Saint Books

From best-selling author of Champions of the Rosary --a sweeping history of the Rosary -- and promoter of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, shares the riveting stories of the 26 key figures who championed the rosary and thereby changed the world - a smaller format for readers interested in delving into the lives of these great champions!

Throughout the journey of life, we all have moments of feeling lost. Experiences where we feel tested. It's at these times we need a signpost to point the way through the darkness and confusion to a clearer and better path. A PILGRIM'S JOURNEY is composed of 20 signposts, excerpts from the full-length work by Kampmann entitled SIGNPOSTS: A DEVOTIONAL, which shares the insights and wisdom he discovered as he journeyed through the pages of the New and Old Testaments. Designed as a daily devotional, it is built page by page on the assumption that the meaning and purpose of our lives is available to be discovered if only we take the time and trouble to look. Prepare yourself for the journey and keep your eyes open to the signposts along the way. You too will discover that God is always near and available for those who seek him.

This small but valuable book, now with ICS Publications, offers an insightful selection of the most significant extracts from Elizabeths writingsher diary, letters, and poetrytogether with useful introductions and commentary. Always Believe in Love includes photos and a chronology of the saints life.

This volume represents a contemporary English edition of John's rarely published work, "Ascent of Mount Carmel," a commentary on his entire spiritual vision.

2012 Reprint of 1958 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. St. Therese of Lisieux, "The Little Flower", was recently declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II, the third woman to receive this honor in 2000 years. She thus ranks with such intellectual and theological giants as St. Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. This elevation is all the more astonishing when we consider her background; born to a bourgeois family in provincial 19th century France, she entered a cloistered convent at the age of 15, and died in obscurity at age 24. The posthumous publication of her spiritual journals created a sensation in the Catholic world comparable to that produced in the postwar world by "The Diary of Ann Frank." Adopted as a universal "little sister" by the French soldiers of World War I, St. Therese's naive, charming, but profound words were carried next to many an infantryman's heart. Therese's story and the effect of her powerful personality and passionate devotion have lost none of their force. "At last I have found my calling," she declared. "My calling is love." The core of her spiritual message, the "little way" is the recognition that any act, no matter how trivial, is infinitely valuable if done out of love. Her influence on other great 20th century figures such as Theresa of Calcutta and Edith Stein is obvious. This is a unique book, to be read with pleasure, with joy, and with the assurance of great spiritual benefit. The homely and human details of Therese's short life lead to the path of enlightenment. In her memoirs, she describes spiritual life: she lived each day with an unshakable confidence in God's love. "What matters in life," she wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love." Therese lived and taught a spirituality of attending to everyone and everything well and with love. She believed that just as a child becomes enamored with what is before her, we should also have a childlike focus and totally attentive love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love.

By PaulaAnne SharkeyLemire. A handy guide for devotion to this popular North American Blessed! This booklet contains a short life of Kateri and a collection of approved prayers, chaplet instructions, and a novena to Blessed Kateri.

Many full-color images of Kateri and photos of places associated with her life. The back cover features the original painting of Kateri which she herself requested in a vision after her death. 32 pp. Softcover. (After this booklet was published, Kateri was canonized.)

There is no greater authority on the saints than Alban Butler, and his enormous research has been the standard reference on the subject for the last two and a half centuries. This new adaptation of Butler's multi-volume Lives of the Saints presents a modernized text for today's reader and provides an illuminating guide to these historic, symbolic, and foundational Christian men and women.

Butler's daily readings from the lives and works of the saints offer readers of all backgrounds the opportunity to engage directly with these great figures. Butler's distinctive contribution to stories about saints was to turn attention away from the superhuman, miraculous themes that are prevalent in earlier works. He gives us saints who are examples of Christian living, who provide inspiration for our own lives, in every time and circumstance. As Butler writes: "They were once what we are now, travelers on earth. They had the same weaknesses we have. We have difficulties; so had the saints."

Important features of this version include mention of recently canonized saints as well as those whose path to official sainthood is still in progress. Also included in the daily readings are more obscure saints whose lives and contributions to Christianity should not be forgotten.

Translation of: Carlo Acutis, un geek au paradis.

In each generation, heroes of the Faith, whom the Church recognizes as saints, emerge. There are many characteristics that they have in common, but none thus far have used cell phones, played PlayStation video games, or searched for information on Google.

That is about to change.

A young “computer geek” named Carlo Acutis, who created a website cataloguing every reported Eucharistic miracle in the world and died of leukemia a year later at age fifteen, was beatified in November 2019, after a healing miracle in Brazil was attributed to his intercession. Since the beatification ceremony one year later, solemn crowds have been filing past the exposed relics of the blessed youth in Assisi’s Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Carlo is a sign of contradiction in the modern world who serves as a heroic model for today’s young people—a teenager who programmed computers and enjoyed films and comics yet lived as an authentic and sincere disciple of Christ. In these pages, you’ll discover how he embraced the Faith as a boy and developed the virtues necessary to live a Christ-centered life in a secular society, how he overcame the vices that plagued him, and how he gracefully dealt with heartaches he could not divulge even to his parents. 

