The Favourite Daughter Of Teresa Of Jesus: Mary Of Saint Joseph by Carlos Ros

Paperback: María of Saint Joseph chosen by Teresa of Jesus as her successor in the Reform of Carmel, a woman who has been greatly calumniated in life and silenced after her death. 

María of Saint Joseph is an elegant writer, a fine poet, mystic, defender of the feminine state, fighter in defence of the truth, a woman of prayer and purity. 

She re-emerged after centuries of ostracism in which she had been hidden by misogynist friars who could not tolerate that they too, the men’s branch of the Discalced, had been founded by a woman. 

As Teresa of Jesus was not there they baited the heirs of her Reform. 

María of Saint Joseph, prioress of the Carmels of Seville and Lisbon, suffered bodily in the prison cell of the monastery amid abhorrent calumnies, and died, after an iniquitous exile, in the hidden monastery of Mancha.

The Favourite Daughter of Teresa of Jesus was first published in Spanish as La hija predilecta de Teresa de Jesús: María de San José in 2008. It was translated and completed by Fr John McGowan OCD on the Feast of Saints Joachim and Ann (26 July) and first published in English in 2018. 

About the author: Carlos Ros (b 1941) lives in Seville, Spain, a great friend of the Carmelite nuns in that city. He has written over thirty books about famous historical characters from his region. Besides this book on Sr Mary of St Joseph OCD, Teresa’s great disciple, he has also written books about St Edith Stein and Jerome Gratian.

About the translator: Fr John McGowan was born in London in 1950. He entered the Discalced Carmelite Order in 1975 and was ordained in 1982. In 1985 he obtained a Licentiate in Spirituality from the OCD Carmelite Pontifical College in Rome. At present he works at ODC Carmelite retreat centre, in Preston, England.

I Thought I Was A Writer

Fallen: The Inside Story Of The Secret Trial And Conviction Of Cardinal George Pell (Current Affairs) by Lucie Morris-Marr

Paperback: "Fallen is a tribute to all those affected by clergy sexual abuse in Australia and around the world, and those who have spoken truth to power, sought justice and used their voice to make change for future generations. And in memory of those who never made it through." - Lucie Morris-Marr, Melbourne, July 2019.

There was an eerie silence in the packed courtroom as everyone looked towards the foreman of the jury. 'Guilty' he pronounced five times.

The third most senior Catholic cleric in the world had been found guilty of sex crimes against children, bringing shame to the Church on a scale never seen before in its history.

Investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr was the first to break the story that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by the police. In this riveting dispatch, she recounts how the cleric was trailed by a cloud of scandal as he rose to the most senior ranks of the church in Australia, all the way to his appointment by Pope Francis to the position of treasurer in the Vatican.

Despite anger and accusations, it seemed nothing could stop George Pell. Yet in 2017 he was charged by detectives, returning to Australia to face trial.

Take a front row seat in court with the author as she reveals the many intriguing developments in the secret legal proceedings which the media could not report at the time. Fallen reveals the full story of the brutal battle waged by the prince of the church as he fought to clear his name, including a ferocious bid to be freed from jail. The author also shares her own compelling personal journey investigating the biggest story of her career and the frequent attacks she endured from powerful Pell supporters. This book also charts how Pell's shocking conviction plunged the Vatican into an unprecedented global crisis after decades of clergy abuse cases.

It is a vitally important story that will fascinate anyone interested in the failure of the Catholic Church to address the canker in its heart.

Fallen (2019) is the inside story of the secret trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell and winner of the Walkley Book Award 2020. It is shortlisted for Best Debut, Davitt Awards 2020 AU; and Best True Crime, Davitt Awards 2020 AU.

About the author: British-born investigative journalist, writer and broadcaster Lucie Morris-Marr was twice highly commended as Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards while working on domestic and international assignments for the Daily Mail in London. In 2006, she moved to Sydney as Associate Editor of Marie Claire where she focused on long form investigative journalism. She went on to work as a senior writer for the Herald Sun in Melbourne where she became the first reporter in the world to uncover a secret police investigation into Cardinal George Pell regarding child sexual abuse allegations. The author covered the subsequent legal case for The New Daily and CNN. She lives in Bayside, Melbourne with her family.

Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney And American Catholicism (Biography/Religion) by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M Fenster

Paperback: Father McGivney's vision remains as relevant as ever in the changed circumstances of today's church and society. - Pope John Paul II

Is now the time for an American parish priest to be declared a Catholic saint?

In Father Michael McGivney (1852-1890), born and raised in a Connecticut factory town, the modern era's ideal of the priesthood hit its zenith. The son of Irish immigrants, he was a man to whom "family values" represented more than mere rhetoric. And he left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world.

In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in infernolike mills. An injury or the death of the wage earner would leave a family penniless. The grim threat of chronic homelessness and even starvation could fast become realities. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution. From its uncertain beginnings, when Father McGivney was the only person willing to work toward its success, it has grown to an international membership of 1.7 million men.

At heart, though, Father McGivney was never anything more than an American parish priest, and nothing less than that, either - beloved by children, trusted by young adults, and regarded as a "positive saint" by the elderly in his New Haven parish.

In an incredible work of academic research, Douglas Brinkley (The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc, Tour of Duty) and Julie M Fenster (Race of the Century, Ether Day) re-create the life of Father McGivney, a fiercely dynamic yet tenderhearted man. 

Though he was only thirty-eight when he died, Father McGivney has never been forgotten. He remains a true "people's priest," a genuinely holy man - and perhaps the most beloved parish priest in US history. 

Moving and inspirational, Parish Priest (2006) chronicles the process of canonization that may well make Father McGivney the first American-born parish priest to be declared a saint by the Vatican.

About the authors: Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, a CNN Presidential Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.  In the world of public history, he serves on boards, at museums, at colleges, and for historical societies. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” The New-York Historical Society has chosen Brinkley as its official US Presidential Historian. His recent book Cronkite won the Sperber Prize, while The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for Presidential Suite and is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes recently won the Arthur S Link-Warren F Kuehl Prize. He is a member of the Century Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.

