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Why do some religious believers slaughter those who refuse to convert to their faith, refuse scientific evidence for an ancient universe, or hold God to be an utterly arbitrary being? Why do some scientists believe that universes pop into existence from nothing, that aliens seeded life on earth, or that fish turn into reptiles by chance processes? The answer, for both, is the same: the abandonment of realism, the human way for knowing reality. In The Realist Guide to Religion and Science, Fr Paul Robinson explains what realism is all about, then undertakes an historical exploration to show how religion and science become irrational when they abandon realism and intellectually fruitful when they embrace it.

Written some fifteen centuries ago, The Rule of St Benedict is still read and studied by thousands of men and women throughout the world. In recent years more and more lay people have turned to the Rule, and have found within its pages a deep and practical spirituality which is helpful to them in coping with the problems and challenges they meet in their everyday lives. This edition of the classic Parry translation of the Rule has been prepared for a general audience and comes complete with an introduction by Esther de Waal which offers a commentary both on the underlying themes of the Rule and on the contents of specific chapters. We come face to face with St Benedict himself and appreciate anew the magnificent combination of spirituality and practicality that make the Rule a uniquely valuable source book for us today. Abbot Parry OSB was for many years the Abbot of St Augustine's Abbey Ramsgate, and the author of Households of God, which included both his translation of the Rule and an invaluable commentary. Esther de Waal is the author of a number of books, including Living with Contradiction and Seeking God, which explore the spirituality of the Rule of St Benedict and of the Benedictine life itself.

First published in 1548, the Spritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola have been a seminal influence in Christian spirituality over the succeeding centuries. Their fruits can be seen in the almost incredibel achievements of generation after generation of Jesuit Missionaries, preachers and teachers working in many different cultures across the inhabited world, all of whom had received their formation through the Spiritual Exercises.Today the Spiritual Exercises and the tradition of spirituality that they represent are perhaps more popular than ever. This clasic text of the sixteenth century still has a part to play.This edition of the Spiritual Exercises presents a contemporary translation by Michael Ivens, a noted authority on the text and author of the best-selling commentary 'Understanding the Spiritual Exercises'. Combining scholarly accuracy and a clear attractive style, here is a definitive translation for the beginning of the twenty-first century.

First published in 1939, this book is a phenomenon in contemporary spiritual writing. The message that every Christian man and woman, whatever their place of work or calling, is called to sanctity has touched countless lives; this work offers a starting-point for a prayer which finds Christ in all the experience of living. A special feature of this new edition is the footnotes, drafted not only for those approaching the book as a tool to help them pray, but having in mind also readers studying the text as an example of 20th Century Spanish literature. This is a revised annotated bilingual edition, has parallel Spanish and English texts.

Many writers on the spiritual life have used the analogy of climbing a ladder, as we progress towards that degree of perfection which Our Lord demands of us, 'Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Matthew 5:48). It must originate in the story of Jacob's Ladder, on which he saw the angels ascending and descending -and since humility is the key to all virtue, who is to say whether we should be trying to go up, or to go down.St Benedict is the most familiar of those writers who speak of the Ladder of Humility (chapter 7 of his Rule). There are twelve steps, and that at once makes us look out for other things that go in sets of twelve. There are twelve Apostles, of course, and they respond to the twelve Tribes of Israel. There are twelve Minor Prophets. In St Paul there are twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit , and in the earliest Christian writings after the New Testament itself, we find the Shepherd of Hermas, which speaks of twelve virgins, who are virtues, opposed to twelve women who are vices. Another very important document from this period, which has been strangely neglected, is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which again looks at twelve virtues and their opposites.The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are worth reading, as the text seems to be the very first systematic Christian treatise on moral theology: the twelve Patriarchs each discourse about some aspect of virtue or vice. It is written in the form of 'Testaments' or last speeches by the twelve sons of Jacob, addressed to their family gathered around them, each on his deathbed, on the model of the Biblical testament of Jacob. Written in Greek, and dated to the very end of the first century, it is seen as a Christian work, using the literary form of a pseudepigraphon (a device by which the real author attributes his writing to authoritative figures from the past to give it greater significance). Some earlier scholars thought it to be a Jewish text, but with a few Christian interpolations; if it really is a pre-Christian work, we would have to place it among St Paul's favourite books, for he seems to quote it many times.In fact, whether the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is a late Jewish book which only survives in an early Christian edition, or a new composition by an early Christian drawing on Jewish predecessors, matters not a jot. The fact that early Christians edited it or wrote it, and certainly read it, is very significant. It is an important witness to the Early Church, it shows what the second or third generation of Christians thought and believed about the path to virtue, and acts as a guide to the contemporary Christian today.

