Someone Bought 9 Books

Tears Of Repentance No 2: True Experiences In A Greek Taxi Cab by Athanasios Katigkas

Kindle: Tears of Repentance No 2: True Experiences in a Greek Taxi Cab (2015, first English edition) is dedicated to anyone who might find themselves, by the grace of our loving God, travelling on the path of repentance. 

Athanasios Katigkas of Sykies (suburb of Thessaloniki, Greece), answered the divine call to a life of repentance after the fervent prayers of his quadriplegic childhood friend Savvas, and the sound instruction of a lay preacher, Panagiotis Panagiotides. 

Athanasios used the therapeutic discipline of our Church, to free himself from the nets of human passions by practicing strict obedience under his seasoned spiritual father Triantafyllos Xiros. Athanasios' love for Christ did not permit him to leave our Lord at home (as most of us do), but he took Him along on his daily route as a Cab driver. 

His zeal for the word of God initiated hundreds of spiritual conversations, awakenings and transformations in his cab, with clients from all walks of life. His genuine simplicity, a simplicity likened to the fishermen of Galilee served as pure oxygen for hundreds of souls that shared the space of his taxi, some battered and gasping for air from the oxidants of the secular lifestyle. 

Tears of Repentance No 2: True Experiences in a Greek Taxi Cab is translated from the Greek by Father Nicholas Palis. It is edited and adapted by Constantine Zalalas.

The printed book form can be purchased from the author's website (below), Zoë Press and Amazon US; or in e-book form from Amazon UK. 

About the author: https://www.katigasathanasios.gr/

Always Me

Home Library

Spare by Prince Harry

Hardback: It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he could not find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. 

For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare (2023) is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

About the author: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, is a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist. He resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his family and three dogs.

Our Mother's Tears: Ten Weeping Madonnas In Historic Hungary by Erika Papp Faber

Paperback: From its inception as a Christian nation over a thousand years ago, Hungary has had a fervent devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. 

A publication which appeared towards the end of the second millennium lists 200 Marian shrines in Hungary. There are records of Marian paintings weeping tears in Hungary as early as 1663. 

This book, Our Mother's Tears: Ten Weeping Madonnas In Historic Hungary (2005) documents some of these miraculous weeping and holy sweating Madonnas. Authenticated by Church authorities and early religious tradition of Hungary, this book captures with coloured illustration the mystery of Mary’s compassion with her Divine Son. 

Inspiring and yet informative, this book would be a worthy addition to Catholic family libraries.

About the author: Erika Papp Faber was born in Hungary, and left with her parents when the Russians and Germans were fighting around Budapest. After surviving the post-war years in Germany, they came to the US in 1949, thanks to Papp’s American aunt and uncle who sponsored the family. Papp attended Georgetown University, and earned a degree in Foreign Service. For fourteen years, she edited a Catholic missiology magazine. Now she works as a freelance writer, and has written innumerable articles on Hungarian and religious topics. 

She is also a translator and has compiled an anthology of Hungarian poetry, which she has translated, and which awaits a publisher. She has alos written a booklet of reflections on the Rosary, which awaits a publisher. In addition to Hungarian, Erika Papp Faber has translated articles from German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. 

Her book Our Mother’s Tears: Ten Weeping Madonnas in Historic Hungary was published by the Franciscans of the Immaculate in 2006. She has also published numerous articles on Hungarian and religious subjects, both in English and Hungarian. Previous booklets include Keeping our Eyes Fixed on HIM: Reflections on Gospel Events By A Lay Catholic; God Sustains Widows: A Scriptural View; Who Wants To Be An Artichoke? (poems); and A Csipkebokorból (Hungarian poems). 

Papp married a wonderful Hungarian, Oscar Faber, but is now a widow, living in Connecticut.

Ratzinger Was Afraid: The Secret Documents, The Money And The Scandals That Overwhelmed The Pope by Nuzzi Gianluigi

Kindle: The news of Benedict XVI stepping down has come as a shock.

Perhaps the world will never know the real reasons behind a choice that will forever remain indelibly written in the history of the Church.

The Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, has decided to reveal the thorny issues within the Roman Curia and handed me dozens of documents that the author has now published along with his research and investigations in Ratzinger Was Afraid: The Secret Documents, The Money And The Scandals That Overwhelmed The Pope (2013).