Julie M Fenster is an award-winning author and historian, specializing in the American story. In 2006 her book Parish Priest, written with coauthor Douglas Brinkley, was a New York Times bestseller for seven weeks. She also wrote Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It, which won the prestigious Anesthesia Foundation Award for Best Book. Fenster is the author of six other books, including Race of the Century: The Heroic True Story of the 1908 New York to Paris Auto Race and The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President.

My Beloved: The Story Of A Carmelite Nun by Mother Catherine Thomas, DC

Hardback: This is the 1955 autobiography of Cecelia Walsh, a high-spirited American woman who was drawn to the Order of Carmel, one of the oldest, most austere and strictly cloistered orders of nuns in the Catholic Church, and became Mother Catherine Thomas.

Here she writes of her three decades in the cloister with candour, sensitivity, and humour. She tells her story of her own vocation, her life as a Carmelite, what drew her to the cloister, and what kept her there, and includes the small details that many might wish to ask but are afraid to.

My Beloved was first published in 1955 by the McGrawHill Book Company, Inc, NY.

To Christ Jesus, The Beloved by St John of the Cross

Boxing Day

Merry Christmas

Virtual Life 2020

Christmas Meditation No 23

The Spirits Of Past, Present and Future

Christmas Meditation (Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French Mathematician, Physicist, Inventor, Philosopher, Writer and Catholic Theologian)

Everyday Saints And Other Stories by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)

Paperback: In this book I want to tell you about this beautiful new world of mine, where we live by laws completely different from those in “normal” worldly life - a world of light and love, full of wondrous discoveries, hope, happiness, trials and triumphs, where even our defeats acquire profound significance: a world in which, above all, we can always sense powerful manifestations of divine strength and comfort. - Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)

More than a million copies and several million electronic versions of this book were purchased in less than a year after its release, claiming to be the most popular modern book of the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Everyday Saints and Other Stories is the English translation of a work that has soared to the top of the bestseller lists in Russia since its publication in late 2011. Winner of several national awards including "Book of the Year," its readership spans philosophical boundaries. 

Open this book and you will discover a wondrous, enigmatic, remarkably beautiful, yet absolutely real world. Peer into the mysterious Russian soul, where happiness reigns no matter what life may bring.

Page upon page of thanks, praise, and testimonies to the life-changing effect of these bright, good-hearted, and poignant tales have flooded the Russian media. This book has been the cause of many sleepless but happy nights: “I couldn’t put it down - was sorry when it ended” is the common reaction.

This book has been translated into more than 17 languages, including French, Chinese, Serbian and others. The English translation is every bit as charming as the original.

In Moscow, Everyday Saints and Other Stories has been awarded the Book of the Year prize for 2012. In 2012, its English translation won a first prize at New York’s Read Russia 2012 Festival.

Everyday Saints And Other Stories is translated from the Russian by Julian Henry Lowenfeld.

Proceeds from the sale of Everyday Saints will be used to build a memorial cathedral in Moscow dedicated to the victims of communist repression in Russia.

About the author: Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) is a bishop of Russian Orthodox Church and a popular writer. He is the Metropolitan of Pskov and Porkhov; the head of the Western Vicariat of Moscow city from 2015 to 2018; and Superior of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow from 1995 to 2018. Bishop Tikhon is often referred as the personal confessor and spiritual advisor of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Metropolitan Tikhon is a prolific internet writer. He is the editor-in-chief of the internet-portal Pravoslavie.ru and the author of many publications there.

About the translator: Julian Henry Lowenfeld is an American-Russian poet, playwright, trial lawyer, composer, and prize-winning translator, best known for his translations of Alexander Pushkin's poetry into English. For his "outstanding literary translations and dedicated efforts to popularize Russian culture in the English language," Lowenfeld was awarded the Friendship and Cooperation Medal from the Russian Federal Agency Rossotrudnichestvo in 2013.

A Modern Family by Helga Flatland

Paperback: When Liv, Ellen and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive in Rome to celebrate their father’s seventieth birthday, a quiet earthquake occurs: their parents have decided to divorce.

Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their childhood and family history.

A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for change.

A Modern Family (2019) is a beautiful, bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological insights. It is the winner of the Norwegian Booksellers' Award 2017 and was first published in Norwegian as En moderne familie in 2017. It is then translated into the English by Rosie Hedger in 2019. 

About the author: Helga Flatland is already one of Norway’s most awarded and widely read authors. Born in Telemark, Norway, in 1984, she made her literary debut in 2010 with the novel Stay If You Can, Leave If You Must, for which she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Book Prize. She has written four novels and a children’s book and has won several other literary awards. Her fifth novel, A Modern Family, was published to wide acclaim in Norway in August 2017, and was a number-one bestseller. The rights have subsequently been sold across Europe and the novel has sold more than 100,000 copies.

About the translator: Rosie Hedger was born in Scotland and completed her MA (Hons) in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She has lived and worked in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and now lives in York where she works as a freelance translator. Rosie was a candidate in the British Center for Literary Translation’s mentoring scheme for Norwegian in 2012, mentored by Don Bartlett. Visit her website: rosiehedger.com and follow her on Twitter @rosie_hedger

Rating: 4/5

Come And Look At What I've Done!

The Grifter's Club: Trump, Mar-a-Lago, And The Selling Of The Presidency by Sarah Blaskey, Nicholas Nehamas, Caitlin Ostroff and Jay Weaver

Paperback: The Grifter's Club (2020) is an astonishing look inside the gilded gates of Mar-a-Lago, the palatial resort where President Trump conducts government business with little regard for ethics, security or even the law.

Donald Trump’s opulent Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago has thrummed with scandal since the earliest days of his presidency. Long known for its famous and wealthy clientele, the resort’s guest list soon started filling with political operatives and power-seekers. 

