Bøger udgivet af Augustine Institute - Ignatius Press

While many Catholics are aware of great female saints such as Catherine of Siena and Thérèse of Lisieux, a view persists that, over the centuries, women played a limited role in the development of Catholic traditions and institutions. In this innovative survey of Church history, Bronwen McShea demonstrates instead that faithful women have always been at the heart of the Church's common life, shaping it and the course of entire civilizations. In Women of the Church, McShea presents a wide array of well known and lesser known canonized and beatified women, others awaiting beatification, and still more figures not meriting canonization but whom every Catholic should know. She situates Catholic women from diverse social, ethnic, and national origins in their historical contexts, examining specific challenges they faced in settings such as imperial Rome, Reformation Europe, colonial Latin America and Africa, and the USA and Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the process, she shows that, in every age, women inspired by God with creativity, courage, and fidelity have helped save the Church from corruption, disunity, and destruction. In short, McShea clarifies that the history of Catholic women is the history of the Church--as much as the history of Catholic men is.

Just as Job was tried, all of us are tested by suffering. It comes to us in many different forms: grief about the past, pain in the present, and sadness about what might have been. The personal dimension of suffering means that it marks our experience and, in some ways, makes us who we are. Coping with suffering as Christians includes certain spiritual practices that lead us to surrender our lives more fully to the Lord. By offering our suffering as a spiritual sacrifice, joined intentionally to the suffering of Christ through prayer, we engage with the most profound Christian teaching about suffering: that it is redemptive. Suffering can transform us to be like God.

"What does the Bible really say about the birth of Jesus? How did the celebration of Jesus' birth become associated with things like Santa Claus and Christmas Trees? In The True Meaning of Christmas: The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season, biblical scholar Michael Patrick Barber offers an inspiring look at the Bible's accounts of Jesus' birth and the development of celebration of Christmas. Along the way, he answers numerous questions, including: How is the Christmas story related to ancient Jewish expectations? Why is Jesus said to be laid in a "manger"? What are Magi? What was the Christmas star? How did December 25th become the date of Christmas? How did Saint Nicholas become "Santa Claus"? Some of the answers may surprise you, but, as Barber explains, only by understanding the message at the heart of Christmas can we fully enter into the joy it promises"--