“Paolo, are you afraid?” – the author, Nuzzi Gianluigi, asked the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, one day - “Yes, I am afraid – he answered – I am afraid that the Pope doesn’t have the strength to overcome this adversity, to cast the moneychangers from the temple.”

Shortly thereafter, the mayor of Milan, one of the most important cities of Italy, also met the Pope at a ceremony. Very concerned, he too revealed the detail of that encounter to Gianluigi: “I am struck by that look, Benedict XVI is afraid,…”. “Afraid of what?..” Gianluigi asked him.

“I was very ill at ease, here was Ratzinger talking to me like a frightened man. You know, we had set out some chairs in the sacristy of the Duomo, one for him, one for Cardinal Scola and another one for me. Shortly before the ceremony the Vatican informed us that another Cardinal would also be present.”

This book will change the history of the Church.

About the author: Gianluigi Nuzzi is an Italian journalist, writer, and television host/writer. He is the author of eight investigative books including His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI. Since 2013 he has hosted Quarto gradi on Rete 4, a program focused on major news stories that fascinate and divide public opinion. He considers himself a Roman Catholic.

Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism In Scripture And Practice (Explanations) by Fr Jeremy Davies

E-Book: Both secularism and superstition have popularised some very distorted ideas about exorcism. 

This ebook - Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism In Scripture And Practice (Explanations) (2009), written by an experienced exorcist, looks at its origin in the Gospels and its practice in the Church today. 

Different kinds of demonic influence are discussed, including their relation to conversion, sin and mental illness. 

Above all the text gives the good news that in Christ, the Devil is already defeated and that the Church carries this victory to those in need.

About the author: Father Jeremy Ponsonby Meredyth Davies (1935-2022)was an English Roman Catholic priest and physician. Fr Davies read English literature at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He then studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London and graduated with a medical degree in 1967. Davies was a leading exorcist and co-founder of the International Association of Exorcists.

Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy The Church From Within by Taylor Marshall

Hardback: It took nearly two millennia for the enemies of the Catholic Church to realize they could not successfully attack the Church from the outside. Indeed, countless nemeses from Nero to Napoleon succeeded only in creating sympathy and martyrs for our Catholic Faith. 

That all changed in the mid-19th century, when clandestine societies populated by Modernists and Marxists hatched a plan to subvert the Catholic Church from within. 

Their goal: to change Her doctrine, Her liturgy, and Her mission.

In this captivating and carefully documented book - Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within (2019), Dr Taylor Marshall pulls back the curtain on their nefarious plan, showing how these enemies of Christ strategically infiltrated the seminaries, then the priesthood, then the episcopacy, and eventually the cardinal-electors – all with the eventual goal of electing one of their own as pope.

You will come to see that the seemingly endless scandals plaguing the Church are not the result, as so many think, of cultural changes, or of Vatican II, but rather the natural consequences of an orchestrated demonic plot to destroy the Church.

In these gripping pages, you will discover:

- How popes of the 1800s discovered a plot to infiltrate the Church.

- How theologians suspected of being Modernists became Vatican powerbrokers.

- How modifications in Catholic canon law enabled predator priests like Theodore McCarrick to stay in positions of power.

- How Our Lady of La Salette gave a prophetic warning of the plot to infiltrate the Church.

- How the chief architect of liturgical reforms was discovered to be a Freemason.

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen's role in exposing the Communist infiltration of the priesthood.

- How the confusing history of the Third Secret of Fatima relates to the infiltration of the Catholic Church.

- That Pope Paul VI explained that Vatican II was not infallible.

- How Pope Paul VI revoked the voting rights of cardinals over 80, thus guaranteeing that all voting cardinals were appointed by him.

- How the criteria for sainthood shifted from a person's historical acts to his personal beliefs.

- The complex roots of the St Gallen Mafia and how they plotted to modify Catholic doctrine and elect Pope Francis.

About the author: Dr Taylor Marshall earned a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Dallas with his dissertation titled “Thomas Aquinas on Natural Law and the Twofold Beatitude of Humanity.” He is a best-selling author of eight books including: The Eternal City: Rome & the Origins of Catholic Christianity (Saint John Press, 2012), The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity (Saint John Press, 2009), The Catholic Perspective on Paul (Saint John Press, 2010), and Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages: A Layman’s Quick Guide to Thomism (Saint John Press, 2014). He has also published fictional works.

