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The prayer of the heart is one of the dearest treasures of Christianity. It transforms any prayer by the fire of God's love, allowing for an immersion in Christ whereby He is able to communicate to us the Holy Spirit. In his new book Praying with the Heart: The Little Way to Jesus, Jean Khoury entrusts to us the secret of the sustainable and successful way of practicing prayer of the heart. While remaining rooted in the living Tradition, the book offers new and abundant practical insights as well, making it a useful contemporary manual to this ancient spiritual practice. No Christian who loves Jesus and longs for the Holy Spirit should ignore this fruitful means of prayer. Jean Khoury obtained his BA in Philosophy and MA in Spiritual Theology from the Institut Catholique de Toulouse and the Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum. He is currently completing his PhD in Spiritual Theology at the Angelicum, Rome. Through his work and writing, Jean has become a respected authority on mysticism and the spiritual life. He has lectured and led retreats throughout the world, and in 2003 founded the School of Mary to promote formation in the spiritual life.

This is the time for a new politics, a new economics. Not As the World Gives, drawing on the Church's two millennia of reflection on the Gospel, especially in the encyclicals from Rerum Novarum to Centesimus Annus, shows us the nature of society by showing us ourselves. We are beings created to give and receive -- called to "walk towards the true freedom that Christ taught us in the Beatitudes," as Pope Francis expressed it. There is no peace without justice, but neither can there be justice without love. Far from being an impractical dream, Catholic social doctrine can transform the way we work, the way we govern, and the way we treat the natural world. What emerges from this sequel to the author's The Radiance of Being is a vision of integration and wholeness, a society both divine and human, and a "humanism open to the absolute."

The history of education can easily be described as theme and variation on one motif: reform. From Plato's critique of the Sophists in Protagoras to John Henry Newman's considerations of education in The Idea of a University in 1854, from the educational projects of Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, and Loris Malaguzzi in the 20th century to Kieran Egan's call for a reimagination of education in the 21st, educators and philosophers have regularly turned to two fundamental questions: "What is the purpose of an education?" and "How is it to be achieved?" This is the essence of Friedrich Schiller's letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man. For Schiller, the salvation of education--and of man--lies in the realization of Beauty. Only Beauty, in his thought, has the ability to ennoble both thinking and sentiment, and only Beauty can allow the human person to awaken what he calls the "play impulse," which manifests itself as "the extinction of time in time and the reconciliation of becoming and absolute being, of variation with identity" (Fourteenth Letter). Play is important to Schiller because play returns the human person to himself: "For, to declare once and for all, Man plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man, and he is only wholly Man when he is playing" (Fifteenth Letter). It is important in times such as ours that we turn to philosophies of education that emphasize not the utilitarian desires of governments and corporations but the simultaneously transcendent and immanent qualities that reveal to us what it is to be human. Friedrich Schiller's letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man is such a text. Schiller does not provide us with a pedagogical strategy, nor does he offer us a definitive answer as to what such an aesthetic education would look like. But he does indicate where we should seek the right kinds of questions. (From the Foreword.)

Michael Martin's Meditations in Times of Wonder is a collection of what might be called "postmodern metaphysical poetry." It inhabits a space characterized by love and anger, by pathos and laughter, by perplexity and grace. "Michael Martin's poetry, like that of St. John of the Cross, is animated by a true mysticism which penetrates the mist of mystery and heals the schism that rends faith from reason." -- Joseph Pearce "Meditations in Times of Wonder hums the harmonies between the mundane and transcendent, between the natural and the divine, between time-bound and timeless truths. The effect of many of the poems is that of a Pre-Raphaelite painting -- rich, allusive, nourishing, and evocative." -- Karen Swallow Prior

