Spiritual Life
How to Win Your Spiritual Battles and Attain Inner Peace
by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
First published in 1589. St. Francis de Sales carried a copy of this book in his pocket for 18 years!
Its wisdom formed his soul; it inspired him to a life of the deepest devotion, and ultimately it helped him become one of the Church's greatest saints. Now this book can do the same thing for you.
It's no longer fashionable to speak of the Christian life as a "battle," but there's actually no better way to describe the tug-of-war for your soul that's raging right now between the forces of light and darkness.
Here, Dom Lorenzo Scupoli helps you take your proper part in this spiritual battle so that you can win - decisively - the war for your soul.
This book has been loved by saints and sinners alike ever since it was written four hundred years ago. Why? Because it offers sensible advice to help you overcome spiritual obstacles and achieve spiritual perfection.
Not only what, but how!
Best of all, Spiritual Combat doesn't just tell you what you ought to be doing in order to live a truly Christian life - it also shows you how to do it.
These directions include:
- Seven reflections to help you be sorry for sinning
- Twelve ways to think about death - they'll help you live better today!
- Prayer: seven ways to achieve its full benefits
- What to do when prayer is dry and burdensome . . . or simply impossible
- With wise spiritual guidance like this and much more, you'll soon be winning all your spiritual battles - battles that most people concede without a fight!
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 224 pages
The Interior Castle leather hardcover
by St Teresa of Avila
"I began to think of the soul as a castle made of a single diamond […] in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions."
St. Teresa of Jesus, also known as St. Teresa of Avila, is one of the most popular Doctors of the Church. Her teaching on prayer has continued to inspire and guide Christians in their spiritual journeys for over four hundred years.
In The Interior Castle St. Teresa describes the road by which she was led, well aware that the others may be led in a different way. In the heavenly Father’s house, there are many mansions; not only seven, and many paths lead to them. What gives the work such high value is, that it is the result of a most searching inquiry into the various phases whereby a soul is gradually transformed into the likeness of God Himself. Here St. Teresa is at her best. She takes nothing for granted, her own personal experiences are admitted only after having been fully investigated and found to be consistent one with the other, and conformable to the teaching of the Church and the words of Holy Scripture.
Leather Hardcover, size 8.5" x 5.5", 256 pages
This book is an attempt to outline that love story of God and man, which achieves its consummation in the unity of the whole Christ; and to show that the spiritual life is a partnership of love between God and man which can be summed up in one word: Christ.
- Dom Eugene Boylan OCSO
Can married couples become holy? Can anyone who is not a priest or a member of a religious institute reach the heights of mystical union with Christ? In this book, Dom Eugene Boylan, Trappist abbot and spiritual writer, shows how the faithful are invited into this intimate union with Him, regardless of their state in life.
Few works can match the completeness of Dom Eugene’s treatment of God’s loving plan for mankind in This Tremendous Lover. He explains how the doctrines of the Redemption and of the Mystical Body form us in holiness through our membership in His Church. A chapter on the Blessed Virgin Mary outlines her essential role in the spiritual life, while a chapter on Marriage and Holiness explains just how exalted and yet attainable, is the ideal of holiness for married couples.
First published in 1946, This Tremendous Lover sold more than a million copies. Decades after it was written, it remains a sure guide to understanding what the love of God for man truly entails.
by St Francis de Sales
translated by Allan Ross
Written for the layman surrounded by worldliness, this is a masterpiece of mystical and devotional literature, by a great and much loved Doctor of the Church. This book does what many similar books fail to do, teach the reader to grow in holiness, step by simple step.
Since its first publication in 1609 this book has never gone out of print. It has always occupied a privileged position in the Church: no guide ever written provides so complete, so balanced and so practical an approach to the spiritual life.
St. Francis de Sales was a master psychologist, with a special gift for teaching practical morality. His writings are characterized by sublime common sense. Even non-Christians have admired his prose. Above all, he is a spiritual genius, and thus was made a Doctor of the Church. This book is truly medicine for the soul.
Introduction to the Devout Life by Saint Francis De Sales, edited and translated by Allan Ross. This edition has been re-typeset using the text of the 1943 edition originally published by Burns Oates and Washbourne, London, under the imprimatur of Edm. Canon Surmont, Vicar General, Westminster, 20th November 1924.
Leather Hardcover, size 8.3" x 5.5", 332 pages
by Fr Francis X. Weiser, S.J.