Meanwhile, as Trump re-branded Mar-a-Lago “the Winter White House” and began spending weekends there, state business spilled out into full view of the club’s members, and vast sums of taxpayer money and political donations began flowing into its coffers, and into the pockets of the president.

The Grifter’s Club is a breakthrough account of the impropriety, intrigue, and absurdity that has been on display in the place where the president is at his most relaxed. In these pages, a team of prizewinning Miami Herald journalists reveal the activities and motivations of the strange array of charlatans and tycoons who populate its halls. Some peddle influence, some seek inside information, and some just want to soak up the feeling of unfettered access to the world’s most powerful leaders.

With the drama of an exposé and full of edgy humour, The Grifter’s Club takes you behind the velvet ropes of this exclusive club and into its bizarre world of extravagance and scandal.

About the authors: Sarah Blaskey is an investigative reporter and data specialist at the Miami Herald. For their reporting on Trump tourism, she, Nicholas Nehamas, and Caitlin Ostroff were named finalists for the 2020 Livingston Award for Excellence in National Reporting.

Nicholas Nehamas is an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald. He was part of a team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting on the Panama Papers.

Caitlin Ostroff is a data reporter who used data analysis and computer coding to report investigative pieces for the Miami Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Florida and is now with the Wall Street Journal.

Jay Weaver has covered courts, government and politics for more than 25 years for the Miami Herald. A graduate of UC Berkeley, he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2001. He and Nicholas Nehamas were also 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalists for a series on international gold smuggling.

O Sapientia, An Advent Antiphon

Lockdown by Peter May

Paperback: A CITY IN QUARANTINE

London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed.

A MURDERED CHILD

At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified.

A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY

D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first - the virus or the killers?

Written over fifteen years ago, this prescient, suspenseful thriller is set against a backdrop of a capital city in quarantine, and explores human experience in the grip of a killer virus.

Lockdown was completed back in 2005 during a six-week spell but was not published because British editors at the time thought the portrayal of London under siege by the invisible enemy of H5N1 (bird flu) was unrealistic and could never happen - in spite of the fact that all Peter May's research showed that it really could. It was finally published during the Covid-19 pandemic back on 30 April 2020 during the first lockdown.

About the author: An internationally bestselling crime writer, Scottish author  Peter May's first novel, The Reporter, was adapted for television, leading him into a successful career as a television writer, creator, and producer. Fiction remained his first love, however, and he continued to write crime novels alongside his other work, finally quitting to pursue a career as a novelist in the mid-1990s.

His highly successful novel, The Blackhouse, was initially rejected by UK publishers but published in French, earning critical acclaim and a number of awards before being picked up by the newly formed British publisher Quercus. The novel became the first in the hugely popular Lewis Trilogy, set in the Outer Hebrides.

Peter May is also the creator of the China Thrillers series, the Enzo files (set in France where May has lived for many years) and many successful standalone thrillers including Entry Island, Runaway and Coffin Road.

A message from Peter:

"I have taken the decision to donate the money from the advance that I have received for LOCKDOWN to various charitable organisations involved with supporting health workers, victims and others suffering as a result of Covid-19."

Rating: 3/5

The Law Of Innocence (Lincoln Lawyer Series) by Michael Connelly

Hardback: Innocence is not a legal term. No one is ever found innocent in a court of law. No one is ever exonerated by the verdict of a jury. The justice system can only deliver a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Nothing else, nothing more.

The law of innocence is unwritten. It will not be found in a leather-bound codebook. It will never be argued in a courtroom. It cannot be written into law by the elected. It is an abstract idea and yet it closely aligns with the hard laws of nature and science. 

In the law of innocence, for every man not guilty of a crime, there is a man out there who is. And to prove true innocence, the guilty man must be found and exposed to the world.

Defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is charged with murder and cannot make the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge.

Mickey elects to defend himself and must strategize and build his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles, all the while looking over his shoulder - as an officer of the court, he is an instant target.

Mickey knows he has been framed. Now, with the help of his trusted team, including Harry Bosch, he has to figure out who has plotted to destroy his life and why. Then he has to go before a judge and jury and prove his innocence.

The Law Of Innocence (2020) is the sixth instalment in the stellar Lincoln Lawyer series and is available in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. 

About the author: Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on 21 July 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing - a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat.  In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.

Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-five novels and one work of non-fiction. With over seventy-four million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theatres worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds Of Truth, The Late Show, The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt, and The Black Box. Michael’s crime fiction career was honoured with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018.

Michael is the executive producer of Bosch, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. Bosch streams on Amazon Prime Video. He is the creator and host of the podcast Murder Book. He is also the executive producer of the documentary films, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.

Rating: 5/5

John le Carré (1931-2020), British Author Of Espionage Novels

A Depressed Alcoholic Cop Solving Horrifically Violent Murders

I Like To Sip

One...More...Chapter

Live In Sunlight

From Advent To Pentecost: Carthusian Novice Conferences by A Carthusian

Paperback: To this last sentence, 'Be my joy in the heart of the Church', the writer of these conferences for Carthusian monks adds a note: 'That is a definition of Carthusian life which is as good as any other, it seems to me.' 

And from the heart of that life he speaks to the whole Church, in publishing these conferences on the great seasons of the Christian year. 

'The Liturgy is a sea. We are plunged into it and transformed by it. Year after year the liturgical seasons come back like the tides over stones...always the same cycle, but shaping us slowly but surely, into living stones (1 Peter 2:5)'.

The author writes with warmth, with learning, with passion and with humour. The reader can enter into something of the accumulated wisdom of an Order whose members 'have carried out the same little series of exercises since the eleventh century'. 

Each season has its special appeal for Carthusians - as the Conferences on Mary and on John the Baptist in the Advent and Christmas seasons show. The great Sunday Gospels of Lent - the Transfiguration, the Samaritan woman at the well, the raising of Lazarus - are expounded; the Passion of Christ is the subject of meditations that are profoundly and sometimes startlingly direct in their candour.