Life's Journey is a rich exploration not only of biology but also of the meaning of life and death. In addition to guiding the reader through the biological milestones marking a lifetime, the book is also a philosophical pursuit of the Great Questions that accompany our journey through life. Gerard Verschuuren describes in fascinating detail the six main phases of that journey: conception, life in the womb, infancy and childhood, adulthood, old age, and natural death. If you have children going through earlier phases, or parents experiencing later phases, this book offers a wealth of helpful information on what to expect. And if you are anxious to know what lies ahead on your own path, Life's Journey is invaluable in preparing for any number of possibilities. This unique guide will enable you to better understand your children, spouse, parents, friends, and ultimately, yourself. "Readers who seek to better understand the interplay between science and human nature need look no further. Gerard Verschuuren expertly explains the basic science of the physical body and its various growth and maturation processes from conception through death. Then, as philosopher and observer of human nature, he overlays the biological 'facts' with aspects of ourselves not easily explained--and even sometimes rejected--by science, that equally contribute to understanding the human organism."--RONALD S. ARELLANO, M.D., Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School "In this new book, Gerard Verschuuren wields his extensive experience as both geneticist and philosopher to take us on an informative odyssey from nascent human life to old age and beyond. Presenting the most up-to-date scientific facts in engaging prose, Verschuuren then guides us 'behind the scenes' to ask such probing questions as 'is the brain a computer?' and 'what are addictions if we have free will?'"--PAUL J. CAMARATA, M.D., FACS, Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Kansas School of Medicine "Modern scientific advances have led to an unprecedented understanding of the mechanisms at work in the human body, its beginning, development, and decline: the 'what' of human beings. In Life's Journey, Gerard Verschuuren engagingly reviews the biological facts, but also shows how they point to a non-material basis for the irreplaceable and unrepeatable 'who' of human beings. Over and over again in these pages the author demonstrates the absurdity of materialistic and deterministic explanations of who we are."--OSWALDO CASTRO, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Howard University College of Medicine "Dr. Verschuuren's book on human development presents the human life cycle in a holistic manner compatible with the best of Western scientific, philosophical, and theological thought. His approach steers clear of the irrationality of Scientism and restores the study of the sciences to its rightful position as the modern heir to Natural Philosophy. I highly recommend this book for inquisitive minds open to a non-dualistic view of the universe in general and of human life in particular."--JOHN I. LANE, M.D., Professor of Radiology, Mayo Medical School GERARD M. VERSCHUUREN is a human geneticist who also earned a doctorate in the philosophy of science. Now semi-retired, he spends most of his time as a writer, speaker, and consultant on the interface of science and religion, creation and evolution, faith and reason. His most recent books include What Makes You Tick?: A New Paradigm for Neuroscience (Solas Press, 2012); The Destiny of the Universe: In Pursuit of the Great Unknown (Paragon House, 2014); and Five Anti-Catholic Myths: Slavery, Crusades, Inquisition, Galileo, Holocaust (Angelico Press, 2015).

Plato is the first scientist whose work we still possess. He is our first writer to interpret the natural world mathematically, and also the first theorist of mathematics in the natural sciences. As no one else before or after, he set out why we should suppose a link between nature and mathematics, a link that has never been stronger than it is today. Mathematical Plato examines how Plato organized and justified the principles, terms, and methods of our mathematical, natural science. "Roger Sworder deserves our gratitude for drawing attention to the significance of mathematics in Plato's thought and writings. He lays the principal discussions out before us with clarity. He also presents Plato as a theorist of nature: of physics and not just metaphysics, to use Aristotle's distinction. Not all readers, we should admit, will be equally convinced of the usefulness of Plato's science for today, but they will all be led more deeply into Plato's vision of reality."--ANDREW DAVISON, Westcott House, Cambridge "Here is Plato for an anti-Platonic age. The author gives careful attention to some of the most important passages in the Platonic dialogues and offers new solutions to some of Plato's most famous mathematical puzzles. He then considers the implications of these penetrating studies for the philosophy of science, and the natural sciences especially. This is a book that revivifies the core themes of Platonism and restores science to worship. It shows Roger Sworder to be one of the foremost students of Plato writing today, and places him in the noble tradition of Thomas Taylor."--RODNEY BLACKHIRST, author of Primordial Alchemy and Modern Religion: Essays on Traditional Cosmology

