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What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set apart - a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God’s. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. The vocation of monastic men and women is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection.

This is what happens when a writer, preacher, and lover of words encounters some of creation’s wisest theologians: horses. First, she argues with them. They are, after all, horses. What could they possibly know about life and God that theologians haven’t already written? But slowly, she engages their language and listens to their holy wisdom, attending to how they express their being, actions, and relationships. She allows horses to draw her out of the faith of intellect and into a deeper faith of emotion, body, and soul.

God is conceived of as holy, pure, sexless, and as morally above the raw desires that so powerfully beset us. Sex, on the other hand, is conceived of as earthy and unholy, something we must snatch, and not without guilt, from the gods. Christianity has struggled mightily with sex; so too have most other religions. And yet when we look at sexual desire and ask where it comes from, there can be only one answer. It comes from God.

Ravaged by one brother, silenced and betrayed by another, and abandoned by her father, Tamar—once beloved daughter of the king of Israel, and healer of the court—suddenly finds herself in exile, fleeing for her life. But the story continues where the scriptures end: a dangerous journey and tenacious pursuit of her true identity and calling brings her full circle, to her rightful place in the kingdom.

Amounting to Nothing is both practical and metaphysical, a puzzling over the ultimate things of life, and a descending on the Benedictine ladder of humility to the earthly creatures surrounding a Kentucky monastery.

Rooted in the grit of urban Baltimore and the forests of rural Massachusetts, these poems remind us that life's tensions and polarities are energies we carry within ourselves. These are poems of witness and commentary, conversation and meditation. They offer moments of close looking, and of looking away; of loving, and of bungled attempts to be more loving. They call us to look long and hard and generously at our lives. Written with radiant honesty and fierce tenderness, they suggest a path of inner discovery where mystery awaits us in the ordinary.

Open a window each day of Advent onto the natural world. The author reads 25 descriptions of wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapting when darkness and cold descend. All of them reveal the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but a door, the way a new beginning comes. These short, daily reflections paint vivid, poetic images of familiar animals.

Over twenty years ago, in the tiny mountain village of Medjugorje, Bosnia, six young people began to report seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. Since then, the beauty of Heaven and the importance of prayer, conversion, and reconciliation have been revealed to them through Mary´s appearances. Queen of the Cosmos provides an opportunity to hear the messages of the mother of Christ through in-depth interviews with the six visionaries of Medjugorje.

The original and best-selling story of the miracles and message of Medjugorje, the little town in the hills of the former Yugoslavia that has become a global phenomenon. Journalist Wayne Weible tells how his life was forever changed by what he experienced there. With refreshing candor and self-deprecating humor, Wayne Weible (1937-2018) takes listeners with him on the adventure to Medjugorje that radically and permanently changed his life.

From bestselling author Gayle Boss (All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings) comes a Lenten book filled with twenty-five of Earth's rare and wild creatures. Their stories, while tragic and uncomfortable, will wake listeners to greater compassion and hope—which is what Lent, meaning "springtime," has always been for.

Meet Dr. Susan Huffman: wife to chancery court judge Samuel Ellison, mother to adorable Ian, and college professor on track for tenure. She’s a woman who has always lived by her mind, with a plan and a purpose. Then new-in-town Lorraine Davis accepts an invitation to Susan and Samuel’s home, and the mysterious visions begin. Is God warning Susan about this newcomer? And if so, how can she protect her circle of friends, her family, and her life as she knows it? The Book of Susan is the recounting of a journey—from derailment, to diagnosis, to the discovery of a lifetime.

These days, it’s hard to say the word “chastity” without a cringe. But in this book, beloved teacher Fr. Ronald Rolheiser boldly champions the notion of chastity in its fullest meaning: respect, patience, reverence, and a God-given gift of propriety in every area of life—not just in the area of sex.

Franciscan Lectio is for Christians who long to see the world more beautifully and deeply and become more attentive and present. An ancient tradition dating back to the third century, lectio divina has long served as an avenue of contemplative prayer, but the practice has often been systematized, intellectualized, or only practiced by monastics. Few authors have attempted to universalize lectio using contemporary language or approach it from a Franciscan perspective.

The original and bestselling story of the miracles and message of Medjugorje, the little town in the hills of the former Yugoslavia that has become a global phenomenon. Journalist Wayne Weible tells how his life was forever changed by what he experienced there.

In Franciscan Lectio, Fr. Dan Riley comes alongside us in our own encounters with lectio and inspires our spiritual imagination through story, art, poetry, nature, Franciscan mysticism, and Scripture—helping us to see that all of life is unitive and sacred.

Originally written for monks, the principles in the Rule of St. Benedict may be applied by anyone — and in today’s hectic, changing world, following its principles offers a rich spiritual connection to the stability and wisdom of monastic life. This essential guide explains how people who live and work in “the world” are still invited to balance work with prayer, cultivate interdependence with others, practice hospitality, and otherwise practice their spirituality like monks.

Clare of Assisi is generally known as “the female friend” of Saint Francis of Assisi and for centuries her legacy has remained obscured by his shadow. Yet Clare’s life and story ought to shine in its own light and on its own terms (her name, after all, means “light”). She is a figure of true heroism, tenacity, beatitude and grit who plotted her improbable course in the context of the raucous and explosive period of the Middle Ages.

Laurie Brock, Episcopal priest, messy Christian, and horse lover, shares the experiences of love, grief, humility, joy, and deep wisdom that she discovers day to day with horses. From barely-there trails in the Grand Tetons to muddy fields in the Kentucky Bluegrass, God is revealed in the simple ways of these magnificent creatures. For anyone feeling doubtful, distracted, or anxious in these challenging times, Laurie brings us back to center, reminding us to breathe, get back on the saddle, and move beyond the familiar into the freedom of something new.

Emotional depression leading to suicide can work the same way. Sometimes, a person can be treated so that, in effect, they are cured; sometimes, they can’t ever really be cured but can be treated in a way that they can live with the disease for their whole life. And sometimes, just as with certain kinds of cancer, the disease is untreatable, unstoppable, and no intervention by anyone or anything can halt its advance. It eventually kills the person, and there is nothing anyone can do. Thus, Ronald Rolheiser begins this small, powerful book.

Biographies will only take you so far. It's impossible to truly understand Francis of Assisi without hearing his own words. A scholar and lover of Francis, Sweeney has added six writings to his best-selling compilation, additional texts that we're most certain came from Francis himself. Now, short writings such as The Form of Life He Wished for Clare, The Sermon to the Birds, and The Source of True Joy combine with Francis's rules, letters, messages, songs, praises, canticles, and final spiritual testament in a most ideal introduction to the saint.