Why do we wear our best clothes on Sunday? What was the Holy Ghost Hole in medieval churches? How did a Belgian nun originate the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament? Where did the Halloween mask and the jack-o’-lantern come from?
Learn the answer to these questions, as well as the history behind our traditional celebration of Thanksgiving, in this gem of a book by Fr Weiser.
Paperback, size 5.5" x 8.5", 218 pages
How to Govern Your Thoughts, Discipline Your Will, and Achieve Balance in Your Spiritual Life
by Fr Basil W. Maturin
This is the book you need for those times in your life when even your most strenuous efforts to follow Christ end in frustration. Christian Self-Mastery explains why following Him can be so difficult — and how you can start now to make progress even in the most vexing areas of your life.
Author Fr. Basil W. Maturin insists that no matter how hard you're trying now, you can have a better relationship with God and greater self-mastery — if you follow his simple steps to getting your passions in check and improving your knowledge of your own motives, desires, and fears.
Fr. Maturin emphasizes the crucial role that self-discipline plays in your spiritual life and gives you solid ways you can distinguish it from counterfeits and avoid common mistakes people make when they try to change their habits and live for God.
This extraordinary book will help you in myriad ways to rise above your limitations and truly meet God!
Start on the way to true self-mastery as you learn:
- Two things you must know in order to make any progress at all in your spiritual life
- Why it's dangerous for you to try to adopt a large number of spiritual disciplines all at once
- Self-knowledge: why it involves so much more than its contemporary counterfeit, self-analysis
- Two ways to avoid self-deception when you look at yourself (caution: you'll probably be surprised at who you really are!)
- Why self-control and self-denial are not morbid and gloomy, but hopeful and even joyful - when undertaken properly
- Self-discipline: how it will restore your soul to its full power. Three things you must have in order to gain this power
- The mistake many people make when trying to rid themselves of evil thoughts: are you falling into this trap too?
- Love: the holy school that will purify and ennoble yours - and help you steer clear of prevalent modern counterfeits
- And more that will show you the value of self-mastery - and give you solid directions for attaining it!
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 224 pages
by St Ignatius of Loyola
This great classic has been changing lives for over 400 years. This is a rare self-taught edition that does not require a retreat master. Designed to make a person re-examine the direction his life is taking and seriously direct himself away from Hell and toward Heaven. Inspires one to make a new beginning.
Paperback, 344 pages
by St Francis de Sales
"You aim at true devotion, my dear Philothea, because, as a Christian, you know how acceptable it is to the Divine Majesty. But inasmuch as trifling errors at the outset of any undertaking are wont to increase rapidly as we advance, frequently becoming almost irreparable, it is needful that, first of all, you should ascertain wherein lies the virtue of devotion.” — St. Francis de Sales
Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but how many of us actually know how to get there?
Learn from the writings of St. Francis de Sales, the Doctor of Charity, on this very matter in his work that specifically addresses this most important question. The knowledgeable and holy Doctor of the Church writes in a way that is at once easy to read and suited to all readers, yet thorough, authoritative, reliable, kind, and gentle. He guides us to the knowledge that we are all called to the devout life. True devotion to God, as St. Francis de Sales points out, adorns every vocation. Additionally, St. Francis will explain that the devout life is a choice worthy for its own sake: “And our blessed Lord Himself assure[s] us that a devout life is a lovely, a pleasant, and a happy life.”
Addressed as a personal letter to Philothea (which means “lover of God”) this book covers all the parts of a devout life:
- Our desire to lead a devout life
- Our full resolution to do so
- How we should approach God in prayer and the Sacraments
- The practice of 16 important virtues
- Remedies against ordinary temptations
- And confirmation in our practice of devotion
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 360 pages
by Rev. Msgr. Aloysius F. Coogan,
Today, Christmas is celebrated without Christ in many quarters. Christmas is the season when God became man in the form of a child, and yet, unhappily, in how many homes, because Christ is uninvited, children, too, are no longer welcome. Christmas, like Emmanuel, means “God with us.” If we celebrate Christmas without God, we have lost its meaning. If we refuse an inn to God’s children as the fruit of marriage, we repeat the sad tale of Bethlehem that refused an inn to Mary and Joseph and the Child.
This book was written with the hope and intention of bringing to our minds the thoughts of Advent that we may think and pray with Mary who brought Christ to us. Advent, like Lent, is a time of preparation in thought and deed for a great event.