Glastonbury Abbey was, according to legend, the center from which radiated a Christian presence on that island for two thousand years, a sacred site from which the Christian faith was passed down through the generations. The story begins with the arrival of Joseph of Arimathea and his family, bearing the most sacred relic in all Christendom, the Holy Grail; and continues on to their confrontation with the Druids and the conversion of the new land to Christ; to the persecutions under the Roman Empire, until that rule is ended and Patrick becomes the first Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey; the adventures of King Arthur and his knights as they fend off invading barbarians; the revival of Christianity under St. Augustine of Canterbury; the struggle to keep alive the Faith in the midst of the Viking raids; the ages of Alfred the Great and Richard the Lionheart; and ends, finally, with the terrible upheavals under Henry VIII. Glastonbury was dissolved but its ruins still stand as a beacon of hope and destination of pilgrims down to our own time. Here is the telling of an immense spiritual epic--a stirring novel of Christian faith.

FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS, Brian Keeble's writings have made a most rare and valuable contribution to elucidating the applications of the philosophia perennis to our understanding of art and work--to the activities, in short, that sustain everyday life and economy. Daily Bread: Art and Work in the Reign of Quantity is a selection of pieces from Keeble's prose publications, intended to bring this important oeuvre to new readers and to consolidate it in a single volume for those already familiar with Keeble's work. Inclusive of several previously uncollected essays by the author, the volume is divided into two parts: the first introduces Keeble's principal ideas about art and work, tradition, and the crisis of the modern world; the second discusses these ideas in relation to the work of specific modern artists and poets. These essays reach far deeper and have a much wider scope than most contemporary cultural critique. They offer to the engaged reader ways to confront the contemporary malaise that are viable precisely because the author's approach is based on universal and timeless metaphysical principles. "Brian Keeble has devoted many years to the study of the traditional arts and is the author of a number of valuable works on the subject. We must be grateful to him for providing a powerful reminder of that art which reflects both beauty and truth and which is of the utmost importance for a life worthy of being called truly human."--SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR, author of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man "Keeble's [work] calls for eliminating the barriers between art, crafts, and work by infusing all activity with a sense of the sacred."--JOSCELYN GODWIN, author of Mystery Religions in the Ancient World "These essays should be of value to those who are responsible for the present state of the arts, not only in our schools, but of the wider arts of working and living to some purpose consistent with our deepest nature."--KEITH CRITCHLOW, Professor Emeritus, The Prince's School of Traditional Arts BRIAN KEEBLE was editor, designer, and publisher of Golgonooza Press in Ipswich, England, from 1974 to 2004; as well as one of the founders and editors of the journal Temenos (London, 1980-91). He is the author of Art: For Whom and for What? (1998), Conversing with Paradise (2003), God and Work (2009), and other essay collections; the editor of Every Man an Artist: Readings in the Traditional Philosophy of Art (2005) and other volumes; and the author of several collections of poetry, most recently From a Handful of Dust (2011) and Far from the Dawn (2014). Keeble is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy in London, and has served on its Council and Academic Board.