But perhaps the most remarkable part of this unusual book is the author's capacity to speak at length and to the point about the Resurrection and the coming of the Spirit. Here, where Christian teachers and preachers have so often been either hesitant or dogmatically remote, we have someone who clearly participates in the mysteries of which he speaks. 

It is a priceless gift to us all.

From Advent To Pentecost (1999) offers an illuminating, even dazzling, insight into Carthusian ways that are little known, indeed traditionally hidden. Here are men who for all their silence need to be heard. From Advent To Pentecost is translated from the French by Carmel Brett, done with great love of Carthusian liturgy. 

Interpreted By The Storyteller

A Time For Mercy (John Brigance Series) by John Grisham

Hardback: Can a killer ever be above the law?

Deputy Stuart Kofer is a protected man. Though he's turned his drunken rages on his girlfriend, Josie, and her children many times before, the police code of silence has always shielded him.

But one night he goes too far, leaving Josie for dead on the floor before passing out. Her son, sixteen-year-old Drew, knows he only has this one chance to save them. He picks up a gun and takes the law into his own hands.

In Clanton, Mississippi, there is no one more hated than a cop killer - but a cop killer's defence lawyer comes close. Jake Brigance doesn't want this impossible case but he's the only one with enough experience to defend the boy.

As the trial begins, it seems there is only one outcome: the gas chamber for Drew. But, as the town of Clanton discovers once again, when Jake Brigance takes on an impossible case, anything is possible.

A Time for Mercy (2020) is the third book in the superb John Brigance series.

About the author: John Grisham is the author of thirty-five novels, one work of non-fiction, a collection of stories and seven novels for young readers. The recent critically-acclaimed Netflix series, An Innocent Man, was based on his non-fiction bestseller. His works are translated into forty-five languages. He lives in Virginia. Stay in touch via Facebook at John Grisham Books.

Rating: 5/5

Nonfiction and Novels

There Is More

On A Rainy Day Like Today

 

Guarding The Flame: The Challenges Facing The Church In The Twenty-First Century, A Conversation With Cardinal Péter Erdő by Robert Moynihan and Viktoria Somogyi

Hardback: Where is the Catholic Church going? How will it face the challenges of the 21st century? Do the recent advances in modern technology pose a threat to the human soul? 

In this wide-ranging, candid conversation, Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Budapest, Hungary, and one of the most respected cardinals in the Catholic Church, speaks with Dr Robert Moynihan, founder and editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, about the Catholic Church's faith in an increasingly secularized world.

As the two-time president of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe, Erdő is one of the leading bishops of Europe. And as the continent has descended into a deep secularism - more pronounced and rapid even than in the United States - he is uniquely positioned and qualified to identify and address the issues that secularism presents. 

Here for the first time in English is the wide-ranging and now updated interview in which the cardinal speaks forthrightly about the situation the Church faces today, the need to "guard the flame" of the traditional Christian faith, and the most effective way to do so in our post-Christian society. His 2018 lecture at Columbia University on The Role of Religion and the Churches in a Secular State serves as an effective capstone to the main text. 

Guarding The Flame (2019) is translated from the Italian by Christopher Hart-Moynihan from the original Italian edition, La fiamma della fede. Un dialogo con il cardinale Peter Erdő (2015).

Guarding The Flame was prepared on the basis of four days of interviews with Cardinal Erdő in his residence in Budapest in the summer of 2011 and three days of interviews in New York City in January of 2018.

About the authors: Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Exztergom-Budapest and Primate of Hungary, was born in Budapest in 1952, the first of six children. He was created Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He has published more than 250 articles and 25 books on Canon Law, as well as other spiritual works.

Robert Moynihan (Harvard College, BA 1977 and Yale University PhD 1988) founded Inside the Vatican magazine in 1993. He has covered the Vatican and Church affairs for more than 30 years and is the author of books on Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

Viktoria Somogyi, born in Hungary, has lived and worked in Rome at the Hungarian language desk of Vatican Radio. She studied International Relations at the University of Rome.

The Book Of The Foundations Of S Teresa of Jesus by St Teresa of Ávila

Paperback: The Book of the Foundations of S Teresa of Jesus of The Order of Our Lady of Carmel with the Visitation of Nunneries, The Rule and Constitutions (1610) written by the Saint herself was translated from the Spanish by David Lewis with an introduction by Very Rev Benedict Zimmerman, Discalced Carmelite. In the present edition, the text published by Mr Lewis in 1871 has been confronted with the original and, where necessary, amended.

The Book of the Foundations was written at different times. It was begun in Salamanca on 24 August 1573, by the order of Father Jerome Ripalda SF, Teresa's confessor at the time. She seemed to have written twenty chapters without much interruption. Then, when she was, as it were, imprisoned in Toledo by order of the general, after the foundation of Seville was made, she was commanded by Fray Jerome of the Mother of God (Jerónimo Gracián) to continue her writing. She obeyed and finished on the vigil of St Eugenius on 14 November 1576. The rest of the book was probably written as each foundation was made. In England, The Book of Foundations was not known till 1669. 

This work chronicling the origins of the Discalced Carmelites and the spiritual evolution and establishment of St Teresa's convents has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

About the author: Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was a Spanish noblewoman, Carmelite nun, mystic and author of spiritual writings and poems. She founded numerous convents throughout Spain and was the originator of the Carmelite Reform of the Discalced Carmelites that restored a contemplative and austere life to the order.  In 1970, she was declared a Doctor of the Church for her writing and teaching on prayer, one of four women to be honoured in this way hitherto.

