Presents the late Cardinal's personal reflections on themes such as prayer, solitude, and living the Christian life today. A beautiful book with full colour photographs.

We often hear of the lack of and the need for, strong role models in our society. This worship service, about 10 biblical women who overcame seemingly impossible situations by being faithful to God, provides just such role models, The traumatic experiences and depths of faith of these women, though poignant, are rarely considered in today's society.
These 10 women came from various levels of society and had different types of problems. Yet, they all knew God as their only hope and refuge. An excellent resource for Mother's Day, it is also great for other special occasions.
Characters included are:
- Hagar
- Sarah
- Moses' mother
- Rahab
- Deborah
- Naomi and Ruth
- Hannah
- Esther
- Elizabeth
Lynda Pujado is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and has also studied at Moody Bible Institute and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She has taught in schools in England and Spain as well as the United States. She currently resides in Palatine, Illinois, with her family.

The doctrine and history of the 7 Sacraments. Covers Indulgences and Sacramentals. Topics include the Scriptural background of the Sacraments, their institution by Christ, essential requirements for receiving them, their effects in the soul, etc.

A Journey to Becoming This beautiful guided companion to Ruth Chou Simons' Beholding and Becoming: The Art of Everyday Worship is a thoughtfully designed way to engage in deliberate soul-work-to linger longer in God's Word and reflect on developing a deeper relationship with the Savior. This companion will guide you on a journey of becoming more like Christ as you behold Him in your daily life: 144 pages of insightful study questions with room for notes to prompt personal growth 50 scripture verses featured to encourage you to meditate and reflect on God's work in your everyday life Ruth's intricate and uplifting hand-painted artwork on every page Whether used on its own or alongside Becoming and Beholding, this companion creates space for God's Word to transform your life as you direct your heart toward worship in the everyday moments of life.

A journey of the soul through the map of Christian time.

The liturgical year, beginning on the first Sunday of Advent and carrying through the following November, is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ.

What may at first seem to be simply an arbitrary arrangement of ancient holy days, or liturgical seasons, this book explains their essential relationship to one another and their ongoing meaning to us today. It is an excursion into life from the Christian perspective, from the viewpoint of those who set out not only to follow Jesus but to live and think as Jesus did.

And it proposes to help us to year after year immerse ourselves into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are--followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God. It is an adventure in human growth; it is an exercise in spiritual ripening.

A volume in the eight book classic series, "The Ancient Practices, " with a foreword by Phyllis Tickle, General Editor.

Staking out new territory in the history of art, this book presents a compelling argument for a lost link between the panel-painting tradition of Greek antiquity and Christian paintings of Byzantium and the Renaissance. While art historians place the origin of icons in the seventh century, Thomas F. Mathews finds strong evidence as early as the second century in the texts of Irenaeus and the Acts of John that describe private Christian worship. In closely studying an obscure set of sixty neglected panel paintings from Egypt in Roman times, the author explains how these paintings of the Egyptian gods offer the missing link in the long history of religious painting. Christian panel paintings and icons are for the first time placed in a continuum with the pagan paintings that preceded them, sharing elements of iconography, technology, and religious usages as votive offerings.Exciting discoveries punctuate the narrative: the technology of the triptych, enormously popular in Europe, traced by the authors to the construction of Egyptian portable shrines, such as the Isis and Serapis of the J. Paul Getty Museum; the discovery that the egg tempera painting medium, usually credited to Renaissance artistCimabue, has been identified in Egyptian panels a millennium earlier; and the reconstruction of a ring of icons on the chancel of Saint Sophia in Istanbul.This book will be a vital addition to the fields ofEgyptian, Greco-Roman, and late antique art history and, more generally, to the history of painting.

Robert Frykenberg's insightful study explores and enhances historical understandings of Christian communities, cultures, and institutions within the Indian world from their beginnings down to the present. As one out of several manifestations of a newly emerging World Christianity, in which Christians of a Post-Christian West are a minority, it has focused upon those trans-cultural interactions within Hindu and Muslim environments which have made Christians in this part of the world distinctive. It seeks to uncover various complexities in the proliferation of Christianity in its many forms and to examine processes by which Christian elements intermingled with indigenous cultures and which resulted in multiple identities, and also left imprints upon various cultures of India.
Thomas Christians believe that the Apostle Thomas came to India in 52 A.D./C.E., and that he left seven congregations to carry on the Mission of bringing the Gospel to India. In our day the impulse of this Mission is more alive than ever. Catholics, in three hierarchies, have become most numerous; and various Evangelicals/Protestant communities constitute the third great tradition. With the rise of Pentecostalism, a fourth great wave of Christian expansion in India has occurred. Starting with movements that began a century ago, there are now ten to fifteen times more missionaries than ever before, virtually all of them Indian. Needless to say, Christianity in India is profoundly Indian and Frykenberg provides a fascinating guide to its unique history and practice.

Best-selling Catholic author Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle encourages Catholic families to reclaim a significant tradition: setting apart Sundays as a day of worship, true rest, teaching, and simply spending precious time together. In fifty-two creative chapters Donna-Marie presents fun and meaningful ideas for all fifty-two weeks of the year inspired by the seasons (both natural and liturgical), holidays, Saints days, and holy Scripture, to help keep Sundays holy, just as God said we should!