Andrei Bely was the greatest Russian writer of the twentieth century. Chiefly known outside of Russia as a novelist (his Petersburg is the best modern Russian novel), he was also a leading symbolist poet and profound philosophical critic. Bely was also a mystic who had an unsurpassed ability to express his visions in writing, and he often did so in the form of lyrical essays, a selection of which is offered here. Many of these essays were written as the twentieth century stood at the threshold of a new epoch. For Bely, a new religious consciousness was emerging, rooted in Vladimir Solovyov's visions of Sophia and Nietzsche's proclamation that a new man was on the verge of being created. A new dawn-both joyful and terrifying-was already visible on the horizon. "The artist is the creator of the universe," Andrei Bely declares in one of his philosophical prose poems collected in this book. Roaming fluidly between poetry and theory, between analysis and reverie, Bely transforms the material and intellectual revolution of modernity into an aesthetic revolution, and at the same time presages the revolutionary political upheaval of the twentieth century. In Boris Jakim's capable translation, Bely's intriguing, breathless improvisations sparkle with insight and wit.-Robert Bird, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literature, Univ. of Chicago Andrei Bely-poet, novelist, and thinker-was one of the central figures of early twentieth-century Russian literature. His thought, represented by the nine essays collected here, examining in depth the works of Tolstoy, Vladimir Solovyov, Nietzsche, and the Russian poets (particularly his fellow Symbolists), is remarkable both in its scope and in its form of expression. His style combines visionary exaltation with self-humor in a way uniquely his own: "Our salvation," as he writes in the final essay, "lies in playful exuberance." Boris Jakim succeeds at the almost impossible task of capturing that quality in his fine translations.-Richard Pevear, translator of War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov For Andrei Bely, every question is a religious question, every answer a religious answer. The essays included in this collection, each in its own way, figure as both question and answer. For, with Bely, all that is important in human life-art, meaning, struggle, discovery-shimmers in a metaxu whose domain is precisely that of religion as the site of revelation. These essays-apocalyptic, imaginal, gnomic-though written nearly a century ago, nevertheless provide us with new ways of seeing the implicitly poetic, integral, and eminently religious nature of both human existence and the structure of the world. Boris Jakim is to be commended for the gift of this translation, which provides the English-speaking world a much-needed alternative to the prevailing religious discourses so preoccupied with apologetics and polemics and so forgetful of poetry and mysticism.-Michael Martin, author of The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Turn to a Poetic Metaphysics

Diversity. Inclusiveness. Equality.--ubiquitous words in 21st-century political and social life. But how do those who police the limits of acceptable discourse employ these as verbal weapons to browbeat their often hapless fellows into having a "real conversation"? How do these terms function as mere doublespeak for the expectation of full-scale capitulation to the views of "right-thinking people"? Those who have long been afraid to touch the issues that attend these words will take great reassurance in an articulate statement of the kind presented in Against Inclusiveness, where the author's approach is sober and extremely well reasoned, as he attempts to marshal truth and fairness as criteria in the examination of issues critical to modern social life. Kalb argues that in current inclusiveness ideology, "classifying people" becomes an exercise of power by the classifier that denies the dignity of the person classified. All rational consideration of human reality is thereby suspended, and the result is something arbitrary and increasingly tyrannical. Against Inclusiveness lays the foundation for what an honest, forthright, real conversation on these matters might look like. "This critique is simply unsurpassed."--Paul Gottfried, author of After Liberalism and Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt "Jim Kalb once again drills to the bedrock of the radically centrifugal liberal ideology that has devastated our society's institutions, its culture, its conceptions of normality, and its traditional patterns of social life."--Robert Jackall, Professor of Sociology & Public Affairs, Williams College "Against Inclusiveness is a first-rate thinker's look at a paradox that is 'at once the perfection and the death of equality.'"--Christopher A. Ferrara, author of Liberty, the God That Failed "James Kalb's analysis is both profound and commonsensical, and brings clarity and insight to an area fraught with fear and falsehood."--Carol Iannone, editor of Academic Questions and founding Vice President of the National Association of Scholars "A timely, incisive work, Against Inclusiveness builds upon themes introduced in Kalb's previous work, The Tyranny of Liberalism, and presents a precise, methodical examination of the real-life dystopia we inhabit. It succeeds in carefully exploring and connecting an astonishing variety of issues."--The Catholic World Report

One of Tolkien's great appeals to readers is that he offers a world replete with meaning at every level. To read and reread Tolkien is to share his sense of wonder and holiness, to be invited into the presence of a "beauty beyond the circles of the world." It is to fall in love with a universe that has a beginning and an end, where good and bad are not subjective choices, but objective realities; a created order full of grace, though damaged by sin, in which friendship is the seedbed of the virtues, and where the greatest warriors finally become the greatest healers. A correspondent once told J. R. R. Tolkien that his work seemed illumined "by an invisible lamp." That lamp is the Church, and its light is the imaginative sensibility that we live in a sacramental world. This new book by the author of The Trial of Man examines in depth the influence of Catholic sacramentality on the thought and work of Tolkien, with major emphasis on The Lord of the Rings, but including his literary essays, epistolary poem "Mythopoeia," short story "Leaf by Niggle," and The Silmarillion. Here is a signal contribution to a deeper understanding of Tolkien, whose mythological world is meant to "recover" the meaning of our own as a grace-filled place, pointing toward its Creator.

