Discover the Christian meaning in " The Hobbit. "
In " Bilbo\'s Journey " go beyond the dragons, dwarves, and elves, and discover the surprisingly deep meaning of J.R.R. Tolkien\'s classic novel " The Hobbit. "
Bilbo\'s quest to find and slay the dragon Smaug is a riveting tale of daring and heroism, but as renowned Tolkien scholar Joseph Pearce shows, it is not simply Bilbo\'s journey, it is our journey too.
It is the Christian journey of self-sacrifice out of love for others, and abandonment to providence and grace.
In " Bilbo\'s Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning of The Hobbit " you will relive the excitement of Tolkien\'s classic tale, while discovering the profound Christian meaning that makes " The Hobbit " a truly timeless adventure.

What message was the author of Acts seeking to convey, and what would the original audience have understood? How is God speaking to believers today through Acts as it has been used by the church throughout the centuries? In this addition to the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, respected New Testament scholar William Kurz offers a close reading and explanation of the entire narrative of Acts, grounded in the original Greek but keyed to the NABRE for liturgical use. This volume, like each in the series, relates Scripture to life, is faithfully Catholic, and is supplemented by features designed to help readers understand the Bible more deeply and use it more effectively.

A distinctive and modern telling of the history of the Society of Jesus in America The history of America cannot be told without the history of religion, the history of American religion cannot be told without the history of Catholicism, and the history of Catholicism in America cannot be told without the history of Jesuits in America. Jesuits in the United States offers a panoramic overview of the Jesuit order in the United States from the colonial era to the present. David J. Collins, SJ, describes the development of the Jesuit order in the US against the background of American religious, cultural, and social history. He investigates the relationship of Jesuit activities in America to those in Europe and, by the twentieth century, to those around the world as US Jesuits are increasingly assigned to “foreign missions” and the political and religious connections between the US and the world, especially Latin America, grow. He covers the papacy’s suppression of the order and its restoration period. He also reflects on the future of the order in light of its past. Readers familiar with the Jesuit tradition and those who are new to it will learn from this book’s distinctive and modern perspective—using twenty-first century scholarship and opinions on Jesuit slaveholding, the sexual abuse crisis, and other contemporary issues—on 500 years of Jesuit history in the United States.

Popular Catholic blogger and speaker Reinhard offers the first book to accompany expectant mothers from conception to baptism with weekly reflections and prayers rooted in the mysteries of the Rosary and related to the baby's physical development.

For centuries, Catholics in the Western world and the Orthodox in Russia have venerated certain saints as martyrs. In many cases, both churches recognize as martyrs the same individuals who gave their lives for Jesus Christ. On the surface, it appears that while the external liturgical practices of Catholics and Russian Orthodox may vary, the fundamental theological understanding of what it means to be a martyr, and what it means to canonize a saint, are essentially the same. But are they? In Making Martyrs East and West, Caridi examines how the practice of canonization developed in the West and in Russia, focusing on procedural elements that became established requirements for someone to be recognized as a saint and a martyr. She investigates whether the components of the canonization process now regarded as necessary by the Catholic Church are fundamentally equivalent to those of the Russian Orthodox Church and vice versa, while exploring the possibility that the churches use the same terminology and processes but in fundamentally different ways that preclude the acceptance of one church's saints by the other. Caridi examines official church documents and numerous canonization records, collecting and analyzing information from several previously untapped medieval Russian sources. Her highly readable study is the first to focus on the historical documentation on canonization specifically for juridical significance. It will appeal to scholars of religion and church history, as well as ecumenicists, liturgists, canonists, and those interested in East-West ecumenical efforts.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is a powerful little booklet filled with many of the treasures to be found in the veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Besides containing an explanation of the symbolism found within the Image of the Sacred Heart, it also includes explanations of the 9 First Fridays devotion, known as The Great Promise, the miraculous cure of St. Gemma Galgani as well as many profound exhortations to offer reparation to the Sacred Heart.
Authoritative and moving, Our Lord instituted this devotion Himself, saying: \" I set neither limit nore measure to My gifts of grace for those who seek them in My heart.\"
In our age of religious indifference, when fervor and charity have grown cold, Jesus exhibits to the world His Sacred Heart as the symbol of God s infinite love showing His Divine Heart as a furnace whose burning rays of love are able to reanimate faith and rekindle love in hearts grown cold and ungrateful pg. 4-5

