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In these 15 moving essays, LA Times bestselling author Greg Olear explores how the literary wisdom of George Orwell, Charles Dickens, Milan Kundera, Dorothy Thompson, and other poets, novelists, screenwriters, journalists, critics, and historians can help us live through the Trump Redux, without sacrificing joy or losing hope.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, the Prince of Moral Theologians, was one of the greatest preachers in Church history. A religious founder, consummate theologian, and holy man of God, St. Alphonsus never failed to utter a stirring word that drew out a lively penitence and redoubled dedication to the work of God from his audience. Here, in The Holy Eucharist, is his extensive work on the Sacrifice that brings about Salvation. As a devoted preacher and teacher, Liguori sought to bring others to devotion and sanctity in the most Blessed Sacrament.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth-century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of millions of her contemporaries. Uncle Tom's Cabin paints pictures of three plantations, each worse than the other, where even the best plantation leaves a slave at the mercy of fate or debt. Her questions remain penetrating even today: "Can man ever be trusted with wholly irresponsible power?"

As a kid, I was forced to go to Church every Sunday. In my senior year of high school, I gave up faith and religion altogether and embraced being agnostic. I sought the American dream by cofounding a software company and pursued money, fitness, and success, but none of that ever satisfied or gave me peace. Why Be Catholic? is not exactly my journey, but it is the journey of the Church. This book will help you make sense of the logical and historical realities that reveal how and why the Catholic Church is who She says She is.

Music plays such an important part in everyone’s life, but how much do we know about the history of music? How did music shape our civilization, and how was music itself shaped by the Catholic Church? Susan Treacy, an experienced professor of music, is an excellent guide to the history of music. Every Catholic should own at least one book on music.

In this riveting biography, author Bret Thoman accomplishes what few biographers have. He pierces the inner life of Francis, revealing his deepest passions, his unquenchable love for poverty, and his unshakable grip on the core of the Gospel. The life of Francis, so often festooned with spectacle and miracle, is in reality the story of a soul yearning for God in every moment and glimpsing his presence in all creation.

St. Peter Claver voluntarily entered the horrors of the slave trade to serve as a “slave of the slaves,” bringing comfort, healing, and the sacraments to the most forsaken. This powerful book follows his heroic charity aboard disease-ridden ships and in the slave pens of the West Indies, where he lived Ignatian spirituality with selfless love. Alongside Claver’s example, the book reflects on the Church’s historical witness against slavery and offers timely spiritual insights on how personal holiness and sacrificial love remain the most potent force against injustice—then and now.

On October 13, 1917, just before the great "Miracle of the Sun" was manifested to some 70,000 spectators at Fatima, Portugal, there appeared to the three child-visionaries an unusual scene. To the right of the sun, they saw the Blessed Virgin Mary robed in white with a blue mantle. Standing to the left of the sun was St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus, both blessing the world.

Today, most Catholics would be surprised to learn of the long history of scholarship and devotion regarding St. Joseph. Every Catholic should understand the indispensable role that St. Joseph played in the life of the Blessed Virgin and in the life of the Son of God. The humble carpenter, loving husband, and holy father is always interceding on our behalf. Do most Catholics really understand the life of Jesus’s foster father?

The promise of eternal life has been a clarion call to the saints for centuries, rousing them to action and heroic virtue. They knew that, compared with eternity, this life is but a shadow. We must seek the same destination as the saints in the midst of a world filled with amusements and vanities that constantly threaten our journey to Heaven.

In 1910, when the industrialists and intelligentsia both promised only “progress,” G. K. Chesterton was among the few in the West who could see the brewing ideological storms that would soon make landfall, not just in the form of world wars and totalitarianism but in the pervasive modern dehumanization that consumes us to this day. More than a century ago, Chesterton perceived the beginnings of “woke capital” and how it aligns with and promotes social progressivism. There is an unspoken alliance between big business and progressives, he explains.

Mainstay author Fr. Paul O'Sullivan offers in The Wonders of the Mass an astounding guide to the meaning and reality of the sacred liturgy, quoting the saints and our Lord (via revelations to mystics). There is no capacity in which Fr. O'Sullivan fails to extol the Mass—for truly, because it is Jesus himself present in the Sacrament, we may offer the same praise to the Mass as to God.

It is of vital importance that each individual soul recover this lost sense of sin and to begin the struggle to conquer the deadly sins that threaten his or her salvation. The Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin will help you do just that in your own life. As Fr. Kolinski makes clear, the truest medicine is found in the sacramental life of the church. But, in addition to the graces found in frequent confession and reception of the Eucharist, the Manual for Conquering Deadly Sin will be an indispensable aid in your fight.

St. Joseph obtains favors of any kind, but particularly in family problems, financial needs, purity, dangers, work, housing and a happy death. He is the universal patron - whatever our petition is, you can pray to St. Joseph with confidence. He was the foster father of Jesus Christ on earth, and Jesus still obeys his requests in heaven! God chose St. Joseph over all other men to represent the fatherhood of God himself in the Holy Family.

What is "the one great thing to love on earth", according to J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings? The Eucharist! Tolkien made sure his one great love was woven throughout his books. It's easy to find if you know where to look. In Smith's new book, find Tolkien's hidden Eucharist!

TO DIE WELL, ONE MUST FIRST LEARN how to live well. In this timeless guide, St. Robert Bellarmine offers a clear and orderly path to preparing the soul for its final passage: the daily practice of virtue, the discipline of prayer, and fidelity to the sacraments. Dear Listener, in this comforting book, you will find instruction in detachment from earthly goods, counsel on cultivating sobriety, justice, and piety, and encouragement to embrace fasting, almsgiving, and works of mercy.

Father de Caussade offers the one sure solution to any spiritual difficulty: abandon yourself entirely to God by embracing the duties of your station in life. With wisdom and gentleness he teaches how to practice complete submission to the will of God in every situation, whether we are beginners or seasoned travelers on the way of perfection. True abandonment, he explains, is a trusting, peaceful, and childlike surrender to the guidance of grace.

In The Synodal Pope: The True Story of the Theology and Politics of Pope Francis, Jean-Pierre Moreau traces the history and theological development of Pope Francis from his upbringing in Argentina and formation by the liberationist Jesuits. Moreau, a keen observer of liberation theology, many of whose leading figures he personally met when he was a special correspondent for the Figaro-Magazine in the 1980s, has made a close study of the personal and intellectual itinerary of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, described by his closest supporters as professing the “theology of the people.”

The sacrament of Matrimony is under diabolical attack. While it is easy to blame the outside world for the demise of marriage, we must look at what has been happening inside the Church. The number of marriages have dwindled over the past five decades and annulments have skyrocketed. Many in Church leadership have been indifferent to these alarming trends and to marriage itself. Matrimony is rarely referenced during homilies, pre-Cana programs are often disastrous, and seminaries spend little time studying the sacrament of Matrimony.

In the face of a world crisis, which is manifestly deeper than one can imagine, many are inclined to ask: “Has Christianity failed?” Fulton Sheen’s Thinking Life Through seeks to answer this critical question.