Spiritual Steps to Christmas, provide a daily meditiation throughout Advent to prepare well for the coming of the Christ Babe.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 116 pages, Impr 1953
Selected Passages from the Writings of The Cure of Ars
by St John Vianney
Catholic wisdom stated in a simple, sublime, penetrating way. St. Jean-Marie Vianney's sage counsel on 36 important topics, including the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin, Prayer, Suffering, Hope, Envy, Grace, and Paradise.
Probably the most persuasive exhortation ever urging us to renounce sin. Highly recommended for every Catholic!
Paperback, size 7" x 4.25", 184 pages
by Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
Keep Christ in Christmas this year by turning to this slim volume of daily Advent meditations by Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, one of the greatest homilists in the history of the Church.
Carefully selected to lift your soul to God in those hectic days that stretch from Thanksgiving to Christmas, these forty daily meditations will keep you mindful of the real meaning of Christmas while affording you an admirable distillation of the doctrines and piety of our Holy Catholic Church.
With the help of Bishop Bossuet and the sense of God's grandeur and love that permeates his every word all through the rush toward Christmas you'll stay mindful of the holy words of Isaiah foretelling the birth of our savior; you'll find yourself marveling at the Annunciation and the Visitation; you'll rejoice in anticipation of the coming birth of Jesus; and, finally, you ll look forward to kneeling with St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin in silent adoration of the incarnate Son of God. This year, you won't (as so often happens) arrive at Midnight Mass distracted, exhausted, and frazzled, having neglected your Advent devotions and your ordinary prayers, too. Instead, you'll find yourself stepping lightly into church, ready and eager to adore the newborn King, your soul what it should be: a fit dwelling place for the Redeemer.
Don't waste another Advent! Let Meditations for Advent keep you prayerful amidst the worst distractions of the holiday season. Let it draw you daily closer to Jesus, whose birth the season celebrates, and whose birth your soul yearns to celebrate, too.
Paperback, size 7" x 5", 173 pages
by St. Francis de Sales
In Consoling Thoughts on God and Providence, St. Francis de Sales, beloved Doctor of the Church, speaks of how God wants only good for us, and why we should have great confidence in His merciful love.
This treasure of spirituality beautifully explains God's love for the sinner, how great His joy is upon the return of just one lost sheep, and how God's mercy extends even towards the damned. St. Francis encourages us to conform ourselves to God's will, and teaches us to abandon ourselves to the Lord who so desires our hearts.
Readers of Consoling Thoughts on God and Providence will experience first-hand why St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is known to history as the Gentle Saint. St. Francis was Bishop of Geneva and a tireless preacher, who yet made time to correspond with numerous souls who wrote him for his insight and guidance. His Consoling Thoughts are compiled from these letters as well as from his other spiritual works.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 158 pages
by St. Francis de Sales
In Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life St. Francis de Sales, beloved Doctor of the Church, gives us treasured insight from the master of spiritual direction. How can the soul persevere in piety in the midst of affliction? How should we conduct ourselves when suffering interior trials? How can we profit from our own faults? St. Francis de Sales explains all this and more.
In this masterful collection, St. Francis speaks to every soul on the riches to be gained from suffering trials and temptations, the advantages we can draw from our own defects, and how to choose and carry the best crosses. Also included are uplifting passages on suffering sadness, or what we would now call depression.
Readers of Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life will experience firsthand why St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is known to history as the Gentle Saint. St. Francis was Bishop of Geneva and a tireless preacher, who yet made time to correspond with numerous souls who wrote him for his insight and guidance. His Consoling Thoughts are compiled from these letters as well as from his other spiritual works.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 192 pages
Letters to Persons in the World
by St Francis de Sales
Three centuries ago, people flocked to St. Francis de Sales, seeking his help for their problems. St. Francis spent countless hours ministering to them face-to-face and wrote over 20,000 letters! From these letters to persons in many countries and in all walks of life, we've selected the ones which will be most helpful to you today.
Each is a hand-written response to someone like you seeking help with an actual problem. You'll be consoled by the warmth, the wisdom, and the holy sympathy you'll find in these pages as the love of this great saint reaches out to us across the centuries. Whatever your circumstances may be, there's wisdom here to make your life holier . . . and happier.
Wisdom for difficult situations . . .