In No Strange Land illuminates the richness of mysticism--in the life of Philip Neri--as an "experience of the activity of God." The life of the Apostle of Rome demonstrates that it is primarily people, not arguments, that reveal the mysteries of God. Philip's experience of God, his mysticism, was given him for the sake of others. Furthermore, that experience itself was embodied; that is to say awakened, nourished, and brought to fruition within the religious tradition into which he was born, and from which he lived--in particular the Church of Renaissance Florence and Rome, with its own particular appropriation of Christianity. It is this sacramental life that places mysticism beyond the merely private and esoteric, and allows for the mystic, in Newman's phrase, "to use this world well." With great deftness, Fr. Robinson traverses biographical, historical, and theological domains as he examines the nature of experience, the roles of knowledge and love in prayer, and the primacy of grace in the accomplishment of salvation. Informative and engaging, In No Strange Land is an outstanding contribution to Renaissance biography, historical theology, and the study of mysticism. "Anyone interested in St. Philip Neri will surely find something of great value here. In a way, it is a study of 'mysticism' in which Philip is the case-study. A wide-ranging and wise book."--JOHN RIST, author of Real Ethics and Plato's Moral Realism "In this lucidly argued and very readable book, Fr. Jonathan Robinson interweaves an attractive portrait of the great sixteenth-century reformer St. Philip Neri with an equally persuasive reworking of themes in classical Catholic doctrine of the spiritual life, thus inviting readers to reflect on our own hopes for sanctity in the midst of an indifferent and even deeply hostile cultural environment."--FERGUS KERR, O.P., author of Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians and After Aquinas "A resident of Rome cannot avoid walking streets where even after more than four centuries the memory of St. Philip Neri remains alive. Turning a corner on some narrow Roman lane, as it were, in Jonathan Robinson's new book we encounter this remarkable saint--one of the great mystics of the Church, a living witness to us, as much as to his contemporaries, of the reality and mercy of God. Father Robinson breaks new ground in this highly original study of St. Philip Neri, presenting a new perspective on the character and mission of the saint."--ARCHBISHOP J. AUGUSTINE DI NOIA, O.P., Assistant Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; author of The Diversity of Religions: A Christian Perspective "Jonathan Robinson offers an intensely thoughtful and impressively well-informed investigation of Filippo Neri and his age--subtly nuanced but clearly and cogently expressed, imbued with deft humor and wry understatement. An intriguing account of a remarkable individual's life and faith, this book also figures as a major achievement in the field of contextual history--illuminating the human realities of sixteenth-century Florence and Rome."--EDWARD GOLDBERG, author of After Vasari and Jews and Magic in Medici Florence FATHER JONATHAN ROBINSON is the founder and Superior of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Toronto. He was educated in Montreal, Edinburgh, and Rome. He was a member of the Philosophy Department at McGill University, and for three years chairman of the department. Fr. Robinson has also lectured at Fordham, Oxford, and Edinburgh, where he was a member of the Department of Logic and Metaphysics. His books include On the Lord's Appearing, Spiritual Combat Revisited, and The Mass and Modernity.