Happy Sunday

Finding Viganò: In Search Of The Man Whose Testimony Shook The Church And The World by Robert Moynihan (in conversation with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò)

Hardback: When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, let him who reads understand. Man's mind is a holy place and a temple of God in which the demons have laid waste the soul through passionate thoughts and set up the idol of sin... Some say that these things will also happen when the Antichrist comes. - St Maximus the Confessor

In 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released an eleven-page testimony that rocked the world. In it, he called out the corruption of the Church, especially with regards to its handling of the sexual abuse crisis - addressing most specifically the case of disgraced Cardinal Theodore McCarrick - and stunningly called for the resignation of Pope Francis. 

And then he was gone...at least physically. 

In these pages, longtime Vatican journalist Robert Moynihan, publisher of Inside the Vatican magazine, brings to bear his vast experience in the corridors of power in Rome as well as his longstanding friendship with Viganò to produce a book that both provides an incisive look at the content of the "Testimony" itself and, through interviews conducted in-person with the archbishop at undisclosed locations, a personal look at the man whose conscience compelled him to speak out about the corruption in which the Church he loves, and to which he has given his life, has been mired for years.

Part thriller, as when Moynihan details his efforts to reach Viganò and makes his way to their meeting, and part personal memoir as both men reflect on their lives, families, and the state of the Church in the world, Finding Viganò (2020) has something for everyone. 

Readers familiar with the ongoing drama surrounding the archbishop will appreciate the insights into the man provided through the interviews, while those unfamiliar with the drama of the "Testimony" and all that has transpired since will, after reading, have a better understanding of the key issues and players involved.

About the author: Robert Moynihan (Harvard College, BA, 1977 and Yale University, PhD, 1988) founded Inside the Vatican magazine in 1993. He has covered the Vatican and Church affairs for more than thirty years and is the author of books on Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, as well as a book-length interview with Cardinal Péter Erdő of Hungary also by TAN Books. 

The Ten Books On The Way Of Life And Great Deeds Of The Carmelites Volume 1 by Felip Ribot OCarm

Hardback: "In these ten books, it will be possible to learn enough of the truth about the Carmelites so as to devoutly study the beginning, progress and growth of their Order, the admirable qualities of its founders and earliest members, the eremitical monastic way of life and its purpose, and the blessed reward gained by those who live it worthily."

In compiling The Ten Books on the Way of Life and Great Deeds of the Carmelites in the late fourteenth century, Felip Ribot, a friar from Catalonia, constructed a legendary history of his religious order that would dominate its spirituality for centuries.

The text, better known under the title The Book of the First Monks, was widely read across medieval Europe. It begins with the Carmelites' supposed foundation in the Holy Land by the Old Testament prophet Elijah, and traces the Order's adoption of Christianity and its international expansion. 

Highlighting the Carmelites' devotion to the Mother of God, their attentiveness to the Bible, and the Rule of Life by which they were guided, Ribot attempts to show his Order's antiquity, its privileged place within the Christian Church, and even its unique role in the history of salvation. 

Held up as a spiritual masterpiece by the likes of Saint Teresa of Jesus (of Ávila), and derided as a work of fantasy by rival religious orders, The Ten Books has attracted a surge of revived interest in recent years from historians and theologians, Carmelites and non-believers, scholars and the wider public.

With an introduction, scholarly notes, illustrations and comprehensive index, this translation, now in its second edition, will be valuable not only to those engaged in Carmelite studies, but all those who wish to explore the fascinating spiritual world evoked in Felip Ribot's masterpiece.

The Ten Books on the Way of Life and Great Deeds Volume 1 is a medieval history of the Carmelites written around 1385 by Felip Ribot OCarm; edited and translated by Richard Copsey OCarm and published in 2005 (second edition, 2007).

About the editor/translator: Richard Copsey OCarm is a Carmelite friar and renowned historian, whose translation of The Ten Books makes this key text of western spirituality available in modern English to the general public for the first time.

Marked For Life (Jana Berzelius Trilogy) by Emelie Schepp

Paperback: When a high-ranking head of the migration board is found shot to death in his living room, there is no shortage of suspects, including his wife. But no one expects to find the mysterious child-sized handprint in the childless home. 

Public prosecutor Jana Berzelius steps in to lead the investigation. Young and brilliant but emotionally cold, Berzelius, like her famous prosecutor father, would not be swayed by the hysterical widow or intimidated by the threatening letters the victim had tried to hide. Jana is steely, aloof, impenetrable. 

That is, until the boy.

A few days later on a nearby deserted shoreline, the body of a preteen boy is discovered, and with him, the murder weapon that killed him and the original victim. Berzelius is drawn more deeply into the case for as she attends his autopsy, she recognizes something strangely familiar in his small, scarred, heroin-riddled body. Cut deep into his flesh are initials that scream child trafficking and trigger in her a flash of memory of her own dark, fear-ridden past. Her connection to this boy has been carved with deliberation and malice that penetrate to her very core. 

Now, to protect her own hidden past, she must find the suspect behind these murders, before the police do. 

International bestselling author Emelie Schepp introduces us to the enigmatic, unforgettable Jana Berzelius in this first novel of a chilling trilogy set in Sweden.

Marked For Life was first published in 2016 and won the Specsavers Reader's Choice Award 2016. The other two instalments in the Jana Berzelius trilogy are Marked For Revenge (2017) and Slowly We Die (2018).

About the author: Emelie Schepp was awarded the Specsavers Reader’s Choice Award for best Crime Writer in 2016, 2017 and 2018. 

Emelie Schepp (b 1979) worked for many years as a project manager in the advertising industry. In 2013 she released her debut book Marked For Life under her own publishing house and with 40 000 copies sold she is still ranked as Sweden's premier self-publisher. Since then, she has released several books in the series about the complex prosecutor Jana Berzelius. The books have been sold to 30 countries and in over two million copies and have become readers’ favourites and bestsellers in many countries.

