The entries are brief, pointed, and written to help Catholic women connect
their everyday concerns with God's Word in the context of their Catholic
faith. Each entry is introduced by a Scripture verse and followed by a
one-sentence prayer.

A 365 daily with inspirational and provocative selections from the journals of Thomas Merton combined with drawings and photographs by Merton.

This volume of daily inspiration from Thomas Merton draws from Merton's journals and papers to present, each day, a seasonally appropriate and thought-provoking insight or observation.
Each month will begin with one of Merton's delightful pen-and-ink drawings or one of his elegant black-and-white photographs.

A time of self-denial, soul searching, and spiritual preparation, Lent is a fitting season for daily reading and reflection. Grouped around such themes as temptation, crucifixion, resurrection, and new life, Bread and Wine can be dipped into at leisure or used as a guide to daily devotions--and returned to at any time year for spiritual revitalization.

Selections include writings by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Philip Yancey, Madeline L'Engle, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Donne, Thomas Merton, St. Augustine, Mother Teresa, John Updike, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and many others.

Astonishingly relevant portraits of the lives of seven women mystics

Known to more than a million readers as the coauthor of the classic vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen, Carol Lee Flinders looks to the hunger of the spirit in Enduring Grace. In these striking and sustaining depictions of seven remarkable women, Flinders brings to life a chorus of wisdom from the past that speaks with remarkable relevance to our contemporary spiritual quests.

From Clare of Assisi in the Middle East to Thérèse of Lisieux in the late nineteenth century, Flinders's compelling and refreshingly informal portraits reveal a common foundation of conviction, courage, and serenity in the lives of these great European Catholic mystics. Their distinctly female voices enrich their writings on the experience of the inner world, the nourishing role of friendship and community in our lives, and on finding our true work.

At its heart, Enduring Grace is a living testament to how we can make peace with sorrow and disappointment and bring joy and transcendence into our lives.

These five dimensions of the spiritual life: (1) the Holy Eucharist, (2) spontaneous prayer, (3) the Beatitudes, (4) partnership with the Holy Spirit, and (5) the contemplative life itself, generally do not develop simultaneously or even in parallel ways. Some develop very quickly, but do not achieve significant depth; while others develop quite slowly, but seem to be almost unending in the depth of wisdom, trust, hope, virtue, and love they engender. The best way of explaining this is to look at each of the pillars individually.

Before doing this, however, it is indispensable for each of us to acknowledge (at least intellectually) the fundamental basis for Christian contemplation, namely, the unconditional Love of God. Jesus taught us to address God as Abba. If God really is Abba; if His love is like the father of the prodigal son; if Jesus' passion and Eucharist are confirmations of that unconditional Love; if God really did so love the world that He sent His only begotten Son into the world not to condemn us, but to save us and bring us to eternal life (Jn 3:16-19); if nothing really can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rm 8:31-39); and if God really has prepared us "to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, and experience this love which surpasses all understanding, so that we may attain to the fullness of God Himself" (Eph 3:18-20), then God's love is unconditional, and it is, therefore, the foundation for unconditional trust and unconditional hope. There can be nothing more important than contemplating, affirming, appropriating, and living in this Unconditional Love. This is the purpose of contemplation; indeed, the purpose of the spiritual life itself.

"The publication of Father Spitzer's book is a happy coincidence, coming soon after Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth. Both are strong statements of New Testament spirituality and provide an escape from the `bleaching of Christ's image', caused by the exclusive use of the historical-critical method. Informed Catholic readers are summoned by this book to take the Christ of the Gospels intelligently and seriously."
--Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R., author of Arise from Darkness