Lisa Hendey's enthusiasm for saints is contagious. Building on the success of her first book, Hendey continues her work as the Catholic mom's coach to nurturing hearts, minds, bodies, and souls--this time through the rich Catholic communion of saints. With the warmth and candor of My Life with the Saints by James Martin, S.J., Hendey eloquently links personal stories, scripture, prayer, and simple soul-strengthening exercises into this rich spiritual resource for Catholic women.

Hendey offers one saint per week--some famous, some lesser known, some whose cause is in process--to offer companionship and guidance for the challenging, often under-thanked vocation of Catholic motherhood. She introduces Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Patrick, as well as Gianna Beretta Molla and Chiara Badano. Each week offers a thematic prayer intention, biographical and devotional information about the saint, lessons learned, daily scripture meditations, prayers, and practical, spiritually rich action steps that help moms incorporate the wisdom and exemplary faith of each saint.

A shortened version of Kreeft's much larger Summa of the Summa, which in turn was a shortened version of the Summa Theologica. The reason for the double shortening is pretty obvious: the original runs some 4000 pages! (The Summa of the Summa was just over 500.) The Summa is certainly the greatest, most ambitious, most rational book of theology ever written. In it, there is also much philosophy, which is selected, excerpted, arranged, introduced, and explained in footnotes here by Kreeft, a popular Thomist teacher and writer. St. Thomas Aquinas is universally recognized as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. His writings combine the two fundamental ideals of philosophical writing: clarity and profundity. He is a master of metaphysics and technical terminology, yet so full of both theoretical and practical wisdom. He is the master of common sense. The Summa Theologica is timeless, but particularly important today because of his synthesis of faith and reason, revelation and philosophy, and the Biblical and the classical Greco-Roman heritages. This little book is designed for beginners, either for classroom use or individually. It contains the most famous and influential passages of St. Thomas' philosophy with copious aids to understanding them.

"And it seems to me that these words become like a mirror to the persons singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul, and thus affected, he might recite them. For in fact he who hears the one reading receives the song that is recited as being about him, and either, when he is convicted by his conscience, being pierced, he will repent, or hearing of the hope that resides in God, and of the succor available to believers-how this kind of grace exists for him-he exults and begins to give thanks to God." Athanasius (c. 295-373)

Athanasius was a major figure of 14th-century Christendom. As the Bishop of Alexandria, spiritual master and theologian, he led the Church in its battle against the Arian heresy. Athanasius' The Life of Antony is one of the foremost classics of Christian asceticism. It tells the spiritual story of St. Antony, the founder of Christian monasticism. Written at the request of the desert monks of Egypt to provide "an ideal pattern of the ascetical life," it immediately became astonishingly popular. This work contributed greatly to the establishment of monastic life in Western Christianity. From a literary perspective, it created a new Christian genre for the lives of saints.

The Letter to Marcellinus is an introduction to the spiritual sense of the Psalms. The Psalms are presented as a variety of attitudes which coexist in a truly harmonious and whole sense of prayer.

William A. Clebsch of Stanford University, President of the American Academy of Religion, in his Preface to this volume, says, "This translator's fidelity to the texts ensures that the reader receives in these works Athanasius' meaning, so far as feasible in the order of his thoughts and in the equivalence of his words."

One of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, Undset was no stranger to hagiography. Her meticulous research of medieval times, which bore such fruit in her masterpieces Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken, acquainted her with some of the holy men and women produced by the Age of Faith. Their exemplary lives left a deep impression upon the author, which she credited as one of her reasons for entering the Church in 1924.

Catherine of Siena was a particular favorite of Undset, who also was a Third Order Dominican. An extraordinarily active, intelligent, and courageous woman, Catherine at an early age devoted herself to the love of God. The intensity of her prayer, sacrifice, and service to the poor won her a reputation for holiness and wisdom, and she was called upon to make peace between warring nobles. Believing that peace in Italy could only be achieved if the pope, then living in France, returned to Rome, Catherine boldly traveled to Avignon to meet with Pope Gregory XI.

With sensitivity to the zealous love that permeated the life of Saint Catherine, Undset presents a most moving and memorable portrait of one of the greatest women of all time.

Today St. Luke is known as the author of the third Gospel of the New Testament, but two thousand years ago he was Lucanus, a Greek, a man who loved, knew the emptiness of bereavement, and later traveled through the hills and wastes of Judea asking, "What manner of man was my Lord?" And it is of this Lucanus that Taylor Caldwell tells here in one of the most stirring stories ever lived or written.

Lucanus grew up in the household of his stepfather, the Roman govenor of Antioch. After studying medicine in Alexandria he became one of the greatest physicians of the ancient world and traveled far and wide through the Mediterranean region healing the sick.

As time went on he learned of the life and death of Christ and saw in Him the God he was seeking. To find out all he could about the life and teachings of Jesus, whom he never saw, Lucanus visited all the places where Jesus had been, questioning everyone--including His mother, Mary--who had known Him or heard Him preach. At last, when he had gathered all information possible, he wrote down what we now know as the Gospel according to St. Luke.

Taylor Caldwell has chosen the grand, the splendid means to tell of St. Luke. Her own travels through the Holy Land and years of meticulous research made Dear and Glorious Physician a fully developed portrait of a complex and brilliant man and a colorful re-creation of ancient Roman life as it contrasted in its decadence with the new world Christianity was bringing into being. Here is a story to warm, to inspire, to call forth renewal of faith and love lying deep in each reader's heart.

A portrait so moving and so eloquent I doubt it is paralleled elsewhere in literature. Here indeed is Taylor Caldwell's major novel!

Boston Herald

Alive with the bustle of ancient times and places and illuminated by flashes of genuine lyrical intensity....Movingly reconstructs St. Luke's search for God.

The New York Times

Magnificent! Taylor Caldwell, who has splendid powers of narration, unleashes them all in this, her finest novel. She has made St. Luke a real and believable man and recreated on a vast canvas the times and people of his day. You see as large as life all the glory and decadence of Rome and all the strife, turmoil and mysticism of Africa.... A glowing and passionate statement of belief!
Columbus Citizen