- To a pious wife: how to be devout without irritating your husband
- To an old man, preparing for death
- To a woman who judges herself harshly
- To a woman distressed by her lack of spiritual progress
- To a newlywed, teaching the duties of married life and how to fulfill them
- To a new widow who finds life alone a terrible burden
- To a young man, showing him how to treat his parents better
- To a nun, on placing ourselves in the presence of God
- To a married woman trying to bear patiently her live-in parents-in-law
- To a pregnant woman, tired, sick, and discouraged, who thinks she doesn't pray enough
- To a childless woman, helping her to accept this sorrow
- To a priest, on staying faithful to his calling
- To a nervous woman, showing her how to be less troubled
- To a woman troubled by sinfulness in the world
- To a businessman, showing him how to find God in his busy life
- To an overworked woman
- . . . plus help for dozens of other problems we all face!
Solutions to common troubles . . .
- Family problems — how to keep calm, and even use troubles to improve your family
- Anxiety about the future: your job, your children, anything at all. It can be overcome!
- Your flaws — the right response to them. Plus, ways to bear those you can't overcome
- Family, work, prayer: which should come first? How to set your priorities
- Three criteria for judging pastimes. Do you really know which are spiritually healthy and which are dangerous?
- Helplessness: coping when you're not in control, especially during times of sickness or loneliness
- The roots of heresy — why you must understand Scripture in light of Church teachings
- Temptation and sin: how to turn them into spiritual victories
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 264 pages
by Fr Francis X. Weiser, S.J.
This book unfolds the story of the celebration of Christmas. Beginning with its gospel and history, the author leads us through the festivities of the Middle Ages, to the decline and eventual revival of Christmas customs in Europe and in America.
Paperback, size 5.5" x 8.5", 188 pages
by St. Francis de Sales
In Consoling Thoughts on Sickness and Death, St. Francis de Sales, the beloved Doctor of the Church, teaches how to grow closer to God through suffering well the most bitter trials.
The bed of sickness is an altar of sacrifice, writes the saint in this treasure of spirituality. He explains what prayers are suitable for the sick, how to persevere in patience, and even how to overcome an excessive fear of death. Most importantly, St. Francis de Sales teaches about abandonment to God's will in both life and death, drawing from his memories of the deaths of his own mother and sister.
Readers of Consoling Thoughts on Sickness and Death will experience firsthand why St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is known to history as the Gentle Saint. St. Francis was Bishop of Geneva and a tireless preacher, who yet made time to correspond with numerous souls who wrote him for his insight and guidance. His Consoling Thoughts are compiled from these letters as well as from his other spiritual works.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 156 pages
by St. Francis de Sales
In Consoling Thoughts on Eternity, St. Francis de Sales, the beloved Doctor of the Church, speaks to us of the Christian manner in which we should mourn those whom we have lost.
Taken mostly from the letters of the saint, this masterful work gives us the consolation he offered to parents on the deaths of their sons, to a lady on the death of her father, a wife on the death of her husband, and others mourning their loved ones. Throughout he gives reason to hope, and explains how much the thought of Heaven should console us, and how agreeable it will be to parents and friends to meet again and converse together in Heaven.
Readers of Consoling Thoughts on Eternity will experience firsthand why St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is known to history as the Gentle Saint. St. Francis was Bishop of Geneva and a tireless preacher, who yet made time to correspond with numerous souls who wrote him for his insight and guidance. His Consoling Thoughts are compiled from these letters as well as from his other spiritual works.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 96 pages
A Golden Key of Heaven
by Rev. J. Von Den Driesch
“Acts of perfect Contrition and Charity are the great means of salvation; they are more closely related to the attaining of salvation than prayer alone. I desire this little booklet be in the hands of all – convinced that by the attentive reading of it, and by practicing its maxims, the gates of Heaven will be opened to many, very many for whom otherwise they might have been closed forever; and that many more remaining in God’s grace, will preserve their right to Heaven, and their eternal happiness will grow and be increased immeasurably.” Fr. Lehmkuhl, S.J., Preface.
Booklet, size 8x.5”x5.5”, 32 pages, Impr 1904
by Rev. John J. Thilges, S.V.D.
It was the privilege of St. Gertrude to rest on the breast of Jesus, but it was the mission of St. Margaret Mary to give the devotion of the Sacred Heart to the world. It was to her that Christ confided twelve promises in behalf of those who would honor and love His Sacred Heart.
Booklet, size 8.5" x 5.3", 56 pages, Impr 1945