First published in 1978 and hailed by "Culture" as constituting "an important foreshadowing of issues that have become prominent in more recent anthropology," this classic book, now updated and extensively revised, examines the theological doctrines and popular notions that promote and sustain Christian pilgrimage, including their corresponding symbols and images.

Musical activity is one of the most ubiquitous and highly valued forms of social interaction in North America (to say nothing of world over), being engaged from sporting events to political rallies, concerts to churches. Moreover, music's use as an affective agent for political and religious programs suggests that it has ethical significance. Indeed, many have said as much. It is surprising then that music's ethical significance remains one of the most undertheorized aspects of both moral philosophy and music scholarship. Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music fills part of this scholarly gap by focusing on the religious aspects of musical activity, particularly on the practices of Christian communities. Based on ethnomusicological fieldwork at three Protestant churches and a group of seminary students studying in an immersion course at South by Southwest (SXSW), and synthesizing theories of discourse, formation, and care ethics oriented towards restorative justice, it first argues that relationships are ontological for both human beings and musical activity. It further argues that musical meaning and emotion converge in human bodies such that music participates in personal and communal identity construction in affective ways-yet these constructions are not always just. Thus, considering these aspects of music's ways of being in the world, Music for Others finally argues that music is ethical when it preserves people in and restores people to just relationships with each other, and thereby with God.

Although objects associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ are among the most important and sacred relics venerated by the Catholic Church, this is the first study that considers how they were presented to the faithful. Cynthia Hahn adopts an accessible, informative, and holistic approach to the important history of Passion relics-first the True Cross, and then the collective group of Passion relics-examining their display in reliquaries, their presentation in church environments, their purposeful collection as centerpieces in royal and imperial collections, and finally their veneration in pictorial form as Arma Christi. Tracing the ways that Passion relics appear and disappear in response to Christian devotion and to historical phenomena, ranging from pilgrimage and the Crusades to the promotion of imperial power, this groundbreaking investigation presents a compelling picture of a very important aspect of late medieval and early modern devotion.

One of the world's foremost spiritual guides responds to the modern hunger for self-awareness and holistic living with a series of spiritual exercises blending psychology, spiritual therapy, and practices drawn from both Eastern and Western traditions of meditation.

In Erzahlte Bewegung. Narrationsstrategien und Funktionsweisen lateinischer Pilgertexte (4.-15. Jahrhundert), Susanna Fischer analyzes the function and structure of the genre of pilgrimage narratives from a literary point of view. The first part of the book is devoted to theoretical reflections and a systematic analysis of characteristic elements of pilgrimage narratives. Interpreting the texts from a narrative perspective, she focuses not only on formal characteristics but also on narrative structures and thus takes a closer look at the poetics of pilgrimage narratives. Through the detailed analysis of fourteen Latin texts about pilgrimage to the Holy Land from the 4th to the 15th century, she illustrates the development of a literary tradition with specific structural, stylistic and narrative characteristics. See inside the book.

Pam Rhodes is a passionate advocate for our heritage of splendid hymns. Hymns, she explains, help us respond to God: they are "prayers in our pockets". With her warm personal touch she describes how these hymns came to be written, and considers the perceptions they contain. This book is a treasury of fascinating detail, but it is also a source of devotion: as you consider each hymn and the story behind it you will be drawn into worship. Each reflection concludes with a short prayer.

In this delightful sleigh ride through Christmas history, Paul Kerensa answers the festive questions you never thought to ask... Did Cromwell help shape the mince pie? Was St Nicholas the first to use an automatic door? Which classic Christmas crooners were inspired by a Hollywood heatwave? And did King Herod really have a wife called Doris? Whether you mull on wine or enjoy the biggest turkey, the biggest tree or the biggest credit card bill, unwrap your story through our twelve dates of Christmas past. From Roman revelry to singing Bing, via Santa, Scrooge and a snoozing saviour, this timeless tale is perfect trivia fodder for the Christmas dinner table.

In Christmas as Religion, Christopher Deacy explores the premise that religion plays an elementary role in our understanding of the Christmas festival, but takes issue with much of the existing literature which is inclined to limit the contours and parameters of 'religion' to particular representations and manifestations of institutional forms of Christianity. 'Religion' is often tacitly identified as having an ecclesiastical frame of reference, so that if the Church is not deemed to play a central role in the practice of Christmas for many people today then it can legitimately be side-lined and relegated to the periphery of any discussion relating to what Christmas 'means'. Deacy argues that such approaches fail to take adequate stock of the manifold ways in which people's beliefs and values take shape in modern society. For example, Christmas films or radio programmes may comprise a non-specifically Christian, but nonetheless religiously rich, repository of beliefs, values, sentiments and aspirations. Therefore, this book makes the case for laying to rest the secularization thesis, with its simplistic assumption that religion in Western society is undergoing a period of escalating and irrevocable erosion, and to see instead that the secular may itself be a repository of the religious. Rather than see Christmas as comprising alternative or analogous forms of religious expression, or dependent on any causal relationship to the Christian tradition, Deacy maintains that it is religious per se, and, moreover, it is its very secularity that makes Christmas such a compelling, and even transcendent, religious holiday.