Cluny Media
Vespers In Vienna
Vespers in Vienna
by Bruce Marshall
The year is 1946. The Second World War is over but the tranquility of order is hardly restored to the city of Vienna. Charged by the Allied administrators “to rehabilitate Austria”—with a particular responsibility towards all “displaced persons”—the British Colonel Nicobar and his staff take up residence in the convent of the Daughters of the Holy Ghost, where they live under the noble auspices of the Reverend Mother Auxilia. The imperturbable serenity of the convent and its religious inhabitants throws into sharp relief the frantic and frenzied nature of life for the occupiers of Vienna and the illusiveness of the peace that they seek to impose on the city.
Replete with the larger-than-life characters typical of Bruce Marshall’s fiction, Vespers in Vienna refuses to sacrifice intelligence and nobility to the interests of humor and romance in telling its tale. The result is an astute satire, comparable to Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy, boasting that rare blend of spiritual power and rich entertainment.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 210 pages
by Bruce Marshall
The year is 1946. The Second World War is over but the tranquility of order is hardly restored to the city of Vienna. Charged by the Allied administrators “to rehabilitate Austria”—with a particular responsibility towards all “displaced persons”—the British Colonel Nicobar and his staff take up residence in the convent of the Daughters of the Holy Ghost, where they live under the noble auspices of the Reverend Mother Auxilia. The imperturbable serenity of the convent and its religious inhabitants throws into sharp relief the frantic and frenzied nature of life for the occupiers of Vienna and the illusiveness of the peace that they seek to impose on the city.
Replete with the larger-than-life characters typical of Bruce Marshall’s fiction, Vespers in Vienna refuses to sacrifice intelligence and nobility to the interests of humor and romance in telling its tale. The result is an astute satire, comparable to Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy, boasting that rare blend of spiritual power and rich entertainment.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 210 pages
The Accounting
The Accounting
by Bruce Marshall
A fraud has been committed! Or so, at least, do the directors of Shinto and Dunsmuir’s British and Overseas Banking Corporation have “every reason to believe.” Their belief turns the ordinarily routine event of the annual audit of financial accounts into a tense, even dangerous, investigation for the staff of Cloudridge, Parkinson, Talisman, Steeple and Co. Set in 1930s Paris, against the backdrop of the actual “Stavisky Affair,” The Accounting follows this group of overtaxed auditors, prisoners of their own discontent, as they navigate an immense and intricate maze of actuarial and personal mistakes and corrections, all in hot pursuit of fraud and fraudster—seeing in the possibility of success a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for proper self-advancement.
Taking a minor thematic departure from his more consciously religious fiction, Marshall still surrounds this cost-counting drama and its characters with a tangible quality of authenticity and solicitude. First appearing in 1958, The Accounting is a characteristically clever and witty entry in Marshall’s ledger.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 320 pages
by Bruce Marshall
A fraud has been committed! Or so, at least, do the directors of Shinto and Dunsmuir’s British and Overseas Banking Corporation have “every reason to believe.” Their belief turns the ordinarily routine event of the annual audit of financial accounts into a tense, even dangerous, investigation for the staff of Cloudridge, Parkinson, Talisman, Steeple and Co. Set in 1930s Paris, against the backdrop of the actual “Stavisky Affair,” The Accounting follows this group of overtaxed auditors, prisoners of their own discontent, as they navigate an immense and intricate maze of actuarial and personal mistakes and corrections, all in hot pursuit of fraud and fraudster—seeing in the possibility of success a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for proper self-advancement.
