The Operation of Grace collects a decade's worth of essays by Gregory Wolfe taken from the pages of Image, the literary journal he founded more than a quarter century ago. As he notes in the preface, his Image editorials, while they cover a wide range of topics, focus on the intersection of "art, faith, and mystery". Wolfe believes that art and religion, while hardly identical, offer illuminating analogies to one another - art deepening faith through the empathetic reach of the imagination and faith anchoring art in a vision beyond the artist's ego. Several essays dwell on how aesthetic values like ambiguity, tragedy, and beauty enlarge our understanding of the spiritual life. There are also a series of reflections that extend Wolfe's campaign to renew the neglected and often misunderstood tradition of Christian humanism. Finally, there are sections that contain more personal meditations arising from Wolfe's involvement in nurturing and promoting the work of emerging writers and artists. The Operation of Grace demonstrates once again why novelist Ron Hansen has spoken of Wolfe as "one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation".

A daily devotional reader to guide lovers of the Word through the forty days of Lent and Easter, rich with spiritual insight from leading Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox writers Explore the meaning of Lent, its importance in spiritual formation, its significance in the preparation for Easter, and throughout the holy season of Christ's Resurrection. Leading North American spiritual writers reflect on what one theologian has called the "bright sadness" of Lent: that it is not about feeling broken and lost, but about cleansing the palate so we can taste and live life more fully. During Lent and Easter, we encounter the God who in all of life is for us-for our liberation, for our healing, for our wholeness. Even in death we can find resurrection. In God For Us readers will find: - Daily readings with scriptures, meditations, and prayers, beautiful edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe - One beloved spiritual writer featured each week Introduction: Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI Shrove Tuesday and the First Week of Lent: Richard Rohr, OFM Second Week of Lent: Lauren F. Winner Third Week of Lent: Scott Cairns Fourth Week of Lent: James Schaap Fifth Week of Lent: Luci Shaw Holy Week and Easter: Kathleen Norris - Studies throughout the forty days on "The Feasts and Fasts of Lent" by Beth Bevis

The title, Violent Grace, suggests a paradox. This pairing has become an unexpected gateway into the astonishingly varied and prolific artistic career of Edward Knippers. Violence conjures images of aggression while grace has long been associated with beauty, poise, or an unmerited gift, perhaps even a kind of salvation. Within the ambiguity of this fertile paradox, the art of Edward Knippers-which can initially shock and disturb-opens up into something rich and rewarding. Our lives are reflected in the lives of his biblical characters; we understand their message in our own flesh and blood. Edward Knippers grapples with the perennial human questions embedded in the Bible-a strenuous effort never satisfied until it has extracted a blessing. This is the image of violent grace. Drawn into the wrestling match, we come away wounded-and blessed-by a passionate, unreasonable, overwhelming beauty.

Scott Cairns has carefully preserved every poem he's ever published that he cares to preserve. He's also added previously unpublished work, spanning three decades. A careful introduction by Gregory Wolfe and tribute preface by Richard Howard make this the ultimate collection of Cairns' work.

An anthology of stories exploring the spiritual realm, Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories From the Left Hand of God, will take us on a fascinating journey. Adventures in unorthodoxy, mysterious ways, moments of unbounded, unexpected grace. Things you might not read in Sunday School. The broad range of voices include those of John Dalton, Melanie Rae Thon, Erin McGraw, Alice Mattison, Alice Fulton, Lee Upton, Rose Rappoport Moss, Quinn Dalton, Jaimee Wriston Colbert, and a host of others.

In the second edition of "Sacred Passion," biographer Gregory Wolfe chronicles the artistic career of William Schickel (1919-2009) in the years since the original 1998 publication of this book by the University of Notre Dame Press. There are two new chapters, one on Schickel's recent contributions to the built environment in several communities, and the other on his recent paintings. There are 70 new color images, in addition to the 189 from the first edition, many of which have been replaced or enhanced.

William Schickel was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1919 and raised in Ithaca, New York. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1944. His graduation project was the sculptural fountain "Living Water," now in the university's grotto. In a consistently productive career spanning more than six decades, Schickel has combined his skills as a sculptor, architectural designer, furniture designer, stained-glass artist, and painter with his deep personal faith to bring a healing vision to a number of American communities. In addition to his many paintings and ritual arts creations, Schickel's public works include the renovation of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, for which he received the American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal Award; the Duchesne Memorial Shrine in St. Charles, Missouri; the Miami Valley Hospital Chapel in Dayton, Ohio; the "Rotunda of Creation" in the Cincinnati Center for Health and Wellness; the renovation of the Bellarmine Chapel in Cincinnati; the "Journeying with Christ" mural in the St. John Neumann Church in Canton, Michigan; and the Larry Hoffsis stained-glass window in the Epiphany Lutheran Church near Dayton, Ohio.

Celebrating an artist of extraordinary faith, power, creativity, and dedication, the second edition of "Sacred Passion" is a tribute to William Schickel and his achievements.

"Here is an object--a book, a text, a generous portrait in images--which speaks as a sacramental does, revealed here in the chiasmic crossing between the contemporary and the ageless revealed in William Schickel's paintings, stained glass, sculpture and architecture, interwoven with the brilliance and sensitivity of Greg Wolfe's text hovering over those images. Insofar as a book can introduce us to the three- and four-dimensional world of the sacred, this is that book. Light, stone, earth, air, fire, and water: all fused here in the alembic of the contemporary Catholic imagination." --Paul Mariani, Boston College

"One of my Franciscan Brothers used to say somewhat cynically to his high school students that art will not save your soul, but it can make your soul worth saving. I was reminded of these words in reading Gregory Wolfe's book on William Schickel. Wolfe's introduction to this important artist shows graphically how Schickel in all of his art, but especially in his public commissions, educates the heart by providing a sacred space where people are drawn together by the clean simplicity of his spaces and the images that he creates within those spaces. This is a book that itself educates the heart through its journey into the sacred passion of William Schickel." --Fr. Murray Bodo, OFM