Rating: 3/5

The Teresian Carmelites: Nuns And Friars In One Family by Finian Monahan OCD

Paperback: The Teresian Carmelites booklet (1994) by Father Finian Monahan OCD shows the areas of struggle that had to be faced by the Discalced Carmelites, namely, the struggle for the birth and survival of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns and Friars in the sixteenth century. This deals with the difficulties they encountered in becoming and staying in an Order in which there are nuns and friars.

The problems which were encountered brought the realization that eventually the Calced and Discalced would have to split and become two separate branches.

Another area where questions arose was the fact that some of the nuns were directly under the Friars whereas others were under the local bishop. What was the Father General’s position as to the visitation of these houses under the bishop?

The Second Vatican Council brought with it further questions which had to be looked at and dealt with.

The Teresian Carmelites trace the roots, beginnings, and vicissitudes of this unity as expressed in the legislation of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns down the years. It is not an outline of the history of the Order, but a history of the Order's legislation. It should help to give the reader a better understanding of one aspect of Discalced Carmelite history and put some recent events in their historical perspective. 

About the author: As Superior General, Father Finian Monahan OCD (1924-2010) was responsible for the Declarations, which updated the Primitive Constitutions according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council. He read Philosophical studies in Dublin (1943-1946) and Theological studies in Rome at the International College (1946-1951). He was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1950. From 1951 to 1954, he studied Canon Law at the Angelicum in Rome. He was a member of the Mount Carmel Community in Glasgow and put his experience and learning at the disposal of the Order. He was also Religious Assistant to the Association of Carmels in Britain and Ireland.

Elijah Prophet By Carmel by Jane Ackerman

Paperback: Members of the three monotheistic faiths have always told stories of what the prophet Elijah has done - and is still expected to do - in sacred history. He is perhaps most appreciated by members of the Carmelite Order, known for its contemplative and pastoral orientation. 

Elijah is considered their legendary founder and traditional patron. Carmelites rank him as one of the greatest spiritual models. Their coat of arms displays his flaming sword, Mount Carmel, and Elijah's proclamation, "With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts." This book inquires into this deep appreciation. It examines the linkage between the Order and the prophet over time.

Beginning with the oldest knowledge we have about Elijah, coming from Scripture, Elijah Prophet of Carmel (2003) briefly sketches his role in the three faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It then turns to what the distant, but influential, Christian antecedents of the Carmelite Order, the desert hermits and the early Fathers, wrote about the zealous man of God.

As the Carmelite Order was founded, achieved its corporate identity, and changed over time, so did its views of its legendary model. Interaction between storytelling about Elijah and Carmelites' understanding of themselves continues even to the present. As thoughts from the past about the prophet continue to influence them, both Teresian Carmelites and Carmelites of the Ancient Observance of our times are developing a brand-new tradition of him, the tradition of Elijah's double charism.

About the author: Jane Ackerman is Associate Professor of Religion at The University of Tulsa. She has published articles on Saints Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross and has made a comparative translation of both recensions of Saint John's The Living Flame of Love.

2020 Directory

I Have No Plan

Contradistinction

The New Girl (Gabriel Allon Series) by Daniel Silva

Paperback: What’s done cannot be undone. - Macbeth (1606), Act 5, Scene 1

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva comes the nineteenth thriller of deception, betrayal, and vengeance published in 2019 and dedicated to the fifty-four journalists who were killed worldwide in 2018. 

She was covered from head to toe in expensive wool and plaid, the sort of stuff one saw at the Burberry boutique in Harrods. She carried a leather bookbag rather than a nylon backpack. Her patent leather ballet slippers were glossy and bright. She was proper, the new girl, modest. But there was something else about her.

At an exclusive private school in Switzerland, mystery surrounds the identity of the beautiful raven-haired girl who arrives each morning in a motorcade fit for a head of state. She is said to be the daughter of a wealthy international businessman. In truth, her father is Khalid bin Mohammed, the much-maligned crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Once celebrated for his daring social and religious reforms, he is now reviled for his role in the murder of a dissident journalist. And when his only child is brutally kidnapped, he turns to the one man he can trust to find her before it is too late.

Gabriel Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, has spent most of his life fighting terrorists, including the murderous jihadists financed by Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid - or KBM, as he is known - has pledged to finally break the bond between the Kingdom and radical Islam. For that reason alone, Gabriel regards him as a valuable if flawed partner. Together they will become unlikely allies in a deadly secret war for control of the Middle East. The life of a child, and the throne of Saudi Arabia, hang in the balance. Both men have made their share of enemies. And both have everything to lose.

About the author: Daniel Silva is an American journalist and author of thriller and espionage novels. He is also the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of his long-running thriller series starring spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon. Silva's books are critically acclaimed bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 30 languages. He resides in Florida with his wife, television journalist Jamie Gangel, and their twins, Lily and Nicholas.

Rating: 5/5

Union With Our Lady: Marian Writings Of Venerable Marie Petyt Of St Teresa translated by Reverend Thomas E McGinnis OCarm, STL

E-book: At the same moment, I saw dearly that this was not the work of the imagination - no more than that which happened on Candlemas Day was the work of the imagination. How ugly now appear all the statues and paintings which depict our lovable Mother! Rather than devotion, they inspire nausea, especially now that the recollection is still fresh of the magnificent beauty and majesty whose image remains in my memory. - Ven Marie Petyt, Candlemas Day, 1666

The present work has the purpose of making available to sincere souls the rich treasures of Carmelite Marian devotion through the writings of Venerable Mary Petyt of St Teresa, a lay Third Order Carmelite, who was a spiritual daughter of Venerable Michael of St Augustine, Belgian Carmelite of the seventeenth century. 

Mary Petyt presents a description of Marian devotion in actual practice within the depths of her own soul. 

Time and time again, spiritual writers discussing the subject of Our Lady's position in the life of the soul refer both to Father Michael and to Mary Petyt, also known as Sister Mary of St. Teresa, her name in the Secular Third Order. 

