'These prayers help me to pray... All prayer is talking to God as to a friend, and it is God's closest friends who can teach me how to do that best.' Timothy Radcliffe OPThis treasury of prayers for the Third Christian Millennium offers practical spiritual guidance for an increasingly busy world.The late Cardinal Basil Hume, in his Introduction, writes that the need for us to be people of prayer has never been more urgent. We know that unless we are deeply rooted in a sense of God's presence and able to refer all things to God, then our pilgrimage into the future will be marked more by uncertainty than by the peace which is God's gift.The book's extensive range includes favourite Catholic prayers such as the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross, along with others that may be less familiar, organized under many different themes and topics. Helpful introductions and a pattern of daily prayers make this book nothing less than a course in Christian spirituality.The book is for people approaching Christian prayer for the first time, and also for those who want to begin afresh. It will be especially helpful to young people, and the parents and teachers who want to help them learn to pray in the living tradition of the Church.

Mark W. Roche presents a clear, precise, and positive view of the challenge and promise of a Catholic university. Roche makes visible the ideal of a Catholic university and illuminates in original ways the diverse, but interconnected, dimensions of Catholic identity. Roche's vision of the distinct intellectual mission of a Catholic university will appeal to Catholics as well as to persons who are not Catholic but who may recognize through this essay the unexpected allure of a Catholic university.

As the first comprehensive monograph on the relations between the Catholic Church and the European Union, this book contains both a detailed historical overview of the political ties between the two complex institutions and a theoretical analysis of their normative orders and mutual interactions.

In 1981, six children in the small village of Medjugorje claimed that Our Lady had appeared to them. Since then millions of pilgrims have traveled from across the world to pray in this special place. In conversation with Finbar O'Leary, Vicka, one of the six, tells of her special relationship with Our Lady and relays many of the messages which she says the `Queen of Peace' has given to her. Vicka also discusses her own sufferings and the journeys on which Our Lady has brought her.

Erich Przywara, S.J. (1889-1972) is one of the important Catholic intellectuals of the twentieth century. Yet, in the English-speaking world Przywara remains largely unknown. Few of his sixty books or six hundred articles have been translated. In this engaging new book, Thomas O'Meara offers a comprehensive study of the German Jesuit Erich Przywara and his philosophical theology.

Przywara's scholarly contributions were remarkable. He was one of three theologians who introduced the writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman into Germany. From his position at the Jesuit journal in Munich, Stimmen der Zeit, he offered an open and broad Catholic perspective on the cultural, philosophical, and theological currents of his time. As one of the first Catholic intellectuals to employ the phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, he was also responsible for giving an influential, more theological interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola.

Przywara was also deeply engaged in the ideas and authors of his times. He was the first Catholic dialogue partner of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. Edmund Husserl was counted among Przywara's friends, and Edith Stein was a close personal and intellectual companion. Through his interactions with important figures of his age and his writings, ranging from speculative systems to liturgical hymns, Przywara was of marked importance in furthering a varied dialogue between German Catholicism and modern culture.

Following a foreword by Michael Fahey, O'Meara presents a chapter on Pryzwara's life and a chronology of his writings. O'Meara then discusses Pryzwara's philosophical theology, his lecture-courses at German universities on Augustineand Aquinas, his philosophy of religion, and his influence on important intellectual contemporaries. O'Meara concludes with an in-depth analysis of Pryzwara's theology -- focusing particularly on his Catholic views of person, liturgy, and church.

A monumental project which brings the English-speaking work key selections from the remarkable literature of early Christianity -- vertiable trasures of Christian faith and theology in superb translations.

The recovery of nature has been a unifying and enduring aim of the writings of Ralph McInerny, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, director of the Jacques Maritain Center, former director of the Medieval Institute, and author of numerous works in philosophy, literature, and journalism. While many of the fads that have plagued philosophy and theology during the last half-century have come and gone, recent developments suggest that McInerny's commitment to Aristotelian-Thomism was boldly, if quietly, prophetic. In his persistent, clear, and creative defenses of natural theology and natural law, McInerny has appealed to nature to establish a dialogue between theists and non-theists, to contribute to the moral and political renewal of American culture, and particularly to provide some of the philosophical foundations for Catholic theology.

