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Open a window each day of Advent onto the natural world. The author reads 25 descriptions of wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapting when darkness and cold descend. All of them reveal the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but a door, the way a new beginning comes. These short, daily reflections paint vivid, poetic images of familiar animals.

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

Over twenty years ago, in the tiny mountain village of Medjugorje, Bosnia, six young people began to report seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. Since then, the beauty of Heaven and the importance of prayer, conversion, and reconciliation have been revealed to them through Mary´s appearances. Queen of the Cosmos provides an opportunity to hear the messages of the mother of Christ through in-depth interviews with the six visionaries of Medjugorje. Their experiences have changed the lives of thousands of people who have found truth, encouragement, and solace in the words of the Blessed Mother.

The original and bestselling story of the miracles and message of Medjugorje, the little town in the hills of the former Yugoslavia that has become a global phenomenon. Journalist Wayne Weible tells how his life was forever changed by what he experienced there.

From the beloved author of Horses Speak of God comes a warm and inspiring guide to the life lessons we can learn from horses. Laurie Brock, Episcopal priest, messy Christian, and horse lover, shares the experiences of love, grief, humility, joy, and deep wisdom that she discovers day to day with horses. From barely there trails in the Grand Tetons to muddy fields in the Kentucky Bluegrass, God is revealed in the simple ways of these magnificent creatures.

What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set apart—a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God's. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. The vocation of monastic men and women is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection.

Often, when speaking of what he has called the poetic operation of language, Scott Cairns has characterized that event as our “glimpsing an indeterminate, inexhaustible enormity within a discrete space.” This is the poet's continuing fascination with lacunae, those spaces, those openings that offer more within than appearances can register from outside the ostensible covert of their terms. Cairns is here focused upon how an image, a word, or—in the case of the Theotokos—a womb can contain the uncontainable.

Franciscan Lectio is for Christians who long to see the world more beautifully and deeply and become more attentive and present. An ancient tradition dating back to the third century, lectio divina has long served as an avenue of contemplative prayer, but the practice has often been systematized, intellectualized, or only practiced by monastics. Few authors have attempted to universalize lectio using contemporary language or approach it from a Franciscan perspective.

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

From bestselling author Gayle Boss (All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings) comes a Lenten book filled with twenty-five of Earth's rare and wild creatures. Their stories, while tragic and uncomfortable, will wake listeners to greater compassion and hope—which is what Lent, meaning "springtime," has always been for.

Make Room presents Lent as a special time for creating a welcoming space for God. Other books offer excellent ideas for going through the Lenten season with children, but Make Room uniquely connects its projects to the story of Jesus. Simple and practical activities such as baking bread, having a neighbor over for dinner, uncluttering your room, and watching less TV become acts of justice and kindness, part of a life of following and imitating Christ, and a way to make room for God in our lives and in the world around us.

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

These days, it's hard to say the word “chastity” without a cringe. But in this book, beloved teacher Fr. Ronald Rolheiser boldly champions the notion of chastity in its fullest meaning: respect, patience, reverence, and a God-given gift of propriety in every area of life—not just in the area of sex.

Discussion around the bestseller The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher has led many people to want to know more about Benedictine principles. Originally written for monks, the principles in the Rule of St. Benedict may be applied by anyone—and in today's hectic, changing world, following its principles offers a rich spiritual connection to the stability and wisdom of monastic life.

This sweet book will be treasured for years as it shares the knowledge of God's love as a starting point to faith and a warm welcome to the community of believers. With biblically sound text, this book does not need to be listened to straight through, yet everything points to the relevance of being part of a church family and how baptized people can enjoy peace and forgiveness every day.

For most religious people, the words God and sex never go together. God is conceived of as holy, pure, sexless, and as morally above the raw desires that so powerfully beset us. Sex, on the other hand, is conceived of as earthy and unholy, something we must snatch, and not without guilt, from the gods. Christianity has struggled mightily with sex; so too have most other religions. And yet when we look at sexual desire and ask where it comes from, there can be only one answer.

You've checked all the boxes. You've followed all the rules. But something has still gone terribly wrong. This is where Wendi Nunnery—Jesus follower, college graduate, and newlywed—found herself eleven years ago. After years of meeting all the expectations set for a "good" Christian girl, she was suddenly spiraling into an unknown terror she would later discover was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and questioning everything she'd ever known about herself and about God.

Look with fresh eyes toward the Bible stories you have heard all your life. Contemplate, ponder, and glory at Jesus' final days on earth, his heart-wrenching death, and marvelous resurrection alongside relatable women, chosen by God to play extraordinary roles through Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and beyond!

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

This collection, Saints: A Family Story, is composed of stories the authors have written for their own children and grandchildren and friends. They are adapted from Scripture, from original sources within the Tradition, and from the writings of the saints themselves or their family and friends. The saints are presented as a “Family,” living in many different times and places. Just think: many of these saints learned to love and to live the faith through the witness of their parents and grandparents or their brothers and sisters