Hence, it seemed to us most desirable that English-speaking lovers of Our Lady should have the Marian classics of each of these Carmelites available for their prayerful study. The main part of the present work is, of course, the translation of Mary Petyt's Marian writings. These writings are selections from her letters to Father Michael, who was the first to publish them. 

In one of her letters, Mary Petyt prays that Our Blessed Lady may raise up many souls to know and love her, souls who will join in singing the praises of their heavenly Queen and Mother. That same desire has motivated our efforts. The Marian Year, it is true, draws to a close. But is not the Marian Era at hand? 

Every sincere Christian must learn to be led to the fulfilment of his spiritual destiny by the hand of his Lady. God wills it. We feel that Mary Petyt, through her Marian writings, can help to teach souls that lesson. 

Union With Our Lady was published in 1954.

About the author: Maria Petyt (1623–1677), was known as a great mystic. Her writings have been cited as unequaled in volume and mystical content within the historical context of the Flemish-speaking 17th century. In about 1662, Michael of St Augustine asked her to write a memoir of her spiritual and mystical experiences. The resulting autobiography titled La vie de Marie Petyt (The Life of Maria Petyt) was published after her death. Maria Petyt was declared Venerable by the Catholic Church. She is also considered a Mystic of the Carmelite Order. 

Excerpts taken from Wikipedia.

The Ávila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform In A Sixteenth-Century City (European History/Religious History/Women's History) by Jodi Bilinkoff

Paperback: The Ávila of Saint Teresa provides both a fascinating account of social and religious change in one important Castilian city and a historical analysis of the life and work of the religious mystic Saint Teresa of Jesus. 

Jodi Bilinkoff's rich socioeconomic history of sixteenth-century Ávila illuminates the conditions that helped to shape the religious reforms for which the city's most famous citizen is celebrated.

Bilinkoff takes as her subject the period during which Ávila became a centre of intense religious activity and the home of a number of influential mystics and religious reformers. During this time, she notes, urban expansion and increased economic opportunity fostered the social and political aspirations of a new "middle class" of merchants, professionals, and minor clerics. This group supported the creation of religious institutions that fostered such values as individual spiritual revitalization, religious poverty, and apostolic service to the urban community. According to Bilinkoff, these reform movements provided an alternative to the traditional, dynastic style of spirituality expressed by the ruling elite, and profoundly influenced Saint Teresa in her renewal of Carmelite monastic life.

A focal point of the book is the controversy surrounding Teresa's foundation of a new convent in August 1562. Seeking to discover why people in Ávila strenuously opposed this ostensibly innocent act and to reveal what distinguished Teresa's convent from the many others in the city, Bilinkoff offers a detailed examination of the social meaning of religious institutions in Ávila. 

Historians of early modern Europe, especially those concerned with the history of religious culture, urban history, and women's history, specialists in religious studies, and other readers interested in the life of Saint Teresa or in the history of Catholicism will welcome The Avila of Saint Teresa.

First published by Cornell University Press in 1989, this new edition of The Ávila of Saint Teresa includes a new introduction by the author. 

About the author: Dr Jodi Bilinkoff is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her research interests include religion, gender, life-writing, and the construction of memory in early modern Europe, particularly Spain. After working for many years on women in Catholic culture, more recently she has turned her attention to masculine identity, especially male clerical identity.

In her current research project, she engages all these issues by examining the life, afterlife, and legacy of St John of the Cross (1542-1591). Her book-in-progress, John of the Cross: The History, Mystery, and Memory of a Spanish Saint, will not be a conventional biography, but rather, a critical study of the manifold, at times, conflicting meanings this intriguing figure has held for individuals and communities, both during and after his lifetime. 

She is also the author of Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750 (2005).

Interior Castle by St Teresa of Ávila

Paperback: A masterpiece of spiritual literature, this sixteenth-century work was inspired by a mystical vision that came upon the revered St Teresa of Ávila, one of the most gifted and beloved religious figures in history.

St Teresa's vision was of a luminous crystal castle composed of seven chambers, or "mansions," each representing a different stage in the development of the soul.

In her most important and widely read book, St Teresa describes how, upon entering the castle through prayer and meditation, the human spirit experiences humility, detachment, suffering, and ultimately, self-knowledge, as it roams from room to room. As the soul progresses further toward the center of the castle, it comes closer to achieving ineffable and perfect peace, and finally, a divine communion with God.

A set of rare and beautiful teachings for people of all faiths desirous of divine guidance, this meticulous modern translation from the Spanish by E Allison Peers breathes contemporary life into a religious classic.

Interior Castle or The Mansions (Spanish: El Castillo Interior or Las Moradas as this book is known in Spain) was written by Teresa of Ávila in 1577 and published in 1588, as a guide for spiritual development through service and prayer. 

About the author: St Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was a Spanish Carmelite nun who lived in the 1500s. She was a mystic and author of spiritual writings and poems. She founded numerous convents throughout Spain and was the originator of the Carmelite Reform that restored a contemplative and austere life to the order.

Dark Night Of The Soul by St John of the Cross

Paperback: The great Spanish mystic St John of the Cross became a Carmelite monk in 1563 and helped St Teresa of Ávila to reform the Carmelite order - enduring persecution and imprisonment for his efforts. 

Both in his writing and in his life, he demonstrated eloquently his love for God. His written thoughts on man's relationship with God were literacy endeavours that placed him on an intellectual and philosophical level with such great writers as St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

In Dark Night of the Soul, a spiritual masterpiece and classic of Christian literature and mysticism - he addresses several subjects, among them pride, avarice, envy and other human imperfections. His discussion of the "dark night of the spirit," which considers afflictions and pain suffered by the soul, is followed by an extended explanation of divine love and the soul's exultant union with God.

Dark Night of the Soul (Noche obscura del alma) - first appeared at Barcelona in 1619 - is probably the best known work of St John of the Cross. This Dover edition is first published in 2003 and is translated from the Spanish by E Allison Peers.