This volume brings together essays by an impressive group of scholars, including William Wallace, O.P., Jude P. Dougherty, John Haldane, Thomas DeKoninck, Alasdair MacIntyre, David Solomon, Daniel McInerny, Janet E. Smith, Michael Novak, Stanley Hauerwas, Laura Garcia, Alvin Plantinga, Alfred J. Freddoso, and David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

On the night of November 4th 1605, the English authorities uncovered an alleged plot by a group of discontented Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament with the lords, princes, queen and king in attendance. The failure of the plot is celebrated to this day and is known as Guy Fawkes Day. In Poets, Players and Preachers, Anne James explores the literary responses to the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in poetry, drama, and sermons. This book is the first full-length study of the literary repercussions of the conspiracy. By analyzing the genres of poems, plays, and sermons produced between 1605 and 1688, the author argues that not only did the continuous reinterpretation of the conspiracy serve religious and political purposes but that such literary reinterpretations produced generic changes.

This book considers the ideological development of English Catholicism in the sixteenth century, from the complementary perspectives of history, theology, and literature. Wooding shows that Catholicism in this period was neither a defunct tradition, nor one merely reacting to Protestantism, but a vigorous intellectual movement responding to the reformist impulse of the age. Her study makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of the Reformation.

In early Victorian England there was intense interest in understanding the early Church as an inspiration for contemporary sanctity. This was manifested in a surge in archaeological inquiry and also in the construction of new churches using medieval models. Some Anglicans began to use a much more complicated form of ritual involving vestments, candles, and incense. This "Anglo-Catholic" movement was vehemently opposed by evangelicals and dissenters, who saw this as the vanguard of full-blown "popery." The disputed buildings, objects, and art works were regarded by one side as idolatrous and by the other as sacred and beautiful expressions of devotion. Dominic Janes seeks to understand the fierce passions that were unleashed by the contended practices and artifacts - passions that found expression in litigation, in rowdy demonstrations, and even in physical violence. During this period, Janes observes, the wider culture was preoccupied with the idea of pollution caused by improper sexuality. The Anglo-Catholics had formulated a spiritual ethic that linked goodness and beauty. Their opponents saw this visual worship as dangerously sensual. In effect, this sacred material culture was seen as a sexual fetish. The origins of this understanding, Janes shows, lay in radical circles, often in the context of the production of anti-Catholic pornography which titillated with the contemplation of images of licentious priests, nuns, and monks.

Abbo of Fleury was a prominent churchman of late tenth-century France--abbot of a major monastery, leader in the revival of learning in France and England, and the subject of a serious work of hagiography. Elizabeth Dachowski's study presents a coherent picture of this multifaceted man with an emphasis on his political alliances and the political considerations that colored his earliest biographical treatment. Unlike previous studies, Dachowski's book examines the entire career of Abbo, not just his role as abbot of Fleury. When viewed as a whole, Abbo's life demonstrates his devotion to the cause of pressing for monastic prerogatives in a climate of political change. Abbo's career vividly illustrates how the early Capetian kings and the French monastic communities began the symbiotic relationship that replaced the earlier Carolingian models. Despite a stormy beginning, Abbo had, by the time of his death, developed a mutually beneficial working relationship with the Capetian kings and had used papal prerogatives to give the abbey of Fleury a preeminent place among reformed monasteries of northern France. Thus, the monks of Fleury had strong incentives for portraying the early years of Abbo's abbacy as relatively free from conflict with the monarchy. Previous lives of Abbo have largely followed the view put forward by his first biographer, Aimoinus of Fleury, who wrote the Vita sancti Abbonis within a decade of Abbo's death. While Aimoinus clearly understood Abbo's goals and the importance of his accomplishment, he also had several other agendas, including a glossing over of earlier and later conflicts at Fleury and validation of an even closer (and more subservient) relationship with the Capetian monarchs under Abbo's successor, Gaulzin of Fleury. Abbo's achievements set the stage for the continuing prosperity and influence of Fleury but at the expense of Fleury's independence from the monarchy. With Abbo's death, the monastery's relationship with the French crown grew even closer, though Fleury continued to maintain its independence from the episcopacy.