Reviews

A new documentary film releasing in March, I Am Patrick, relates the true story of this great fifth-century “Apostle to Ireland” as told by Patrick himself in his Confessions and his Epistle to Coroticus. Through expert interviews, narrative voice-overs, and dramatic re-enactments, his amazing life unfolds and the authentic Patrick emerges.

There’s a “man crisis” in the Catholic Church today and indeed throughout society. Men need to step up and become what real men are supposed to be: gentlemen who stand firm for what is good and true, who do combat with evil, who defend the innocent and protect the vulnerable.

Baptism infuses the Christian with the gift of faith, but there are two other theological virtues –hope and love – also bestowed – and often neglected. Fr. Philip Bochanski focuses on hope, which seems in short supply amid the relentless procession of bad-news headlines, the epidemic of depression, and other tribulations of today’s world.

Can a good capitalist also be a good Christian? Yes, says Jay W. Richards, with emphasis. Here the research assistant professor at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America defends capitalism by showing how entrepreneurship, undertaken virtuously, actually helps create a more just society.

When people used to write Mother Teresa of their desire to join in her work among the destitute of India, she would often respond: “Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta.”

How is evangelization like marketing? You have a message, you want to get people’s attention, and you want them to respond by buying in to the message. Donna Heckler applies her broad experience in corporate marketing to the Catholic Church in this eye-opening book by offering successful business strategies to help the Church at every level do what it is called to do – attract people to the Gospel message and save souls in the process.

Did the Soviet Union collapse under its own weight? No way, say the authors of The Divine Plan. It wouldn’t have happened without the vision and collaboration of two remarkable world leaders, Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan.

Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Eighty of his family members and 45,000 of his parishioners did not. Shaken by the tragedy, he has dedicated his ministry to reconciliation and healing between the Tutsis and Hutus whose long-simmering ethnic animosity ignited the slaughter of some 800,000 Rwandans.

Single mom rose and her seven-year-old daughter Katy don’t have it easy. They sleep in a junkyard vehicle, tidy up in a diner restroom, and face a future as bleak as it is uncertain. And little Katy has never had a Christmas present.

Looking for a kids’ storybook on the real meaning of Christmas, and keeping the gift of Christ as its focus? Here it is.

This volume does a good job of explaining the cosmos, creation, and evolution in a faith-friendly manner, all the while skewering scientific hubris. Well-written and enlightening.

The author has curated 36 of the best stories, essays, and poems that evoke the spirit of Christmas. An excerpt from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is here, of course, and Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” but there also are lesser-known classics from authors including Henry Van Dyke, Willa Cather, Ruth Sawyer, and Hilaire Belloc. This book will provide seasonal reading for years to come.

Change is a fact of life, but we would more easily weather inevitable challenges and transitions if they would line up politely and come at us one at a time. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it works. Sometimes multiple challenges hit concurrently, and in attempting to cope with them all we are pushed to our limits or beyond.

Confused about something the pope said, or didn’t say, or what someone said he said? Or did something sound amiss from your pastor or small group leader?

Here is a collection of great homilies of history addressing troubled times, from great pastors who are now Church Doctors and saints like St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Henry Newman, and others like Jacques-Benigne Bossuet to more contemporary leaders like Pope St. John Paul II, Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko, and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Reading these pages buoys hope.

This book examines personal stories of grief and offers tools for healing and carrying on with life after losing someone close, with the help of faith.

When the Lusitania was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland in 1915, one of the 1,198 souls who perished with it was Fr. Basil Maturin, who was returning home from a preaching tour of the United States.

JAMES ALLEN’S 1903 collection of essays, As a Man Thinketh, exhorts readers to take control of their lives through positive thinking and tireless focus on ideals and purpose. It’s why Allen is rightly counted among the pioneers of the modern self-help movement.

Tragically, many have been touched in some way by the suicide of a loved one or acquaintance, and some believe killing oneself automatically condemns one to hell. Some believe that’s what the Catholic Church says. Not so, says Fr. Alar, whose own grandmother committed suicide.

Every battle for truth and justice has its heroes. This book presents portraits of some of our heroes in the defense of life – 56 of them, to be precise: eight in each of seven disciplines or realms including philosophy, medicine, even sports and entertainment.