Taking a minor thematic departure from his more consciously religious fiction, Marshall still surrounds this cost-counting drama and its characters with a tangible quality of authenticity and solicitude. First appearing in 1958, The Accounting is a characteristically clever and witty entry in Marshall’s ledger.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 320 pages
The Covenants of Christ
The Covenants of Christ
Select Writings
by St John Chrysostom
A saint’s own writings, as Saint John Henry Newman once professed, give the “real” Life of that saint, expressing his or her “moral unity, identity, growth, continuity, personality.” Of all the Greek Church Fathers, none left to posterity a written legacy as expansive and eloquent as did Saint John Chrysostom; thus none is more readily knowable than this pastoral theologian of the fourth century. His commentaries and homilies on Scripture; his discourses against heretics; his instructions in morality and piety; his panegyrics for saints; his dogmatic works on such topics as the divinity of Christ, Divine Providence, and the priesthood; and his hundreds of letters from exile, all exhibiting an unreserved trust in God—by means of these, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, Saint John “passed on the Church's tradition and reliable doctrine in an age of theological controversies,” and “reaffirmed the discovery that God loves each one of us with an infinite love and therefore desires salvation for us all.”
Compiled and translated by Mary H. Allies, Covenants of Christ: Selected Writings comprises forty-six of Saint John Chrysostom’s homilies (some whole, others in part) as well as eleven of his letters, and shows that the lessons of the Golden-mouthed remain both timely and profoundly instructive.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 240 pages
Select Writings
by St John Chrysostom
A saint’s own writings, as Saint John Henry Newman once professed, give the “real” Life of that saint, expressing his or her “moral unity, identity, growth, continuity, personality.” Of all the Greek Church Fathers, none left to posterity a written legacy as expansive and eloquent as did Saint John Chrysostom; thus none is more readily knowable than this pastoral theologian of the fourth century. His commentaries and homilies on Scripture; his discourses against heretics; his instructions in morality and piety; his panegyrics for saints; his dogmatic works on such topics as the divinity of Christ, Divine Providence, and the priesthood; and his hundreds of letters from exile, all exhibiting an unreserved trust in God—by means of these, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, Saint John “passed on the Church's tradition and reliable doctrine in an age of theological controversies,” and “reaffirmed the discovery that God loves each one of us with an infinite love and therefore desires salvation for us all.”
Compiled and translated by Mary H. Allies, Covenants of Christ: Selected Writings comprises forty-six of Saint John Chrysostom’s homilies (some whole, others in part) as well as eleven of his letters, and shows that the lessons of the Golden-mouthed remain both timely and profoundly instructive.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 240 pages
Select Writings
The Great Encyclicals
The Great Encyclicals
Volume Two: The Spiritual Letters
by Pope Leo XIII
Compiled and Introduced by Leo L. Clarke
The reign of Pope Leo XIII is the fourth-longest of any papacy in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church. Over the course of a full quarter-century, Leo XIII courageously engaged with the modern world, asserting the Church’s authority and wisdom in the face of unprecedented challenges and confusion. He was also a prolific author, issuing a total of eighty-six encyclical letters on matters both spiritual and social. Compiled and engagingly introduced by Leo L. Clarke, The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII comprises—across two volumes—thirty-one of those letters, to present the vibrant and courageous insights of this great shepherd to an age with a pronounced need of hearing and heeding his message.
Volume Two: The Spiritual Letters contains seventeen of Leo XIII’s encyclicals dedicated to strengthening the Church in faith and in practice, including the outstanding Aeterni patris (on the restoration of Christian philosophy), Arcanum divinae (on Christian marriage), and Providentissimus Deus (on the study of Holy Scripture), and crowned with select letters on the Holy Rosary.
Contents
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 300 pages
Volume Two: The Spiritual Letters
by Pope Leo XIII
Compiled and Introduced by Leo L. Clarke
The reign of Pope Leo XIII is the fourth-longest of any papacy in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church. Over the course of a full quarter-century, Leo XIII courageously engaged with the modern world, asserting the Church’s authority and wisdom in the face of unprecedented challenges and confusion. He was also a prolific author, issuing a total of eighty-six encyclical letters on matters both spiritual and social. Compiled and engagingly introduced by Leo L. Clarke, The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII comprises—across two volumes—thirty-one of those letters, to present the vibrant and courageous insights of this great shepherd to an age with a pronounced need of hearing and heeding his message.
Volume Two: The Spiritual Letters contains seventeen of Leo XIII’s encyclicals dedicated to strengthening the Church in faith and in practice, including the outstanding Aeterni patris (on the restoration of Christian philosophy), Arcanum divinae (on Christian marriage), and Providentissimus Deus (on the study of Holy Scripture), and crowned with select letters on the Holy Rosary.
