Almost immediately after Elizabeth Scalia's Strange Gods: Unmasking Idols in Everyday Life was published, readers began meeting in small groups to study the book and reflect on the idols in their own lives. To help them in this effort, Scalia has now prepared a set of questions for reflection that are available as a free, downloadable study guide.
Just in time for the biggest consumer (and most idol-inducing) holiday of the year, these incisive, thought-provoking prompts and questions are designed for use after each chapter of Strange Gods and invite readers to honest reflection on the presence of idols in their everyday lives.
Perfect for both small-group and personal use, these questions will also be included in the next printing of the book, due out in early 2014.
Download the study guide here.
Family Rosary, Ave Maria Press's fellow apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, announced yesterday that it has released a free mobile app to help Catholics spend a few minutes each day acknowledging the true meaning of Advent and Christmas.
Family Rosary's app features meditative music with scripture and reflections for use on iPhones, iPads, Androids, and all other smartphones and is the perfect spiritual aid while standing in line to buy presents or trekking to stores in the wee hours for that midnight madness sale. When Advent begins on Sunday, Dec. 1, the mobile app will feature a new prayer each day. The app will be available starting November 29.
Read more about this app here.
Ave Maria Press is pleased to announce the launch of its first audiobook: Lisa Hendey's The Handbook for Catholic Moms is now available for download at Amazon.com, Audible.com, or in iTunes.
With narration help from author and podcaster Pat Gohn, Hendey brings her first CatholicMom.com classic to life in this exciting audiobook. Now Catholic moms on the go who struggle to find time to read can receive Hendey's trusted, practical, and solidly Catholic coaching while exercising, driving, or working at home.
This audiobook is not available at AveMariaPress.com. Readers can purchase it from the following online retailers:
Amazon
Audible.com
iTunes
Two men made Final Profession of Vows with the Congregation of Holy Cross on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Rev. Thomas J. O’Hara, provincial superior of the United States Province of Priests and Brothers, presided at the Mass and received the vows of Patrick E. Reidy, C.S.C., and Adam D.P. Booth, C.S.C.
Rev. O'Hara, C.S.C., reminded Reidy and Booth: "Your vows essentially are an act of love for the God who first loved you . . . this love is not kept solely within you, for your love is to spill over into service of your brothers and sisters."As an apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Ave Maria Press celebrates this joyful announcement and invites you to pray for these men in their vocations.
To read Rev. O'Hara's full address to Reidy and Booth, please click here.
When Judith Valente, award-winning PBS religion journalist and celebrated poet, arrived at Mount St. Scholastica Monastery in Kansas, she came prepared to lead a workshop on poetry and the soul, but she faced a dilemma.
“I wondered how I was going to speak to a retreat group about nourishing the soul when I hadn’t fed my own soul a decent meal in weeks.”
Valente was in a rough patch, both professionally and personally, when she began visiting “the Mount.” Her otherwise successful career was complicated by a difficult professional relationship. In her personal life, she confronted the complex terrain of forging a blended family. On top these challenges, she was increasingly haunted by a fear of dying with regrets. Valente soon found herself the student at the Mount, taking lessons from the Benedictine sisters in the healing nature of silence, the habits of mindful living, and the freeing realization that failure is just as much a part of the spiritual journey as success.
Atchison Blue maps her unlikely way forward: she went backward. By spending time with women often thought to be living in the past, Valente encountered a portal to the future and a healing balm for her soul in the present."I used to think of monastic life as a hopeless throwback to the past, a case of 'let the last monk or sister turn out the lights,'" Valente writes, "Now I look at it as the window to a future we so desperately need."
The way of life Valente encountered at the Mount was in stark contrast to her professional environment, where, as a journalist, she has a front-row seat to the tragedies, violence, and political rancor that plague American discourse. Valente’s sojourns with the sisters transformed her personal and professional lives and in studying Benedictine monasticism, Valente realized that this sixth-century way of life speaks directly to the problems facing twenty-first century people as they dash about with their smart phones. At the monastery, she entered a world that stresses:
• community over competition
• simplicity over consumption
• humility over self-aggrandizement
• silence over constant chatter
After her first visit to the Mount, Valente realized that something had shifted inside her: “It wasn’t as if the sisters had suddenly presented me with a neatly-wrapped gift box of answers. Rather, they seemed to draw out the inner questions I had silenced.”
