Bücher veröffentlicht von Arouca Press

Despite the importance of St. Benedict of Nursia in the history of the Church and of the world, we know precious little about his life. He left no written documents except his great Rule, which has wisely guided countless God-seeking souls for a millennium and a half. In the absence of an Augustinian Confessions, Benedict's Rule supplies a self-effacing but unmistakable biography, for the Patriarch could not have lived otherwise than as he taught. Ildefonso Schuster, one of the outstanding ecclesiastical scholars of the twentieth century, has fitted St. Benedict into the times in which he lived, using the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great as his point of departure. With an immense fund of knowledge at his disposal-historical, juridical, liturgical, archaeological, and literary-the author is able to invest the rather sketchy outline of St. Benedict with flesh and bones. No other biography of the Patriarch of Western Monasticism has ever come close to matching Schuster's in breadth of vision or richness of scholarship.

Today there is a growing eagerness to enter into a deeper knowledge of the Mass, the sacraments and the whole life of the Church. A particularly rewarding insight comes from a penetration of the actual words, gestures and symbols used in worship. "The Church wants us to stop and look and be enriched by the glories she presents for our contemplation," writes Sister Laurentia. "The liturgy is God's art. For his material he uses our familiar earth, air, fire and water. In this manner our world undergoes a revelation, an epiphany-it becomes a transfigured world." More importantly, God shapes and uses these materials in order to transfigure man. Through the sacramental power of the liturgy, God comes down to man, and lifts man up to Him; to a sharing in His divine life. In order to gain an insight into the wonders of God's transfigured world, Sister Laurentia examines the relationship of art to the liturgy, and the structure of the liturgy itself. The result is an inspiring, readable book that will give the reader a deeper understanding of the beauty and meaning of worship.

This book is the second in Carol Robinson’s Collected Works series.  Her penetrating and original analysis of the modern world show the fruit of a mind absorbed in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas – her life-long companion. We hope that these essays will help Catholics understand how the Faith has importance for the totality of their lives which must not be hidden away from the public square.Excerpt from the Foreword"Christianity, when it is orthodox, is a religion of the heart, but not one of sentimentality.  Catholicism in all its tradition has been a religion illuminating the mind so that the spirit might find dwelling with God.Confusion and discomfort: this is the prospect of embracing the Gospel in the modern world.  Add to these the incomprehension or enmity from others, and you have a potent source of discouragement to living an integral and integrated Catholic life today.Must it be so?The Good One of course remains ever the same in charity and omnipotence, so the root and source of all holiness is still sound.  The unknown factor then must lie in the hearts of men if Christianity is to be put into action.  There will always be some – “the world” – who will consistently resist the grace and action of the Almighty.  Holding this book, it must be otherwise with us.  Faith has been given, grace has taken root, and so must the flourishing of fidelity and holiness.  Is this the happiness we seek?....The Beatitudes act as a defibrillator to these lethal conditions, should we choose to listen.  They re-animate the soul by enkindling charity and warmth within a heart that has grown cold.  And everyone knows that without a healthy heart one eventually dies for good."  - Fr. James DoranExcerpt from the Introduction"Carol Jackson Robinson’s Eightfold Kingdom Within is a noteworthy attempt to communicate Thomas’ developed thought of the Beatitudes to a non-academic audience, and while she does eschew any discussion of the intricacies of doctrinal development, subjects of undoubted interest to the historical theologians, nonetheless her series of remarkable articles reveal that Robinson was a careful and highly insightful reader of Aquinas. Over the course of her essays, Robinson rightly focuses on the task of placing the Beatitudes and their attendant Gifts once again at the center of Christian spiritual life. Perhaps Robinson’s insightfulness is most evident in the way she grasps that for Thomas, and indeed for much of the Christian tradition both East and West, the purpose and aim of the spiritual life is deification, what she refers to as the ongoing process of “being supernaturalized.” Moreover, Robinson stresses that this process of conversion, of becoming progressively more deiform, perforce requires our adoption as earthly children of the heavenly Father. If truth be told, that the process cannot proceed at all unless, like obedient children, we meekly receive the divine instigation of the Spirit, for only in this manner will we be established “firmly in the family of God our Father.” - Gregorio Montejo, PhD (Assistant Professor of Historical Theology, Boston College)