When he developed leukemia, he offered his suffering both for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Catholic Church, saying: “I offer all the suffering I will have to undergo for the Lord, for the Pope, and the Church.” In this surprising and inspiring book, you’ll also learn:

• How Carlo became holy, in only a few short years
• The young man’s unusual loneliness and how he dealt with it
• His strategy for resisting peer pressure
• How he had fun without losing control and learned to resist gluttony
• How he interacted with teen girls who became his friends
• Why his explanations about the Mass are used in today’s catechism classes in Italy
• How he dealt with friends who were sexually promiscuous and what he told them
• How he responded to the shocking news that he was dying (which happened two weeks later)
• His remarkable Eucharistic Miracles Exhibition—made possible by his computer skills—that is now touring churches all over Europe

In his newest book, Casting Nets with the Saints, Chris Stewart uses entertaining stories of saints to demonstrate "The Seven Characteristics of Effective Evangelizers."

Although this is a small book on the spirituality of a medieval woman from a glorious past, it is also a book about Christian life today. Clare's decisive emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ is an emphasis on the human person as well, what we are and what we are called to be. --From the Introduction

Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love explores Clare's deep desire to live the gospel life, more precisely, her desire for all of us to reflect on Christ and his crucifixion in order to see our own strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly, our capacity to love. Ilia Delio illustrates how Clare, through her life, her writings, letters, prayer and example, is truly a mystic who helped generations of Catholics clearly see how Christ took on human flesh, not just to suffer and die for us, but to help us all in turn reflect back the face of Christ to the world.

Clare was not simply a follower of Francis, she was a formidable, resolute, devout and loving saint whose life centered on this essence of human identity--Christ is in each of us--and who sought to teach us to just be ourselves and to let God dwell within us. In Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love, Ilia Delio shows us just how Clare's simple, but powerful beliefs transformed the way we all think about Christ--even today.

This book contains Letters from 1546 to 1577. Includes Introductions, Endnotes, Biographical Sketches and Index.

This is the second edition of volume One of The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, first woman doctor of the church. The translators have taken full advantage of all that recent scholarship has contributed to a better understanding of Teresa and her writings. This volume includes her first major work, The Book of Her Life, and two of her shorter works, the Spiritual Testimonies and the Soliloquies. Clear and contemporary, this rendering captures Teresa's spirit while remaining faithful to her thought. Includes general and biblical index.

Find strength and healing in the arms of the cross

Fr. Cessario masterfully weaves Saint Catherine’s sublime thoughts and words into an easy-to-read meditation on Christ’s Passion.

These insightful reflections invite us to embrace the challenges we encounter during our journey and, with Saint Catherine, to consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us (Rom 8:18).

A perfect meditation for Lent

A thoughtful gift to help comfort loved ones, family, and friends.

“What do we learn from this description of the suffering Christ? What does Catherine teach us about the transformation that brings the world stillness on Good Friday from noon until three o’clock?

“The answer is simple: We discover that because of his enormous love, Christ’s sufferings and death cause the transformation of all that exists, the transformation we call Christian salvation….

“The transformation that Catherine announces is one that creates in those persons who remain united with Christ a new ground for love, a new sort of loving…. The transformation affects both our persons and our actions.”

This second of three volumes of her Complete Works contains all of Elizabeth's surviving letters from Carmel. It includes 8 photos, background information and the horarium for the Dijon Carmel, as well as the floor plan for the monastery. In simple and tender language, writing to friends and family, Elizabeth returns again and again to the great themes of her spirituality: the indwelling Trinity, silence and solitude, living by love, becoming a "praise of glory" (laudem gloriae) by sharing in the dying and rising of Jesus Christ. Here too we find many of her best-known sayings, e.g., "I have found my heaven on earth, for heaven is God, and God is in my soul."

Confessions of St. Augustine is--after the Bible and TheImitation of Christ--the most widely translated and highly esteemed book in Christian history. Translated by Rev. J.M. Lelen, Ph.D., this edition is published in a prayer book format, offering a participatory reading and prayer experience based on St. Augustine's confessions of his youthful errors. With a burgundy Dura-Lux cover, this classic book will make a meaningful personal resource or gift.

