A not so typical cookbook from a not so typical nun! Karol Jackowski's thirty-eight years as a nun and twenty-five years as a food enthusiast come together in Good Cooking Habits. Sr. Karol's warmth, sense of humor, and love of good food jump off the page as she complements over 100 recipes with Catholic nostalgia, childhood memories, and humorous stories and anecdotes from her early years as a Sister. Ave Maria Press Fall 2005, Paperback 128 Pages.
Jesus Christ is as popular as ever. Films, books, and news articles ask,"Who was Jesus Christ?" Even outside of Christianity he continues to appeal to people. And yet for so many, the popular Jesus is not the Jesus of Christianity. The popular Jesus makes no demands and never challenges people. He accepts everyone and everything under all circumstances.
On the Way to Jesus Christ is a series of meditations that Pope Benedict XVI wrote while he was Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The true Jesus, he writes, is the Jesus of the Gospels, who "is quite different, demanding, bold. The Jesus who makes everything OK for everyone is a phantom, a dream, not a real figure. The Jesus of the Gospels is certainly not convenient for us. But it is precisely in this way that he answers the deepest question of our existence, which--whether we want to or not--keeps us on the lookout for God, for a gratification that is limitless, for the infinite. We must again set out on the way to this real Jesus."
This book also examines whether Jesus Christ is the only savior, and the Church's responsibility to evangelize. It concludes with reflections on Jesus' Presence in the Holy Eucharist, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church's presentation of the Christian mystery as seen through the Catechism's dynamic view of Sacred Scripture.
On the Way to Jesus Christ is for anyone--believer or unbeliever-who wants better to understand the true Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, the Christ of Christianity. by Ignatius Press Fall 2005. Hardcover.
This collection of writings reveals the Holy Father's beliefs on religious truth and freedom, Church and culture, the Eucharist, Christian unity, and ministry and service. These words display Benedict's zeal and provide hope for the church. 128 page Hardcover Ligouri Publications. Quantity
From the author of Conclave and All the Pope’s Men comes the story of Pope John Paul II’s last days, the behind-the-scenes dynamics within the College of Cardinals that led to the choice of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, and where the new pope is likely to lead the Catholic Church.
On April 18, 2005, the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gathered to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II. Faced with several potential candidates, the cardinals made a bold choice, entrusting the Keys of the Kingdom to 78-year-old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a man whose views on the challenges facing the Church and the broader culture could not be more unambiguous, or controversial.
Questions arose as the world watched while Ratzinger was installed as Pope Benedict XVI, the 266th pontiff of the Catholic Church. Why Ratzinger? Why someone so clearly identified with the previous pope? Why not a “compromise” choice? Why a Cardinal from Western Europe and not from Africa or Latin America? What would this mean for the future of the Catholic Church?
No one can tell the story of exactly what took place during the closed doors meeting, known as the conclave, when Cardinals from around the world cast their votes for the next pope, better than John L. Allen, Jr. As a correspondent for National Catholic Reporter and a Vatican analyst for CNN and National Public Radio, Allen has spent years covering Vatican politics and personalities, and his unique access to Roman halls of power has enabled him to write the ultimate behind-the-scenes account of the election of Pope Benedict XVI. The Rise of Benedict XVI is based on extensive research and exclusive interviews with eight cardinals representing five nationalities, guaranteeing readers an intimate glimpse into this monumental decision.
But Allen’s insight also means that he is in a unique position to evaluate the accomplishments and legacy of the man now known as Pope Benedict XVI, and to provide some analysis of the direction he will take the Catholic Church in the coming years. Ratzinger’s long career as a major Vatican insider, force of influence, and occasionally polarizing figure, has ensured that his pontificate will be one of the most fascinating in the history of the Catholic Church. Benedict XVI will certainly have a major impact on the lives of the faithful around the world, and John Allen’s riveting new book is the definitive work on this turning point in history. Doubleday, Hardcover | June 2005.
Though he was a familiar Church leader for many years before becoming pope, there has been little awareness of the spiritual side of Benedict XVI. Now for the first time readers are given a brilliant overview of the Pope’s most inspirational teachings in Let God’s Light Shine Forth. Editor Robert Moynihan offers a brief introduction to the life and work of Pope Benedict XVI and then presents an absorbing collection of his most persuasive words.
Within these pages, Pope Benedict XVI introduces a God who is good, beautiful, and true, the fountain of all life. The most important thing for each person, in Benedict’s view, is to discover and develop a loving relationship with God, because this is the way to the deepest and most lasting happiness that human beings can experience. Even in our darkest moments, he teaches, we can have hope that all things will ultimately work out in a wonderful way to show God’s glory and bring blessedness to individual men and women.