Contents
- Aeterni Patris - On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy (1879)
- Arcanum Divinae - On Christian Marriage (1880)
- Exeunte Iam Anno - On the Right Ordering of Christian Life (1888)
- Quamquam Pluries - On Devotion to Saint Joseph (1889)
- Providentissimus Deus - On the Study of Holy Scripture (1893)
- Satis Cognitum - On the Unity of the Church (1896)
- Divinum Illud Munus - On the Holy Spirit (1897)
- Annum Sacrum - On the Consecration to the Sacred Heart (1899)
- Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus - On Jesus Christ the Redeemer (1900)
- Mirae Caritatis - On the Holy Eucharist (1902)
- Supremi Apostolatus Officio - On Devotion of the Rosary (1883)
- Octobri Mense - On the Rosary (1891)
- Magnae Dei Matris - On the Rosary (1892)
- Laetitiae Sanctae - On the Commendation of Devotion to the Rosary (1893)
- Iucunda Semper Expectatione - On the Rosary (1894)
- Adiutricem - On the Rosary (1895)
- Fidentem Piumque Animum - On the Rosary (1896)
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 300 pages
Volume Two: The Spiritual Letters
Saint Brigid of Ireland
Saint Brigid of Ireland
by Alice Curtayne
Saint Brigid of Ireland shares with Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille the honor of being patron of the Emerald Isle. In this brief yet highly illuminating biography, Alice Curtayne details the legacy of Brigid with lively descriptions of her character and family history; her virtues and miracles; her monastic foundations and missionary achievements; and her lasting influence on Irish culture. By all accounts, Brigid of Kildare was unique in her own time and place: as a fifth-century woman, she “stood isolated, without prototype, without peer. When she arose it was as though with a decisive movement she pulled back a heavy curtain shrouding the scene. And at that gesture all the other actors on the stage stand transfigured before a landscape where they see for the first time such freedom as they had never dreamed of, and beyond, Vision, the world opened to them by the Faith.”
Proof of both its subject’s enduring greatness and to its author’s obvious talent, Saint Brigid of Ireland is a heartily enjoyable and edifying biography of one of Ireland’s—and the Church’s—greatest saints.
Paperback, size 8" x 5", 115 pages
by Alice Curtayne
Saint Brigid of Ireland shares with Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille the honor of being patron of the Emerald Isle. In this brief yet highly illuminating biography, Alice Curtayne details the legacy of Brigid with lively descriptions of her character and family history; her virtues and miracles; her monastic foundations and missionary achievements; and her lasting influence on Irish culture. By all accounts, Brigid of Kildare was unique in her own time and place: as a fifth-century woman, she “stood isolated, without prototype, without peer. When she arose it was as though with a decisive movement she pulled back a heavy curtain shrouding the scene. And at that gesture all the other actors on the stage stand transfigured before a landscape where they see for the first time such freedom as they had never dreamed of, and beyond, Vision, the world opened to them by the Faith.”
Proof of both its subject’s enduring greatness and to its author’s obvious talent, Saint Brigid of Ireland is a heartily enjoyable and edifying biography of one of Ireland’s—and the Church’s—greatest saints.
Paperback, size 8" x 5", 115 pages
Sacred Images
Sacred Images
by St. John Damascene
Translated by Mary H. Allies
“War is toil and trouble,” wrote the poet John Dryden in 1697. Almost a thousand years before, a war in the Byzantine Empire proved no exception to this rule. Yet it was not a war of fire and sword, but of images and words, waged not in the name of domination, but of divine worship. It was the iconomachy—the war of icons—now known as the Iconoclastic Controversy. The Iconoclasts contended, in keeping with the Old Law prohibition of graven images, that depictions of God and his saints had no place in Christian worship; the Iconophiles contested this, distinguishing between worship and veneration to provide a place for sacred imagery in the Christian devotion and liturgy.