Independent Catholics are not formally connected to the pope in Rome. They practice apostolic succession, seven sacraments, and devotion to the saints. But without a pope, they can change quickly and experiment freely, with some affirming communion for the divorced, women's ordination, clerical marriage, and same-sex marriage. From their early modern origins in the Netherlands to their contemporary proliferation in the United States, these "other Catholics" represent an unusually liberal, mobile, and creative version of America's largest religion. In The Other Catholics, Julie Byrne shares the remarkable history and current activity of independent Catholics, who number at least two hundred communities and a million members across the United States. She focuses in particular on the Church of Antioch, one of the first Catholic groups to ordain women in modern times. Through archival documents and interviews, Byrne tells the story of the unforgettable leaders and surprising influence of these understudied churches, which, when included in Catholic history, change the narrative arc and total shape of modern Catholicism. As Pope Francis fights to soften Roman doctrines with a pastoral touch and his fellow Roman bishops push back with equal passion, independent Catholics continue to leap ahead of Roman reform, keeping key Catholic traditions but adding a progressive difference.

The Unknown Relatives analyses a large body of Victorian literary texts dealing with the topic of Catholicism and Catholics, written from the non-Catholic perspective. The readings of these texts are inspired by psychoanalytic criticism, primarily by the work of Freud and Kristeva. Kristeva's work on abjection, the paradoxical repulsion mixed with attraction, provides the framework for the first part of the book, which argues that Victorian depictions of Catholicism exhibit the same mixture of fascination and attraction. The second part of the book is constructed largely around Freud's idea of the uncanny, showing how Catholicism was cast in the role of the archaic religion, profoundly strange and yet at the same time somehow familiar. The book includes the readings of a number of Victorian authors, both canonical (Charlotte Bronte, William Thackeray, Charles Dickens) and lesser-known ones (George Borrow, John Shorthouse, Mrs Humphry Ward). The book will be of interest to scholars of cultural, literary and religious studies, as well as to readers interested in the matters of religion in literature and religious prejudice.

Ordinary Christology is defined as the account of who Jesus was/is and what he did/does that is given by Christian believers who have received no formal theological education. In this fascinating study Ann Christie analyses, and offers a theological appraisal, of the main christologies and soteriologies operating in a sample of ordinary churchgoers. Christie highlights the formal characteristics of ordinary Christology and raises questions about how we should respond to the beliefs about Jesus held by ordinary churchgoers. Empirical findings have important pastoral, theological, and missiological implications, and raise important questions about the importance (or otherwise) of 'right' belief for being Christian. This book presents a model for how the study of ordinary theology can be conducted, with the in-depth theological analysis and critique which it both requires and deserves.

In a culture obsessed with law, judgment, and violence, this book challenges Christians to remember that Jesus urged his followers to judge no one, bring harm upon no one, and follow no law save the law of altruistic love. It traces Christian history first to show that Christians of an earlier age took very seriously the gospel injunctions against punitive legal judgment and then how the advent of formal legal codes and philosophical dualism undermined that perspective to create a division between a private Christian spirituality and a public morality of order and legally sanctioned violence. This historical approach is accompanied by an argument that the recovery of a Christian ethic based upon unconditional love and forgiveness cannot be accomplished without the renewal of a Christian spirituality that mirrors the contemplative spirituality of Jesus.

Hunt examines the apparent paradox that Jesus' earthly existence and post resurrection appearances are experienced through consummately physical actions and attributes yet some ascetics within the Christian tradition appear to seek to deny the value of the human body, to find it deadening of spiritual life. Hunt considers why the Christian tradition as a whole has rarely managed more than an uneasy truce between the physical and the spiritual aspects of the human person. Why is it that the 'Church' has energetically argued, through centuries of ecumenical councils, for the dual nature of Christ but seems still unwilling to accept the full integration of physical and spiritual within humanity, despite Gregory of Nazianzus's comment that 'what has not been assumed has not been redeemed'?

Karl Barth is widely considered the greatest theologian of the Twentieth Century, exerting a major influence in almost every area of theological thought in both Reformation and Roman Catholic traditions. Ecclesial Mediation in Karl Barth deals with one of the most important and controversial themes in Barth's theology, the relation between divine and human action. John Yocum argues that Barth's late rejection of the concept of sacrament, explicated in the final volume of his Church Dogmatics, is not only at odds with his account of the nature and importance of sacraments presented earlier in the Church Dogmatics but subverts important elements of his theology as a whole especially the mediation of divine grace in preaching and the Bible. Bringing Barth into fruitful dialogue with Yves Congar, Yocum contends that the notion of sacrament is crucial to an account of the divine-human relation that respects the character of both agents.

Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life is the response, at long last, to Evelyn Waugh's call, in 1935, for a 'scholarly biography' to replace Richard Simpson's Edmund Campion (1867). Whereas early accounts of his life focused on the execution of the Jesuit priest, this new biography presents a more balanced assessment, placing equal weight on Campion's London upbringing among printers and preachers, and on his growing stature as an orator in an Oxford riven with religious divisions. Ireland, chosen by Campion as a haven from religious conflict, is shown, paradoxically, to have determined his life and his death. Gerard Kilroy here draws on newly discovered manuscript sources to reveal Campion as a charismatic and affectionate scholar who was finding fulfilment as priest and teacher in Prague when he was summoned to lead the first Jesuit mission to England. The book argues that the delays in his long journey suggest reluctant acceptance, even before he was told that Dr Nicholas Sander had brought 'holy war' to Ireland, so that Campion landed in an England that was preparing for papal invasion. The book offers fresh insights into the dramatic search for Campion, the populist nature of the disputations in the Tower, and the legal issues raised by his torture. It was the monarchical republic itself that, in pursuit of the Anjou marriage, made him the beloved 'champion' of the English Catholic community. Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life presents the most detailed and comprehensive picture to date of an historical figure whose loyalty and courage, in the trial and on the scaffold, swiftly became legendary across Europe.

With a focus on seven Jesuit university leaders emeriti and the late University of Notre Dame President Father Theodore Hesburgh, this book offers a critical analysis of the common values, philosophies, and leadership practices of Jesuit-Catholic university presidents within the broader higher education context. Looking at the impact of these leaders' spirituality on their leadership styles, The Hermeneutics of Jesuit Leadership illuminates the influence of their common perspectives and leadership styles on university policy and culture. Offering a clear framework for Jesuit-Catholic organizational culture in higher education, the author explores the key lessons and practices that can be derived from the presidents' similar leadership ideals and qualities.

An Exploration of the extent and limitations of Papal power in the period after the Council of Trent in the mid-Sixteenth century, during the 'long' history of the Counter-Reformation. Europe and the wider world were religiously divided in the build-up to the French revolution. The book Challenges the view that the development of Papal authority during this period simply reflected the 'Absolutism' of secular governments of the European Ancien regime. Examines multiple commitments of the Popes of this period, including: the Bishop of Rome, Metropolitan of the Roman Ecclesiastical Province, Primatial Leader of the Italian Church, Patriarchal of the Catholic Church in Western Europe, Supreme Pontiff, Ruler of the Papal States in Central Italy. For anyone interested in religious history, history of the Catholic Church, Italian history or Early Modern European History. Also available in Cloth: 0-582-087481 $79.95.

With humour and simple illustrations, theology professor John Bergsma focuses on Matthew, Luke, Paul, and John, whose writings comprise about 90 percent of the New Testament. The gospel of Matthew, written for Jewish Christians, illuminates the life and teachings of Christ as the long-promised Messiah. In Luke's gospel, readers will delve into the infancy and Triduum narratives, as well as the Acts of the Apostles and the life of the early Church. This leads the reader to discover St. Paul and his first and arguably greatest theological treatise: Romans. Finally, "the beloved apostle" St. John draws us in to the unsurpassed beauty of the fourth gospel, as well as the most mysterious book of the New Testament: the book of Revelation. A concluding chapter offers suggestions for further study.

Catholicism has had an important place in Macau since the earliest days of Portuguese colonization in the sixteenth century. This book, based on extensive original research including in-depth interviews, examines in detail the everyday life of Catholics in Macau at present. It outlines the tremendous societal pressures which Macau is currently undergoing - sovereignty handover and its consequences, the growth of casinos and tourism and the transformation of a serene and somewhat obscure colony into a vibrantly developing city. It shows how, although the formal structures of Catholicism no longer share in rule by the colonial power, and although formal religious observance is declining, nevertheless the personal piety and ethical religious outlook of individual Catholics continue to be strong, and have a huge, and possibly increasing, impact on public life through the application of personal religious ethics to issues of human rights and social justice and in the fields of education and social services.