Many of these selections deal specifically with questions such as: Who is God? How we can know him? What does he wants us to do and to be? Having spent his entire life thinking, studying, and praying about such questions, Benedict has become perhaps the leading contemporary theologian (the word literally means “knower of God”) in the Roman Catholic Church. From his earliest work as a teacher to his first words as leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict’s vision of hope is powerfully summarized in Let God’s Light Shine Forth. Doubleday | Hardcover | June 2005
This book is the only existing biography of Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in southern Bavaria. Comprehensive in scope and intimate in content, it provides a vivid blow-by-blow of the controversies that have wracked the Catholic Church during the past twenty years: Liberation theology, birth control, women's ordination, inclusive language, "radical feminism," homosexuality, religious pluralism, human rights in the church, and the roles of bishops and theologians. One man has stood at the dead center of all these controversial issues: Joseph Ratzinger. A teenage American POW as the Third Reich crumbled and a progressive wunderkind at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger, for twenty years, has been head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (until 1908 known as the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, or Holy Office). The book goes a long way toward explaining the central enigma surrounding Ratzinger: How did this erstwhile liberal end up as the chief architect of the third great wave of repression in Catholic theology in the twentieth century? Based on extensive interviews with Ratzinger's students and colleagues, as well as research in archives in both Bavaria and the United States, Allen's account shows that Ratzinger's deep suspicion of "the world," his preoccupation with human sinfulness, and his demand for rock-solid loyalty to the church run deep. They reach into his childhood "in the shadow of the Nazis" and reflect his formative theological influences: Augustine, Bonaventure, and Martin Luther rather than the world-affirming Thomas Aquinas. In his words, Ratzinger affirms that “What the church needs today as always are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are not less than their passion for the truth; . . .men who love the church more than the ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny."-Joseph Ratzinger (1962) Hardcover 352 Pages Fall 2005
We long for connections in the midst of disconnected lives--connections to ourselves, to others, to the world we live in. Most of all we yearn to connect with the sacred. In The Circle of Life Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr invite us to listen carefully and closely to the wisdom of each season. Using reflections, poems, prayers, and meditations, they explore the relationship between the seasons of the earth and the seasons of our lives. The Circle of Life encourages readers to connect their experience of the unfolding seasons with inner spiritual growth and movement, and to know that the presence of God is within and around us all. Ave Maria Press Paperback, 288 Pages, Fall 2005.
When it comes to sin, no one's an innocent bystander. But do we really need to bring those sins to a priest in the sacrament of penance? Why? And what do priests think of the sacrament? Are they bored in the confessional? Distracted? Shocked by what they hear? Servant Books, Fall 2005 As The Untapped Power of the Sacrament of Penance makes clear, priests cherish the sacrament of reconciliation as a powerful movement of God's healing love. If you have abandoned the confessional out of fear or apathy or the conviction that you don't have any "real" sins to confess—or if you are merely a once- or twice-a-year penitent—this book will put you back on track. There's no time like the present to return to this remarkable source of God's mercy and grace.
In the last few years, the priesthood has been challenged by crisis and tension. Addressing this crisis, licensed psychologist and director of the Saint Luke Institute, Fr. Stephen Rossetti stresses that psychology can be effective in enriching the lives of priests, and the priesthood itself, if it works with a basis of spirituality. Rossetti invites priests to recognize the dignity of their calling through honest and psychologically based self-assessment because happiness in the priesthood flows from both wholeness and holiness.
Rossetti also highlights the need for systemic changes to coincide with personal conversions. He calls for a change in the culture of clerical life; emphasizes the need for greater accountability, openness and honesty on all levels; demands stronger relationships between bishops and priests; and suggests changes in seminary formation that will address the personal challenges faced by priests. Paperback 224 Pages Ave Maria Press Fall 2005. Quantity
Nothing but the truth. That's what Jesus promised when he told his apostles that after his death the Spirit of Truth would come upon them. Twenty-one centuries later, we might ask: What happened next? Did the Spirit descend? Did the Spirit stay? Is the Spirit with us today? If so, how does the Spirit guide the Church? Guide individual members of the Church? Guide the teaching authority of the Church? Will the Spirit ever leave the Church?
Fr. Apostoli, with pastoral sensitivity, helps the reader grasp the truth about the Spirit of Truth who leads the Church and each of us into the freedom won for us by Christ. Servant Books Fall 2005.