One curious feature of our times is the co-existence of a nearly unimaginable rapidity of communications with an at-times slow, even glacial, movement of ideas. Narratives that have lost any genuine explanatory power, along with the biased historical scholarship of earlier centuries, have become entrenched in the minds of millions, seemingly immune from being dislodged. Such simplistic queries as "What about Galileo?" "What about the Crusades?" are still meant to draw Catholics up short, a conversation-stopper. Scholarship of recent decades, however, has thrown new light on these matters, and is finally allowing the truths of history to become more widely known. Here is the distillation of the best of that recent historical work for students and adults alike--an unadorned laying bare of the truth. The five myths analyzed in this book have each been shaped by post-Reformation propaganda and Enlightenment prejudices and their residual effects. With Gerard Verschuuren's new book, Catholics now have sure and ready replies to these baneful narratives. "Gerard Verschuuren has written an extremely valuable and thoughtful response to issues Catholics encounter from an often doubtful and cynical world. Each of these five myths is well researched and thoroughly covered, avoiding excessive defensiveness, yet insisting on fairness and accuracy from our critics. This book is a gift to Catholics, historians, and also to critics who seek thorough and thoughtful analysis."--MSGR. CHARLES POPE, Our Sunday Visitor columnist and blogger; pastor at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Parish, Washington, DC. "Is anti-Catholicism the last acceptable prejudice in America? In Five Anti-Catholic Myths, Gerard Verschuuren provides a clear, forceful, and eminently factual refutation of some of the foundational slurs aimed at the Church. Here is apologetics that is timely, intelligent, and done with a flare."--RUSSELL SHAW, consultor of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, adjunct professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. "Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard, has stated that 'it must be hard for Catholics brought up on movies and TV to avoid the impression that their Church holds a special niche in some historical hall of shame.' We can be grateful to Gerard Verschuuren for correcting that unfortunate misconception. He has provided anyone interested in being liberated from anti-Catholic mythology a valuable service. Five Anti-Catholic Myths is readable, reliable, and rewarding."--DONALD T. DEMARCO, Professor Emeritus, St. Jerome's University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. GERARD M. VERSCHUUREN is a human geneticist who also earned a doctorate in the philosophy of science. Now semi-retired, he spends most of his time as a writer, speaker, and consultant on the interface of science and religion, creation and evolution, faith and reason. His most recent books include What Makes You Tick?: A New Paradigm for Neuroscience (Solas Press, 2012), The Destiny of the Universe: In Pursuit of the Great Unknown (Paragon House, 2014), and Life's Journey: A Guide from Conception to Natural Death (Angelico Press, forthcoming, 2015).

From Christendom to Americanism and Beyond describes the momentous changes that occurred in the European cultural orbit from the end of the Middle Ages until the mid 20th century. During this period the Catholic unity of the West--what rightly was called Christendom--was lost, and the social order came to be organized on an entirely new basis. Instead of a society that attempted to arrange all its activity and institutions in a hierarchy directed toward God, now politics could become merely a series of power grabs, economic activity an aimless and unabashed striving for riches, and the work of artists simply a means of self-expression. Not only were the institutions and customs that had previously sought to guide human activity to the glory of God and the common good destroyed, but this destruction was justified--even celebrated--in the new theories and philosophies that arose during this time. Readers who want to understand the broad trends and movements that underlie historical events will find this book an excellent guide to the rise of modernity. "Thomas Storck has quite possibly contributed more than any other living writer to the articulation, defense, and contemporary application of Catholic Social Teaching. But his incisive work on broader philosophical, cultural, and historical subjects is not known nearly as well as it should be, a misfortune this book will help remedy. Christendom, Modernity, and Americanism--among the most elusive quarry in the world of ideas--are fatally attractive, yet rarely captured in a convincing analysis. In these essays Storck shows that he has the wide-ranging thoughtfulness, command of detail, and synthetic vision to pull this off. Storck's cultural and philosophical examination of the trajectory of recent centuries is invaluable for all who would understand more deeply the complicated and contradictory Western world we live in."--PETER KWASNIEWSKI, Wyoming Catholic College, author of Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis "I am stretched and challenged whenever I read anything by Thomas Storck. In this fine collection of essays, he examines the many streams of thought and convictions that have led our contemporary world away from its philosophical and religious roots into post-modernity. Particularly in the final chapter he brings this all together to describe the plight we, our children, and our grand-children now face. As Joseph Pearce states in his excellent foreword, 'He must be heard and heeded.'"--MARCUS GRODI, founder and president of the Coming Home Network International, author of What Must I do to be Saved? "Drawing upon the tradition of Belloc, Chesterton, and Dawson, Thomas Storck offers a compelling re-interpretation of developments within the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. Moving beyond the stale, false alternatives of liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, Storck argues for the necessity of a distinctly Catholic social vision predicated upon the organic unity of family, faith, economy, and culture. These essays are a true breath of fresh air offering new possibilities for an authentic public Catholicism open to the world yet committed to the first principles of the faith."--CHRISTOPHER SHANNON, Christendom College, co-author of The Past as Pilgrimage THOMAS STORCK, a convert to the Catholic faith, is a social and cultural philosopher and historian who has written widely concerning the intersection of Catholic faith and culture. He is the author of three previous books, The Catholic Milieu, Foundations of a Catholic Political Order, and Christendom and the West, as well as numerous essays and articles; and is a member of the editorial boards of The Chesterton Review and Ethika Politika.