Among women whose Christian witness has recently come under Vatican scrutiny, Valente was challenged to look beyond the obvious. She uncovered much-needed guidance for today’s world and a revitalized personal vision—a vision she imparts to readers facing similar challenges.
NOTRE DAME, IN—In yesterday’s in-flight press conference between Rio and Rome, Pope Francis surprised members of the media with his comments on gay Catholics, noting that "the tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem" and adding: "Who am I to judge them if they're seeking the Lord in good faith?"
Still, how might this spirit of welcome work itself out in parishes? How can Catholics, especially those in pastoral roles, gain a robust understanding of Catholic teaching on homosexuality and extend themselves to their gay brothers and sisters, who often feel marginalized by the Catholic Church?
Fr. Louis Cameli, priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, stresses that while the Church is a teacher, it must also be a learner. In his book, Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality, Cameli says "I think there are new things to be understood, new possibilities for the spiritual care of people who have same-sex attractions, and new ways to make the Church more hospitable."
Cameli employs a dialogical method that takes into account the concerns and positions of gay, lesbian, and queer theorists. He brings these concerns and positions into conversation with traditional Catholic teaching and also with a more expansive personalist and spiritual understanding of human sexuality as connecting, belonging, and giving life.
To interview Cameli, or to request review copies of his book, contact Amanda Skofstad.
With nearly 30,000 copies sold in only five months, Ave Maria Press’s bestseller Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter has been exactly what Rev. Michael Roach predicted it would be: “a barn burner.” Ave Maria Press, an apostolate of the U.S. Province of Holy Cross, embodies the congregation’s focus on education, parish, and mission in its publishing program and is thrilled to see the impact Rebuilt is having on parishes — measured both in units sold and in an outpouring of praise from all corners of the Catholic Church.
Ave Maria Press is now in its fifth printing of the book and watched with delight as Rebuilt climbed into the top 1000 books overall on Amazon and continues to hover there, even ranking as the #1 book in Christian ministry and moving between #1 and #5 in Catholicism.
Rebuilt tells a tale familiar to many Catholics — that of a parish on the brink of death — but surprises and delights with the candor, humor, and passion of coauthors Fr. Michael White, pastor of Church of the Nativity, and lay associate Tom Corcoran. White and Corcoran tell how they brought Church of the Nativity back to life and went from a parish of greedy consumers to a community of active, passionate disciples.
As Cardinal Timothy Dolan put it in the book’s foreword, “If you love your parish, read this book!” Dolan’s maxim found resonance in a diversity of Catholics and the praise flowed in — often unsolicited. Msgr. Kevin Irwin, former dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, posted a review on Amazon.com stating, “This could be a game changer in revitalizing American Catholic parish life and ministry today, and, hopefully, for decades to come.” U.S. Catholic said that Rebuilt “should be required reading for pastors, new priests, and parish councils." Denise Morency Gannon of The Roncalli Center in Massachusetts said, “I've worked in myriad pastoral settings throughout 47 years of ministry and education. Reading Rebuilt resonated in a way that other books on the subject of ministry cannot.” Matthew Kelly called it “stunningly honest.”
White and Corcoran have been invited to speak at several national Catholic conferences, including the National Association for Lay Ministry in Las Vegas and the ACP Mid-Atlantic Congress in Baltimore. In September 2013, they will deliver the keynote at the International Catholic Stewardship Council’s annual conference. They have also been invited to speak at the 2014 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, among others.
In November 2013, AMP will respond to the enthusiasm for Rebuilt’s story with White and Corcoran’s strategic sequel, Tools for Rebuilding: 75 Really, Really Practical Ways to Make your Parish Better, which is available now for pre-order.
Two Ave Maria Press authors and various publications by the Congregation of Holy Cross won Catholic Press Association awards at the 2013 Catholic Media Conference in Denver, CO.
Authors Angelique Ruhi-López and Carmen Santamaría won first place for the First Time Author Award for their book The Infertility Companion for Catholics. The judges described the book as "a sympathetic treatment of what can be a heartbreaking situation for couples who want children, this book includes clear, accessible explanations of Church teaching on various methods of dealing with infertility, including those that are and are not considered moral by the magisterium, as well as helps for coping with the emotions connected with infertility."
Various Congregation of Holy Cross authors and publications won several awards, the complete details of which can be viewed here.