Excerpt from the Foreword by Fr. James McQuade, S.J. (Former National Promoter of Sodalities): To transcend the limits of strict obligation demands motivation beyond the ordinary and more or less superficial kind generated by the all too common half-conscious grasp of the driving truths of our holy faith. The truths are the same for all. The difference in the lay apostle lies in his greater grasp of them. The ordinary run-of-the-mill Catholic normally knows the basic motivating truths of Catholicism. The lay apostle enters into these truths intellectually and allows the dynamic force of them to have its full effect upon his will. The ordinary Catholic conforms passively to what the Church believes and teaches. The lay apostle dedicates himself to lines of action proceeding from the truths of divine revelation.To be a lay apostle is to be more than an ordinary Catholic. Christ wants lay apostles. This is the age of the lay apostolate. Christ Wants More is the title of this book. It is a truly modern title. Christ, however, never asks for anything but that He makes a promise, and the promises of Christ are the motivating forces of dynamic Catholicism. To make oneself dedicated to giving Christ the more He wants, one must plunge oneself into the realities of the world in which Christ wants more, the world He presents to us in His life and teaching....All who are engaged either in giving or in making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius will welcome this book as a truly efficient aid in the spiritual formation of the lay apostle in a spirituality that is truly apostolic engendering in the apostle himself that dedication to the work of Catholic Action for what Pope Pius XII calls the “consecratio mundi,” the consecration of the world to Christ and His Kingdom.

Excerpt from the Preface: "The text that follows embodies the four historical conferences that I delivered to introduce the 2018 Summer Symposium of the Roman Forum—a Catholic academic organization founded by Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand to defend the Church’s Magisterium against the ever-increasing assaults upon it in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Held at Gardone Riviera on Lake Garda in northern Italy since 1993, the Summer Symposium is designed to facilitate detailed discussion of topics that have both permanent importance as well as contemporary urgency, led by a faculty coming from all continents in an atmosphere nurturing the fullness of the Catholic life: spiritual and liturgical, intellectual and fraternal, serious and joyful at one and the same time.2018 was the centennial of the armistice concluding the “War to End All Wars”, the Paris Peace Conference of the following year intended by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” with the aid of a League of Nations guaranteeing peace the globe over. Unfortunately, 1918-1919 provided to be an entry into a terrible period of disruptions rather than an epoch where the lion would lie down with the lamb. The theme for the twenty-sixth annual Summer Symposium derived from these expressed hopes and real failures, with the complete picture of this strange era being painted by our international faculty under the title of “The Fittest and the Weakest: The Interwar Era, the Foundations of Late Modernity, and the Resilience of Catholic Christianity”....As noted above, the following text only provides a schematic historical introduction to the theme in question. It is only lightly footnoted, except where direct citations require more precise documentation. Readers interested in pursuing their study of the issues in question are urged to do two things: listen to the recordings of the other speakers at the 2018 gathering, all of which are available through Keep the Faith, Inc., and consult the works provided in a brief concluding bibliography. Both, together, will provide sufficient armament for Catholic militants eager to battle for the Church in a war that, alas, cannot come to an end until the end of time."

This is the first volume of a multi-volume project to republish all of the Integrity articles as they appeared between 1946 and 1956. This first volume includes the first three issues in 1946 (October - December). The original issues were edited by Ed Willock and Carol Jackson. They were replaced by Dorothy Dohen in 1952. Here follows an excerpt from the editorial for the first issue: In this first issue we are elaborating on the theme of our whole magazine, which is: We must make a new synthesis of Religion and Life. Possibly the Church has other tasks yet more urgent today, but this job is certainly high up on the agenda. It looks like the basic problem for us, who are lay people. Anyhow, we have chosen it as our special work to help solve it, and every issue will bear on the main thesis....Integral Catholicism is already becoming a popular expression. It does not mean piety so much as wholeness. It means that what we profess to believe is consistent with the assumed principle by which we live out our daily lives. It suggests a consistency of theory and practice; a unity of public life and private morals; a reconciliation of commercial ethics and religious dogma, of individual conscience and statutory law. It means a cessation of the uneasy Sunday-lipservice-to-God-and-40-hours-a-week-with-time-and-onehalf-for-overtime-devotion-to-Mammon by which so many of our lives are compromised. The relationship between “wholeness” and “holiness” is as direct as the derivation of the second word from the first. It becomes daily more difficult to lead holy lives in disregard of the contradictory nature of the circumstances thereof. The guiding policy of contemporary society is expediency. Don’t act from high moral principles (it’s impractical). Don’t commit yourself either to thorough-going villainy (it isn’t nice). Just compromise, adjust, submit, water down, and make the best of a bad situation (after all, we have to eat). Our expediency looks less and less like the “sane policy of realistic leaders” and more and more like the degrading opportunism of ignoble men. Integrity is at the opposite pole from expediency. It is a quality which does not look first to the financial consideration involved, does not calculate its actions to please high worldly powers, or with an eye to the coming elections. It does not hold that the end justifies the means, but that we must do what is right, come what may. We hope to achieve it ourselves and in our magazine