Dr Marshall and his wife live in Texas with their eight children. He is the Founder of both the New Saint Thomas Institute and the Troops of Saint George.

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International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Keep Your Head Up

Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), French Catholic Prelate

Contagious Faith: Why The Church Must Spread Hope, Not Fear, In A Pandemic by Philip F Lawler

Paperback: Even by the most unrestrained estimates, the Covid pandemic never approached the lethality of the Spanish flu of 1918. Yet the effect that our fears, amplified by the mass media, had on society were infinitely more debilitating.

In times such as these, our Christian faith has always offered hope and strength. But this past year was different. The reservoir of Christian belief was drained to dangerously low levels, and many Christians succumbed to the epidemic of fear.

In this clear-eyed book - Contagious Faith: Why The Church Must Spread Hope, Not Fear, In A Pandemic (2021) - about the real Covid crisis, Philip Lawler dissects how Church leaders and the faithful responded to this health emergency. He explains the devastating effects on society when Church leaders tell their people not to attend Sunday Mass, and when they ban Confession, marriages, and baptisms. He tackles the dangerous consequences of treating schoolchildren like lepers and explores the ethics of vaccines and the plight of parish priests caught in the middle.

Best of all, Lawler reveals how faithful Catholics responded to major crises in previous centuries and calls on today's Christians to display the same courageous faith that once offered hope to a fearful world - one that radiates inner peace, confidence, and hope in times such as these.

Epidemics may come, wars may rage, and governments may teeter and fall, but when our eyes remain fixed on the Lord, we will know serenity and draw souls to Christ. Our hope and courage will be contagious, and our society will be saved from the death spiral into fear, hatred, and despair that we are witnessing.

About the author: Philip F Lawler, the editor of Catholic World News, is one of America's most incisive Catholic journalists and commentators. A graduate of Harvard College, he has been the editor of Crisis magazine, the Boston Pilot, and Catholic World Report. He is the author of Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture (2008), a penetrating analysis of the scandals that brought the Church to its knees in America, and co-author of A Call to Serve: Pope Francis and the Catholic Future (2013). The father of seven and grandfather of twelve, Lawler lives in central Massachusetts with his wife, Leila, a popular Catholic blogger. 

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If People Cannot Write Well

We Are Like Books

The Furies (Charlie Parker Series) by John Connolly

Hardback: Evil takes many forms. Private Investigator Charlie Parker hunts them all.

Furies (Greek Erinyes): mythological snake-haired goddesses of vengeance, pursuers of those who have committed unpunished crimes. 

Now, in two short novels, private investigator Charlie Parker is drawn into a world of modern furies. 

In The Sisters Strange, the return of the criminal Raum Buker to Portland, Maine brings with it chaos and murder, as an act of theft threatens not only to tear apart his own existence but also that of Raum’s former lovers, the enigmatic sisters Dolors and Ambar Strange. 

And in the title tale, Parker finds himself fighting to protect two more women as the city of Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic, but it may be that his clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined.

They are wrong.

From the number one Sunday Times and multi-million-copy bestselling author John Connolly comes two linked stories in one novel and the most compelling and unsettling Charlie Parker case yet.

The Charlie Parker novels can be read and enjoyed in any order. 

The Furies (2022) is the landmark twentieth book in this globally bestselling series.

About the author: John Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. (A dogsbody, for our North American friends, is a 'go-fer'.) He studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper. He divides his time between Dublin and Portland, Maine; makes regular donations to the wine industry; and keeps a number of dogs in a remarkable degree of comfort.

Rating: 6/5

Chiara Lubich: Servant of Unity by Jim Gallagher

Booklet: As a teenager on pilgrimage to Loreto at the start of the Second World War, Chiara Lubich had a premonition of a “whole host” of other young women who would follow her way of total dedication to God. 

Today, the movement she began - the Work of Mary, commonly known as the Focolare - is present on every continent on earth. Encouraged by every Pope since Pius XII, they seek to be a presence of Mary in the Church and the world, and to live and realise Our Lord’s final priestly prayer; “May they be one Father, as I am in You and You are in Me”.

Chiara Lubich: Servant of Unity (2012) tells the powerful story of the founder of the Focolare movement, who dedicate their lives to the poor and the unity of all people. The booklet is currently available in e-book form only.