Among the Iconophiles, Saint John Damascene was a figure of prime importance. In his writings, he asserted that the Incarnation affirms the goodness of creation and bestows on matter the capability, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, of “becoming, through faith, a sign and a sacrament, efficacious in the meeting of man with God.” Translated by Mary H. Allies from the Saint’s Apologetic Treatises Against Those Decrying the Holy Images, and supplemented by three of his sermons on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sacred Images is a timeless treatment of a fundamental truth of the Christian faith: that “God saw all that he had made, and found it very good.”
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 160 pages
Old Principles and the New Order
Old Principles and the New Order
by Fr Vincent McNabb, O.P.
The Distributist movement, led by Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, and supported by Vincent McNabb, O.P., promoted a particular type of subsidiarity. Contrary to socialism and communism, which advocate for the redistribution of wealth, distributism seeks the distribution of the means of production to as many people as possible and advocates for a “return to the land,” with agriculture as the economic primary and the family as the basic unit of cooperative society. Per McNabb, the Church and her ministers must enter this territory: “The Church is not primarily interested in politics or economics, because neither politics nor economics are primary. Yet the Church is necessarily, and greatly interested in politics and economics because both politics and economics are moral.”
Striking at the heart of the morbid modern economic collective, Old Principles and the New Order states incontestably that isolation from God, guarantor of all good things, “can end only in social slavery or in social chaos.” Apropos in its own time, this message remains uncomfortably applicable to the contemporary age. And yet in its unabashed assertion of first principles, one still able to chart a course toward decent and happy living for each citizen and every community.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 210 pages
Heretics
Heretics
by G.K. Chesterton
For a work of philosophical criticism, Heretics concludes on a surprising note: “There are no rationalists,” G. K. Chesterton declares. “We all believe fairy-tales and live in them.” Like so many things Chestertonian, the remark appears fanciful, but is in fact mortally serious. The foundation for this remark in particular is the series of essays which constitutes Heretics: investigations of men whose viewpoints and doctrines have “the hardihood to differ” from Chesterton’s. With all the ebullience and brashness typical of its author, Heretics contends with such giants of twentieth-century thought as Joseph McCabe and Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, and Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Darwin, and their ideological progeny—atheism, militarism, vitalism (the philosophy of the “life force”), scientism, nihilism, and evolutionism—and the expansive effects of their power and influence.
First appearing in 1905, three years before the universally acclaimed Orthodoxy, Heretics serves as both proof of the colossal reason and wit of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and an eloquent preamble to his humble faith in the ultimate paradox which is also the ultimate truth.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 226 pages
by G.K. Chesterton
For a work of philosophical criticism, Heretics concludes on a surprising note: “There are no rationalists,” G. K. Chesterton declares. “We all believe fairy-tales and live in them.” Like so many things Chestertonian, the remark appears fanciful, but is in fact mortally serious. The foundation for this remark in particular is the series of essays which constitutes Heretics: investigations of men whose viewpoints and doctrines have “the hardihood to differ” from Chesterton’s. With all the ebullience and brashness typical of its author, Heretics contends with such giants of twentieth-century thought as Joseph McCabe and Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, and Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Darwin, and their ideological progeny—atheism, militarism, vitalism (the philosophy of the “life force”), scientism, nihilism, and evolutionism—and the expansive effects of their power and influence.
First appearing in 1905, three years before the universally acclaimed Orthodoxy, Heretics serves as both proof of the colossal reason and wit of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and an eloquent preamble to his humble faith in the ultimate paradox which is also the ultimate truth.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 226 pages
Storm of Glory
Storm of Glory
The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
by John Beevers
“Love to be unknown and accounted as nothing.” These words from the Imitation of Christ might well have been the motto of Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the “Little Flower” of Lisieux, who is now hailed as the “greatest saint of modern times.” The story of her soul is now universally known: born to Louis and Zélie Martin in 1873, she joined—in spite of stern opposition—the Carmelite community of Lisieux at the age of just fifteen. For little more than nine years, she lived the Carmelite life of prayer, silence and austerity, suffering in body from tuberculosis and striving in spirit to follow “the little way” by which she hoped to gain eternal life, until her death at the age of twenty-four in 1897.