About the author: Juan de Yepes y Álvarez, later to be known as Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross), was born to an impoverished but love-rich couple in the small town of Fontiveros, Spain on 24 June 1542. His father came from a wealthy family but - after being disowned when he married Catalina Avarez, a humble weaver - took up his wife's trade. Juan's father died when Juan was only seven, and Catalina was left without even the bare necessities of life for herself and her two sons. Juan became an attendant at a smallpox hospital - whose director, impressed by the boy's compassion, offered to pay for his religious education. Juan studied with the Jesuits and then entered the Carmelite order. He finished his education at the University of Salamanca, where he began teaching while still a student, and was ordained at twenty-five. Soon after, he met Teresa of Ávila, a great mystic who took a liking to the young priest and enlisted him in her attempts to reform the Carmelite order. She believed that religious practitioners must embrace poverty, and therefore her branch of the Carmelites became known as "Discalced," or shoeless. Juan first moved to a Discalced nunnery as its confessor, and in 1568 moved to a tiny farmhouse where he established the first monastery of the reformed Carmelites.

In 1575, however, the traditional Carmelites virtually outlawed the Discalced sect, and two years later, they seized Juan and took him to Toledo as their prisoner. When he refused to recant, he was imprisoned in a windowless cell. Three times a week they let him out to eat his daily meal of bread and water, after which he was whipped for his continuing obstinacy. He wrote some of his finest poetry during this imprisonment. After nine months, he broke out by scaling the walls and found refuge with nearby nuns.

His persecution ended in 1578 with the death of the superior general of the traditional Carmelites, and he wrote the majority of his works (most of which remained unfinished) during the next nine years. A few years after Teresa's death (in 1582), the Discalced Carmelites were again troubled by dissension, and Juan was stripped of his offices and forbidden any kind of activity in the order. Juan received this as a blessing because it allowed him to return to a life of solitary contemplation. He died on 14 December 1591 in Úbeda, Spain, and was beatified in 1675, canonized in 1726 and named a doctor of the church in 1926.

Experiences Of A Present Day Exorcist by Donald Omand

Hardback: Go forth thou deceiver, full of all evil and falsehood, the enemy of virtue, the persecutor of the innocent. Give place thou wicked one; give place thou evil one; give place to Christ. - Translation from the Latin of an ancient form of exorcism, which is still sometimes used in the Western Church.

Black magic, sea madness, African witchcraft - these are familiar problems for Dr Omand. A practising exorcist for thirty years and an Anglican priest, he is regularly called upon by those who know of his faculty to exorcise the evil which can possess both people and places, threatening the well-being - and sometimes the lives - of innocent victims.

Dramatically introduced to the problems of 'possession' when invited to exorcise afflicted people, Donald Omand has met many challenging situations and here gives for the first time an account of some of his remarkable cases. Wary of superstition and cautious in his initial assessment when his help has been sought - many calls would be better made to a psychiatrist than a priest - his skill and perception in detecting the source of any sinister influence is impressive.

His reputation as a successful exorcist led to Dr Omand being co-opted on to a study group of scientific and medical men sceptical of traditional belief in possession, but interested to establish whether there was any factual basis to these theories. Evidence examined by that group suggests that many unexplained disasters, including road accidents, may arise from supernatural causes, and underlines the value of Donald Osmand's battle against evil influences. 

Experiences Of A Present Day Exorcist was first published in 1970.

About the author: Donald Omand, a Devon clergyman in the Church of England, began his ministry as an exorcist in the diocese of Portsmouth and is now retired. 

There is only scant information about Reverend Donald Omand on the internet. Sincere apologies for any omission or error here. 

Fundamental Cure

The Path To Salvation: A Concise Outline Of Christian Ascesis by St Theophan The Recluse

Paperback: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Steeped in the Philokalic tradition, the holy Hierarch Theophan was a prolific writer and interpreter of the holy Fathers of the Church, making them accessible to contemporary Christians.  

Patristic literature has always provided an age-old, tried-and-tested model of  spiritual life, foreign to fleeting fashions. St Theophan keeps this traditional model sharp and clear, presenting it in an approachable language. 

In The Path To Salvation (2016, fourth printing), his crowning achievement, the Saint himself expresses its precise aim as follows: “It is possible to describe the feelings and inclinations which a Christian must have, but this is very far from being all that is demanded for the ordering of one’s salvation. The important thing for us is a real life in the spirit of Christ. But just touch on this, and how many perplexities are uncovered, how many guideposts are necessary, as a result, almost at every step! True, one may know man’s final goal: communion with God and one may describe the path to it: faith, and walking in the commandments, with the aid of divine grace. One need only say in addition: Here is the path - start walking!”

This new edition of St Theophan’s classic spiritual text is enhanced with a larger format, a full-colour icon of the saint, and colourful pages throughout the book.  Also included is a complementary matching bookmark. The soft cover includes inner flaps and the inner pages of the book are securely stitched and glued.

This is a companion volume to St Theophan's The Spiritual Life, just published in a new edition.

The Path To Salvation is translated from the Russian by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose and the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.

About the author: St Theophan the Recluse, also known as Theophan Zatvornik or Theophanes the Recluse (Russian: Феофан Затворник), is a well-known saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was born George Vasilievich Govorov, in the village of Chernavsk. His father was a Russian Orthodox priest. He was educated in the seminaries at Livny, Orel and Kiev. In 1841 he was ordained, became a monk, and adopted the name Theophan. He later became the Bishop of Tambov.

He is especially well-known today through the many books he wrote concerning the spiritual life, especially on the subjects of the Christian life and the training of youth in the faith. He also played an important role in translating the Philokalia from Church Slavonic into Russian. The Philokalia is a classic of orthodox spirituality, composed of the collected works of a number of church fathers which were edited and placed in a four volume set in the 17th and 18th centuries. A persistent theme is developing an interior life of continuous prayer, learning to "pray without ceasing" as St. Paul teaches in his first letter to the Thessalonians.