About the author: Jim Gallagher is a journalist and the author of various CTS publications including biographies of St Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

Ordained By A Predator: Becoming a Priest in the Middle of a Criminal Conspiracy by Fr Mark White

Paperback: The sexual abuse crisis has destabilized the Church. Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick's crimes and hypocrisy have scandalized Catholics all over the world. Even worse, dozens of bishops, cardinals, and even the pope tried to cover it up.

Two decades ago, McCarrick ordained Father Mark White to the sacred priesthood. When Fr White learned some of the facts about the man who ordained him, he set out on a quest to find the full truth. 

That quest has cost this priest almost everything - except his Catholic faith. 

Fr Mark White tells his story in Ordained By A Predator: Becoming A Priest In The Middle Of A Criminal Conspiracy (2022). The book is currently available from churchmilitant.com

About the author: Father Mark White is a priest of the Roman Catholic diocese of Richmond, Virginia. He ministered in parishes for seventeen years, until his bishop suspended him for blogging about clerical sex abuse. Now, Fr White lives as a kind of hermit priest, offering support to sex abuse victims and researching, writing and speaking about the crisis in the Church.

Book Talk No 123

Judgment Day (Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez Legal Series) by Sheldon Siegel

Paperback: Judgment Day (2008) is the sixth instalment in the outstanding legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley & Rosie Fernandez with a dramatic new case for the San Francisco law firm of Daley and Fernandez. 

As husband and wife, Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez could not make it work. Luckily for Bay Area criminals, they didn't let that stop them from joining forces to open San Francisco's most tenacious law firm. As defense attorneys willing to take on the biggest and trickiest cases, Daley and Fernandez make one hell of team.

 

Judgment Day finds the ex-spouses tackling their most compelling case yet. Called in at the last minute to try to stop the execution of Nathan Fineman, a former mob lawyer convicted of murdering three people in the backroom of the notorious Golden Dragon Restaurant, Mike and Rosie must race the clock in a desperate attempt to prove their client's innocence - an impossible task, given the wealth of forensic evidence pointing to his guilt. 

At the same time, Mike must battle his own personal demons when the reputation of his father, a San Francisco cop who was one of the first officers at the Golden Dragon on the night of the murders, is called into question. 

As the plot hurtles toward its stunning denouement, Judgment Day is fast approaching not only for Nate Fineman, but for Mike's father and for the law firm of Daley and Fernandez as well.

About the author: Sheldon Siegel is a New York Times Bestselling novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal courtroom drama.

Siegel was born on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. He attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, and later went on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Accounting major. He graduated with a Juris Doctor from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley in 1983. He has been in private practice in San Francisco, California for over twenty years and specializes in corporate and securities law with the law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP. 

His books have been translated into a dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. He currently resides in Larkspur, California, with his wife, Linda, and twin sons, Alan and Stephen.

Rating: 5/5

The Deal: Secrets For Mastering The Art Of Negotiation (Real Estate) by Josh Flagg

Hardcover: Star of the hit show Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, Josh Flagg shares his secrets to mastering any negotiation in any industry and at any level in The Deal: Secrets For Mastering The Art of Negotiation (2022). 

If you want to be the best, you have to look and act like the best. Josh learned this rule young and has applied it to every client relationship he has ever had. He began his real estate career as a student at Beverly Hills High School - swung big and hit - landing him in the perfect position to take on some of LA’s largest, most exclusive real estate listings and, eventually, a spot on Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles. 

He has seen and put into practice what works and identified the “common tricks” that do not. Josh has curated ten rules that, when applied to any deal, will significantly increase your chance of success, and make you the master negotiator your clients need you to be.

About the author: With over a decade's worth of high-end deals in the real estate industry, Josh Flagg has taken the Los Angeles real estate market by storm. Flagg, who has sold well over three billion dollars’ worth of property, is amongst the top five real estate agents in Los Angeles.

Flagg works with many exclusive clients, including A-List celebrities and high-net-worth individuals, and he represents some of the city's most notable builders, developers, business managers, and attorneys. Flagg is constantly setting new records and has been recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top-ranked agents in California as well as nationally. He has also been recognized several times by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and has been on the Forbes “30 under 30” list of the most influential people in their industries.

Spare

Pope Benedict XVI Requiescat In Pace

Hot Chicken Soup With Rice

Prayer Life

Jesus, I Love You

Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022)

Happy New Year 2023