"In mental prayer the soul is purified from its sins, nourished with charity, confirmed in faith, and strengthened in hope; the mind expands, the affections dilate, the heart is purified, truth becomes evident; temptation is conquered, sadness dispelled; the senses are renovated; drooping powers revive; tepidity ceases; the rust of vices disappears. Out of mental prayer issues forth, like living sparks, those desires of heaven which the soul conceives when inflamed with the fire of divine love. Sublime is the excellence of mental prayer, great are its privileges; to mental prayer heaven is opened; to mental prayer heavenly secrets are manifested and the ear of God [is] ever attentive." -St. Peter of Alcantara, Spiritual Director of St. Teresa "What St. Teresa has done so brilliantly is to describe precisely how a person can indeed contact God through prayer. Despite her reputation as a soaring Spanish mystic, she was an eminently practical person, and that practicality shines through her teachings about prayer: she is an instructor who shows, in step-by-step fashion, how the individual can contact God and then sustain that relationship." -Peter Thomas Rohrbach "Do not be astonished at the difficulties one meets in the way of mental prayer, and the many things to be considered in undertaking this heavenly journey. The road upon which we enter is a royal highway which leads to Heaven. Is it strange that the attainment of such a treasure should cost us something? The time will come when we shall realize that the whole world could not purchase it." -St. Teresa of Avila

AT THE time of his death in 1859, over 100,000 people a year visited the little village of Ars, northwest of Lyons, France, and its beloved Curé, St. John Vianney-known everywhere as "the Curé of Ars." Today over 500,000 people visit this simple farming town in the middle of France, where they come to see the incorrupt body of one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church and to visit in prayerful meditation the simple parish church where the holy Curé converted thousands and reconciled to Jesus Christ and His Church tens of thousands of souls. Yet this is a most improbable story, for here is the story of a saint who, with only two years' formal education before entering upon his priestly studies, had the greatest difficulty passing his examinations and becoming a priest. And even when he did, he was given one of the poorest, most remote and most run-down parishes in all of France. But within a few short years, he had reformed his parish and his town, and in the process established such a reputation that the world began to seek him out and finally to beat a path to his door. The Devil himself once revealed to St. John Vianney that if there were three such men as he alive at one time, his kingdom (the Devil's) would be destroyed. Just four years after his canonization in 1925, Pope Pius XI named him "Patron Saint of Parish Priests." Here is his story-the story of a saint who turned seemingly impossible adversity into spiritual triumph and in the most humble parish imaginable became the model and patron of parish priests everywhere. Here is the story of a saint whose warmth and love and spiritual penetration go right to the heart of the Christian message and bring it home, even to modern readers, with a force and a power that is unique among the saints-a force and power made possible only by the very greatest sanctity. Here is the inspiring story of how that sanctity was forged in the soul of the Curé of Ars-"Patron Saint of Parish Priests."

In Dark Night of the Soul, Saint John of the Cross presents for us a portrait painted from his own experience of one who advances successfully through the struggles of the spiritual life. The dark night that St John describes is not abandonment by God but special consideration from Him for those who desire to purify and perfect their souls. With a soul purified from earthly attachments, we can advance through the much quoted but oft misunderstood dark night of the souls into unity with God. By accepting the desolation and difficulty of this process, the soul cooperates with God and opens itself to receiving and revealing more perfectly God's glory. Be not afraid--Dark Night of the Soul, though austere and exacting in its instructions for holy living, is laced with St. John's charity and kindness, his love of all things beautiful and sacred--including you.

St Catherine of Siena's Dialogue describes the entire spiritual life through a series of conversations between God and the soul, represented by Catherine herself. Readers of The Dialogue of Saint Catherine of Siena, will find her revelations from God as informative - and formative - as those who recognized her sanctity during her life. The universally applicable yet intimately personal messages she received from God are as much for us as they were for Catherine. We can read God's communications to his beloved daughter with detached awe or we can receive His messages to us through her writings. Do you long for certainty that Divine Providence exists in the midst of our chaotic world? Does your prayer seem too dry, or too routine? Have you sought guidance for the challenges of your life from unhelpful people or things? Or has pride kept you from humble obedience to the Church? If so, The Dialogue will provide consolation, encouragement, and hope.

"From 1899 until her death in 1903, the young Italian woman St. Gemma Galgani physically experienced the wounds of Christ every Thursday evening. The stigmata would appear and bleed on her hands, feet, and side, stopping only of Friday afternoon and leaving white marks as a reminder. St. Gemma also experienced countless visions, raptures, ecstasies, and other mystical graces-- as well as intense temptations from the devil." [from back cover]

This booklet from bestselling author Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC (Consoling the Heart of Jesus and 33 Days to Morning Glory), gives you a brief and easy-to-understand introduction to the Divine Mercy message and devotion. Discover the history and context of Divine Mercy, the essential elements of the devotion, and how you can live the message.

It iIncludes the full prayers of the Divine Mercy Novena and St. Faustina's Litany to Divine Mercy, as well as two bonus appendices: valuable Divine Mercy prayers and Divine Mercy wisdom from Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.