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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. Their experiences have changed the lives of thousands of people who have found truth, encouragement, and solace in the words of the Blessed Mother.

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.

Each day of Advent a different animal shows children its own amazing way to meet the dark and cold. Wood Frog freezes into a frog-shaped cube of ice! For six months Painted Turtle doesn't breathe! Woodchuck can't be wakened, even if shaken! With each creature, children hear the refrain: The dark is not an end. It's a door. It's the way a new beginning comes.

Discussion around the bestseller The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher has led many people to want to know more about Benedictine principles. 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.

After spending 300 miles on the Ignatian Camino in Spain with a group whose average age was 67, Christine Marie Eberle returned to the United States with blisters that would fade, friendships that would not, and the conviction that anyone can develop a pilgrim's heart on this life's journey. This moving and often humorous account of one woman's pilgrimage encourages listeners to reimagine their own life's path.

Anticipate, celebrate, and marvel at Jesus' birth with Three Wise Women, a richly researched and faith-building new devotional by Dandi Daley Mackall. We don't hear many details directly from these three women at the heart of the first Christmas, but Scripture, studies in biblical culture, and an open heart that asks “what if” allows readers to experience new revelations for the holy season that will encourage and strengthen you in becoming a wise woman of God.

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.

Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church is an invitation to a life of joy. Phoebe Farag Mikhail explains what joy is and how to experience it through seven spiritual practices that cultivate our inner lives and connect us to our communities. These seven practices, which include giving thanks, hospitality, praise, and more, take us on a journey that leads to joy through the giving and receiving of sacrificial love.

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, their actions, and their relationships.

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.

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.

"40 Days with the Holy Spirit” will inspire you to encounter God in fresh and surprising ways. You'll develop stronger spiritual muscles as you breathe, read, reflect, and pray—all with an eye to cultivating a relationship with the least familiar member of the Trinity.

Recent events have shown again how suicide touches all of us—often when we least expect it. But how to unpack the grief that follows such a painful, and often stigmatized, death? Ron Rolheiser can help.

This collection offers a rich harvest taken from one season in the poet's creative life. Like movements in a musical composition, these poems share leitmotifs—grief and the desire to honor those "saints" who have passed on; the sacramental power of nature; and, how works of art illuminate and console as they do. They point to the tension between the practice of monastic silence and the urge to bear witness, interrogating faith in the light of crises facing the earth and our human community.

For most religious people, the words God and sex never go together. 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.

For those who feel broken, lost, or spiritually depleted, Inner Healing the Franciscan Way offers a roadmap to rediscovering God's presence and finding restoration and healing. At some point, we all experience loss or disappointment—when our best efforts and carefully laid plans simply fall apart. As we struggle to put the pieces back together through sheer willpower, the intense loneliness can be crushing. Fortunately, there is another path—the healing and empowering force of the Franciscan Way of life.

A young writer is drawn to a small New England town in search of meaning for her life. Soon, she encounters kindness, romance, and is pulled into a mystery centered on an old, abandoned church and the death of a special girl. Are the images that only she can see in the church's stained-glass windows a warning, or is someone trying to reach her, to help heal this broken community? Manchester Christmas illustrates how God often uses the most unlikely among us to spread grace and healing in a wounded world.

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.

Biographies will only take you so far. It's impossible to truly understand Francis of Assisi without reading or hearing his own words. A scholar and lover of Francis, Sweeney has added six writings to his bestselling compilation, additional texts that we're most certain came from Francis himself.