Regardless of their sometimes ambiguous concepts of God, the Roman Stoic philosophers did acknowledge Him, but on the basis of reason alone, because they had not met Christ. Nonetheless, they did deduce from God's existence our need to live lives of virtue, honor, tranquility, and self-control--and they developed effective techniques to help us achieve this. Musonius Rufus the teacher, Epictetus the slave, Seneca the adviser to emperors, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor himself, produced a practical technology we can use to integrate Christian ethics into our own daily practice. As Kevin Vost so wonderfully illustrates in his new book, The Porch and the Cross, the Stoics can help us learn--and remember--what is up to us, and what is up to God alone. In medieval times, Christian monks copied the Stoics' handbooks, and scholastic theologians mined their works for gems of natural moral wisdom. In the 1960s, cognitive psychotherapists turned to the Stoics to discover methods to conquer depression and anxiety. And there is still today much that Christians can learn from these "teachers on the porch" of antiquity. "Kevin Vost has done his readers a tremendous service once again! The Porch and the Cross is suffused with wisdom that is relevant, timely, and brilliantly articulated. Read and be inspired."--KEVIN LOWRY, author of Faith at Work "The complementarity of reason and faith is beautifully evidenced in this gem of a book. The Porch and the Cross offers a fascinating and insightful glimpse into the love of wisdom and the wisdom of the cross!"--FR. DONALD CALLOWAY, MIC, author of No Turning Back "Just as did St. Thomas Aquinas in the past, Kevin Vost does a superb job of showing us how human reason, in the form of Stoic philosophy, supports Christian revelation. This excellent reminder is providential in our day, where so many people desperately need to reconnect with the Western intellectual tradition."--SCOTT M. SULLIVAN, President and CEO, Classical Theist Productions "The Porch and the Cross takes the reader back to the Stoic thinkers as a complement to natural law and Christian faith."--KENNETH J. HOWELL, Theologian in Residence, The Coming Home Network (from the Foreword) "Kevin Vost, in his uniquely personable writing style, does a remarkable job bringing to life the instructions of men who lived nearly 2000 years ago!"--JARED ZIMMERER, author of Man Up! (from the Preface) Kevin Vost holds a Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) degree from the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago. He has taught psychology and gerontology at Aquinas College in Nashville, the University of Illinois at Springfield, MacMurray College, and Lincoln Land Community College. He has served as a research review committee member for American Mensa, a society promoting the scientific study of human intelligence, and as an advisory board member for the International Association of Resistance Trainers, an organization that certifies personal fitness trainers.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is considered one of the most beautifully written and theologically dense books of the New Testament. Its author expounds upon the way the Old Covenant finds fulfillment in Christ and exhorts his readers to maintain their confession of faith despite ostracization and persecution from the surrounding culture. Shane Kapler's new exploration of Hebrews shows how, when we study the text through the eyes of its first-century Jewish-Christian author and readers, obscure references and allusions yield an abundance of riches. This one epistle becomes the ideal means for, not just introducing, but delving deeply into, foundational Catholic beliefs: the Trinity, Jesus's full humanity, the Word of God (written and unwritten), Christ's priesthood and salvation by grace (expressed in both faith and works), the communion of saints, the Eucharist, and the authority of the Church's ordained shepherds. By immersing ourselves in the heart of God's revelation in Christ, we, like the first generation of believers, will stand equipped to weather the current storms, and to proclaim Christ--the Way, the Truth, and the Life--to a hostile culture. "A clear and concise look at how the promises God made to His People of the Old Covenant are fulfilled in Christ. Shane Kapler's research has made the sometimes dense theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews accessible to virtually every reader."--BISHOP MICHAEL SHERIDAN, Diocese of Colorado Springs "Not a book you read once and place on the shelf. Wonderfully written, it is a teaching tool that beautifully illuminates how the Epistle to the Hebrews loudly proclaims a Catholic message."--MATTHEW LEONARD, Executive Director, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology "Shane Kapler's new book is deeper than just a study, and more meaningful than mere exegesis; he has crafted an encounter with the Living Word of God."--SARAH REINHARD, author of Word by Word "An outstanding job presenting Hebrews as a primer in Catholic belief. Read it--NOW!"--GARY ZIMAK, author of From Fear to Faith "Discover the Catholic faith leaping from the pages of Scripture."--DENISE BOSSERT, author of Gifts of the Visitation "An abundance of insights and the perfect companion for your personal or group Bible study."--ANNA MITCHELL, Producer and News Director, EWTN Radio's The Son Rise Morning Show "In this small book lies an education."--KENNETH J. HOWELL, Theologian in Residence, The Coming Home Network "A mental removal of the veil to the Holy of Holies."--JARED ZIMMERER, author of Man Up! For almost three decades Shane Kapler has been active in catechesis and evangelization in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. A regular guest on Catholic radio, he is the author of Through, With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own, The God Who is Love: Explaining Christianity From Its Center, and co-author of Tending the Temple: 365 Days of Spiritual and Physical Devotions. He is online at www.explainingchristianity.com.