A PREVIOUSLY UNRECOGNISED CATEGORY of victims is identified in this new study into the Catholic Church's child sex abuse scandals: the Church's own non-offending priests. A detailed analysis of the perspectives of a select group of representative priests reveals that the scandals and the Church's often unsatisfactory handling of them have left significant psychological scars which the Church and even many clergy themselves have yet to recognise and address. Revd Dr Barry O'Sullivan, who is both a serving priest and a qualified counsellor, finds in his series of carefully controlled interviews with fellow priests that his beleaguered brotherhood should be classed among the secondary victims of this ongoing crisis for the Church. Originally undertaken as a doctoral study for the University of Manchester, this work casts new light on the far-reaching effects which this type of crisis can potentially inflict not just on Catholic priests but also on professionals in all walks of life which have been assailed by child sex abuse scandals.

This book presents a selection of the best of the weekly'Pastor Iuventus' columns from The Catholic Herald.Arranged over a year, the columns give us a true-lifepicture of the ministry of a parish priest in a busy city. The diaryconvincingly conveys the tangible and day-to-day reality of apriest's life and work. The journal is about the endless fascinationsof parish life: the highs and lows, births and deaths, newchallenges, and, amongst all these, the quiet presence of God.The author tells it as it is, with candour and insight, but also withhumour and brilliance. Through the everyday life of the parish,the local hospital and the school, we are given an intimateportrayal of real life. The reader will be moved and inspired by thebeauty and depth of these weekly columns. As the year unfolds,the journal reminds us of the closeness of the Providence of Godto every human life.As Dr William Oddie says in the Foreword to the first edition,Father Allain's diary column provides readers with "an often vividinside track on the spiritual life of a parish priest, in a way whichcertainly conveys its pressures and difficulties, but which alsonurtures the spiritual imagination of its readers by demonstratingthat those pressures and difficulties can always - with a simpleand basic faith in the realities of a working Catholic spirituality -be withstood and transcended."Fr Dominic Allain was ordained priest for the Archdiocese ofSouthwark. Now the International Pastoral Director for 'Grief toGrace' - a programme which brings spiritual and psychological healingto survivors of sexual and other abuse (www.grieftograceuk.org), healso works as a retreat giver and spiritual director. This book draws onhis experiences as a parish priest and hospital chaplain in the Londonarea. He is well-known to many through his weekly columns, 'PastorIuventus', in The Catholic Herald.

Every day of the year is a day for the Lord, but also for His Blessed Mother, Mary. Daily, Daily Sing to Mary lies in the tradition of the Marian Calendar, a collection of feasts honouring the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each day brings to mind the actions the Mother of God has undertaken on behalf of Christians of all nations and kingdoms throughout the ages. The story for each day of the year also brings a lesson for us. The original Marian Calendar was first published when King Louis XIV of France was still a boy, and it is in reality a collection of famous sites of pilgrimage to the Blessed Virgin throughout all of Christendom. This work is offered to the Christian world for the hundredth anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima. The accounts provide abundant proof that Mary, the Mother of God, has indeed claimed the hearts of Christians from the earliest centuries down to the present day. They are also evidence of the value of the Blessed Mother's influence and mediation on the behalf of her children before the throne of God. In these pages, for each day of the year, we have endeavoured to list a particular miracle, apparition, conversion, or healing which took place on that day through the maternal hands of Our Lady. On occasions we also recall events in which Our Lady saved people from all kinds of danger, at sea or on land. We have also documented simple events, like the finding of a Marian image, which may not seem in themselves to be miraculous, but point to a deep care which the Mother of God has for her Son's people. We have taken episodes from all parts of the world in a truly Catholic way, showing that Our Lady has influenced so many people's lives and often in non-Catholic and even non-Christian lands.