prose urges us on in pursuit of the most holy of all passions—a deep and lasting intimacy with God.