Shane Kapler looks at the Epistle of James through the eyes of its first-century Jewish-Christian readers, unpacking its lavish content and showing how this inspired text has yielded abundant fruit for the Church.

City under Siege is contemporary Catholic poetry at its finest. Mark Amorose, a master of the sonnet and epigram, is a rare poet, one who overcomes poetry's most difficult challenge: religious poems. Amorose praises creation, the Catholic Church, Mary, angels, saints, and martyrs -- an heroic defense of the City of God, a city now under siege

Novalis's Hymns to the Night is not only one of the seminal documents of German Romanticism as well as of modern poetry and poetic experimentation, it is also one of the landmarks of Sophiology.

The World as God's Icon is a scholarly but accessible enquiry into the sources of Aquinas's thought, and the reception of his realism in the work of the "Existential Thomists" as they uncovered Aquinas's Neoplatonic themes.

JESUS THE IMAGINATION: The Garden explores the imaginal realm serving as the natural, psychological, and spiritual scaffolding of the human condition in poetry, essays, and art. With work by Jeremy Naydler, Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Paul Valery, Katie Hartsock, Jonathan Geltner, and others, and featuring an interview with beekeeper Gunther Hauk.

Readers of The Imitation of Christ have sometimes asked why Thomas a Kempis does not mention the Blessed Virgin in his magnificent work. The present book is an answer to their question, compiled from his many devotional writings about her. In its selections it is unique, preserving the poetic heart of its author better than other edited works.

The first book by Mother Mectilde to appear in English, these words, steeped in Sacred Scripture and the liturgical tradition of Benedictine monasticism, reveal a woman of profound human insights and of supernatural wisdom, a sure guide to holiness with a timeless and universal message that seems providential for precisely this moment in history.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker's witty, wise, and down-to-earth letters blend a love of literature, drama, and art with decades of experience as a pastor. They leave technical jargon, arcane arguments, and unrealistic ideals behind, offering in their stead accessible, practical ways to bring beauty and reverence back into Catholic worship.

Jesus the Imagination: A Journal of Spiritual Revolution, Christ-Orpheus explores synergies both ancient and modern between these two figures who descended into the Underworld to liberate the dead and then returned. Featuring work by Emi Shigeno, Daniel Joseph Polikoff, and Jonathan Geltner, and an interview with harpist Therese Schroeder-Sheker.