This book consists of a series of short sermons based on the epistles throughout the Liturgical Year. Originally published in 1927, it was written by Fr. Michael Andrew Chapman a former Episcopalian minister. Newly typeset, with new cover art, and featuring a foreword by Fr. John Hunwicke (priest of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham). Here is an excerpt from his foreword: Because the Bible is the Church’s book. The literature within it was written within the Church and for the Church. The Bible was not composed so that individual Christians might read it privately for their personal enlightenment. A great deal of study has been done in academic circles during the last few decades on the relationship between ‘Orality’ and ‘Literacy’ in the ancient world. The tendency has been to see the written word as backup for the spoken word in a basically ‘oral’ culture. (A loose modern parallel might be the cookery book you keep in your kitchen: it is backup for your culinary triumphs.) So the Holy Bible did not drift down word-perfect from the skies; it emerged from the lived reality of Church life in which it supplied needs and preserved orthodoxy and built up the People of God.Catholics are often exhorted (I have done it myself) to read the Bible more. They naturally wonder how to go about it. Does one purchase a Bible and then get to work on the first verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis … and then just carry on? I suggest that a better method is to study the passages of Scripture appointed for next Sunday.We clergy are sometimes tempted to preach mainly upon the Gospel. This is natural: here are the words of Christ Himself, the Incarnate Word; and perhaps the Gospel narratives are a little more vivid than the Epistle readings. So I much welcome this little book as a godsend both to laity and clergy. There is immense wealth in the readings of the Epistles, most of them by that towering intellect St Paul. Perhaps clergy will make its texts the basis of their own homilies, or perhaps they will simply adopt its methods and thereby preach more effectively from the New Testament Epistles.And I commend it to the laity as a valuable prop in their own study of next Sunday’s Epistle!

Republication of Father Valuy's 1908 classic short treatise on the virtue of charity for religious but with wide application for everyone. It goes into practical principles to help religious practice the virtue of charity in their communities. Here is an excerpt from the introduction: "Father Valuy's work gives religious practical means of achieving this detachment from their own wills in order to practice the type of charity Our Lord demands of them. He strikes to the heart of that duplicity of spirit which can so easily put on the semblance of piety but which in reality is hypocritical in its dealings with other men. Fr. Valuy asks: "Am I one of those proud spirits who expose the faults of others in order to show off their pretended virtues?"His work includes the writings of the Saints who show religious (and all of us) the necessity of charity towards all. As an example, in discussing the problems of uncharitable speech, St. John Climacus states: For mercy's sake cease such conversation! How would you wish me to stone my brethren-me, whose faults are greater and more numerous?" We should treat others as we would want to be treated. It is such a basic principle yet how few take it to heart!"

Excerpt from the Introduction: The articles in this little book, Breaking the Chains of Mediocrity, will discomfort the complacent Catholic. Though written seventy years ago, their urgent call has not lost any relevance: the Catholic life does not consist in a mechanical, mediocre practice of the Faith-one that simply meets the minimum requirements of being a Catholic in "good standing"-but in a fully-realized Catholicism that penetrates into every facet of one's existence. Unabashedly Catholic, the ideas formulated in this work may well challenge the reader to confront his own spiritual mediocrity.Carol Jackson Robinson (1911-2002), wrote these five articles for the Marianist magazine at the beginning of her literary career, while she was as yet unmarried, and just several years after her conversion in 1941. Although she was still wrestling with how to view the world through a Catholic lens, she was at the same time co-editor, with Edward Willock, of the intrepid Catholic periodical, Integrity (Volume 1 of which is available from Arouca Press)....Robinson's diagnoses and prescriptions were conditioned by her time and place, but they remain valid for us today, because human nature and our conditions are fundamentally similar. Indeed, when Robinson writes of "perfecting men and their talents rather than deadening the human thing in the interests of mechanical monsters," can we not say today, having witnessed the brutalizing effects of systems that do not allow for this perfection, that her words were prescient?

An Arouca Press Reprint of Msgr. Van Noort's classic work that was originally translated into English in 1955. It features an exact reproduction of the interior with a newly designed cover.