Storm of Glory: Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, originally published in 1949, is an excellent and vivid introduction to the life and lessons of the Little Flower. The fruit of John Beevers’ diligent research and careful study of the relevant materials available to date, Storm of Glory succinctly conveys the power and significance of Saint Thérèse’s message to the modern world: namely, that God is not dead, but is alive; He lives, He is life itself, and He promises that same life, in abundance, to any and all who will accept it from His crucified hands.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 218 pages
The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
by John Beevers
“Love to be unknown and accounted as nothing.” These words from the Imitation of Christ might well have been the motto of Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the “Little Flower” of Lisieux, who is now hailed as the “greatest saint of modern times.” The story of her soul is now universally known: born to Louis and Zélie Martin in 1873, she joined—in spite of stern opposition—the Carmelite community of Lisieux at the age of just fifteen. For little more than nine years, she lived the Carmelite life of prayer, silence and austerity, suffering in body from tuberculosis and striving in spirit to follow “the little way” by which she hoped to gain eternal life, until her death at the age of twenty-four in 1897.
Storm of Glory: Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, originally published in 1949, is an excellent and vivid introduction to the life and lessons of the Little Flower. The fruit of John Beevers’ diligent research and careful study of the relevant materials available to date, Storm of Glory succinctly conveys the power and significance of Saint Thérèse’s message to the modern world: namely, that God is not dead, but is alive; He lives, He is life itself, and He promises that same life, in abundance, to any and all who will accept it from His crucified hands.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 218 pages
The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Heroes of God
Heroes of God
by Henri Daniel-Rops
Down through the ages, numerous men and women have devoted themselves totally to the task of spreading the Gospel to the dark corners of the world. To each belonged some definite service, bequeathed by God and unto His glory.
From this immense variety, Henri Daniel-Rops has selected eleven heroes of God: St. Paul, prince of Apostles and proto-missionary; St. Martin of Tours, servant of God to the French countryside; Blessed Ramon Lull, martyr for the Muslims; Bartolomé de las Casas, loving father to the natives of the New World; St. Francis Xavier, intrepid pioneer and preacher to Asia; St. Issac Jogues, priest-unto-death for the Iroquois; St. Junípero Serra, cultivator of California and its harvest for Christ’s Church; Blessed Anne-Marie Javouhey, dauntless liberator of the slaves in French Guiana; St. Charles de Foucauld, hermit of the Sahara and disciple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; St. Damien of Molokai, sufferer of living death, leprosy, for the sake of his flock; and Father Nussbaum, indomitable modern martyr of forbidden Tibet.
Originally published in 1959, Heroes of God bears compelling witness to the truth that—despite all differences in time, temperament, and territory—these adventurers had a common design: to live, suffer, and die so that others might know the love and mercy of God.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 238 pages
by Henri Daniel-Rops
"Have you strength to drink of the cup I am to drink of? They said: We have." (Matthew 20:22)
Down through the ages, numerous men and women have devoted themselves totally to the task of spreading the Gospel to the dark corners of the world. To each belonged some definite service, bequeathed by God and unto His glory.
From this immense variety, Henri Daniel-Rops has selected eleven heroes of God: St. Paul, prince of Apostles and proto-missionary; St. Martin of Tours, servant of God to the French countryside; Blessed Ramon Lull, martyr for the Muslims; Bartolomé de las Casas, loving father to the natives of the New World; St. Francis Xavier, intrepid pioneer and preacher to Asia; St. Issac Jogues, priest-unto-death for the Iroquois; St. Junípero Serra, cultivator of California and its harvest for Christ’s Church; Blessed Anne-Marie Javouhey, dauntless liberator of the slaves in French Guiana; St. Charles de Foucauld, hermit of the Sahara and disciple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; St. Damien of Molokai, sufferer of living death, leprosy, for the sake of his flock; and Father Nussbaum, indomitable modern martyr of forbidden Tibet.
Originally published in 1959, Heroes of God bears compelling witness to the truth that—despite all differences in time, temperament, and territory—these adventurers had a common design: to live, suffer, and die so that others might know the love and mercy of God.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 238 pages