This great lay mystic reveals that the Gates of Heaven are actually wide open; but that souls choose not to go there unless they are perfect. If they are wicked (in mortal sin); they hurl themselves into Hell. If they die in the State of Grace; but with sins yet unexpiated; they hasten to the appropriate place in Purgatory. St. Catherine says that the sins we expiate in this life are paid for at a very small price indeed compared to what we will pay in Purgatory. A classic!

The publication of the Life of St Catherine of Genoa at this moment is, for several reasons, opportune. The reading of it will correct the misconceptions of many who honestly fancy that the Catholic Church encourages a mechanical piety, fixes the attention of the soul almost, if not altogether, on outward observances, and inculcates nothing beyond a complete submission to her authority and discipline. The life of our Saint is an example of the reverse of that picture. It makes clear the truth that the immediate guide of the Christian soul is the Holy Spirit, and that her uncommon fidelity to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, made this holy woman worthy of being numbered by the Church among that class of her most cherished children, who have attained the highest degree of Divine love which it is possible for human beings to reach upon earth.

From divine visions to self-tortures, some strange mystical experiences have shaped the Christian tradition. Full of colourful detail, this book examines the mystical experiences that have determined the history of Christianity.

Women have been writing in the Catholic tradition since early medieval times, yet no single volume has brought together critical evaluations of their works until now. The first reference of its kind, Catholic Women Writers provides entries on 64 Catholic women writers from around the world and across the centuries. Each of the entries is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography of the author; a critical discussion of her works, especially her Catholic and women's themes; an overview of her critical reception; and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Authors writing in all genres, including fiction, autobiography, poetry, children's literature, and essays, are represented. The entries give special attention to the authors' use of Catholic themes, structures, traditions, culture, and spirituality. The writers surveyed range from Doctors of the Church to mystics and visionaries, to those who employ Catholic themes primarily in historical and cultural contexts, to those who critique the tradition. An introductory essay places the writers within the historical and literary contexts of women's writing in the Catholic tradition, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.

"Italian Literature before 1900 in English Translation provides the most complete record possible of texts from the early periods that have been translated into English, and published between 1929 and 2008. It lists works from all genres and subjects, and includes translations wherever they have appeared across the globe. In this annotated bibliography, Robin Healey covers over 5,200 distinct editions of pre-1900 Italian writings. Most entries are accompanied by useful notes providing information on authors, works, translators, and how the translations were received. Among the works by over 1,500 authors represented in this volume are hundreds of editions by Italy's most translated authors - Dante Alighieri, [Niccoláo] Machiavelli, and [Giovanni] Boccaccio - and other hundreds which represent the author's only English translation. A significant number of entries describe works originally published in Latin. Together with Healey's Twentieth-Century Italian Literature in English Translation, this volume makes comprehensive information on translations accessible for schools, libraries, and those interested in comparative literature."--Pub. desc.

ÊAmongst the apparent enigmas of life, amongst the seemingly most radical and abiding of interior antinomies and conflicts experienced by the human race and by individuals, there is one which everything tends to make us feel and see with an ever-increasing keenness and clearness. More and more we want a strong and interior, a lasting yet voluntary bond of union between our own successive states of mind, and between what is abiding in ourselves and what is permanent within our fellow-men; and more and more we seem to see that mere Reasoning, Logic, Abstraction,Ñall that appears as the necessary instrument and expression of the Universal and Abiding,Ñdoes not move or win the will, either in ourselves or in others; and that what does thus move and win it, is Instinct, Intuition, Feeling, the Concrete and Contingent, all that seems to be of its very nature individual and evanescent. Reasoning appears but capable, at best, of co-ordinating, unifying, explaining the material furnished to it by experience of all kinds; at worst, of explaining it away; at best, of stimulating the purveyance of a fresh supply of such experience; at worst, of stopping such purveyance as much as may be. And yet the Reasoning would appear to be the transferable part in the process, but not to move; and the experience alone to have the moving power, but not to be transmissible. Experience indeed and its resultant feeling are always, in the first instance, coloured and conditioned by every kind of individual many-sided circumstances of time and place, of race and age and sex, of education and temperament, of antecedent and environment. And it is this very particular combination, just this one, so conditioned and combined, coming upon me just at this moment and on this spot, just at this stage of my reach or growth, at this turning of my way, that carries with it this particular power to touch or startle, to stimulate or convince. It is just precisely through the but imperfectly analyzable, indeed but dimly perceived, individual connotation of general terms; it is by the fringe of feeling, woven out of the past doings and impressions, workings and circumstances, physical, mental, moral, of my race and family and of my own individual life; it is by the apparently slight, apparently far away, accompaniment of a perfectly individual music to the spoken or sung text of the common speech of man, that I am, it would seem, really moved and won. And this fringe of feeling, this impression, is, strictly speaking, not merely untransferable, but also unrepeatable; it is unique even for the same mind: it never was before, it never will be again. Heraclitus, if we understand that old Physicist in our own modern, deeply subjective, largely sentimental way, would appear to be exactly right: you cannot twice step into the same stream, since never for two moments do the waters remain identical; you yourself cannot twice step the same man into the same river, for you have meanwhile changed as truly as itself has done, _____ ___: all things and states, outward and inward, appear indeed in flux: only each moment seems to bring, to each individual, for that one moment, his power to move and to convince.

"O Blessed Confidence, O Safe Refuge, Mother of God and Our Mother!" St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033?1109), Doctor of the Church "What is not generally known and only infrequently studied is the role of Our Lady over the centuries as a catechist: teacher of the faith, in a very real sense, primary teacher because she is Mother of God and Mother of the Church and faithful If any one factor might be singled out for the very high level of faith and religious practice in medieval 'merry England' (merry, because Mary's dowry, because consecrated to Mary as her possession and property) it is this Marian catechesis. Only when England deliberately rejected Mary did it cease to be the happy place it once was. Unfortunately, English colonization of other peoples took place only after the repudiation of Mary by England. That is why this catechetical work is especially valuable for the faithful and those who are seeking faith in America and other English speaking cultures. It will bring to their attention precisely what is central to catechetics and so often missing, the presence of Mary, Mother and Teacher. It will make perfectly clear why we need not fewer Marian sanctuaries, but many, many more in all parts of the country where this quiet, but so real and profound influence of the Marian principle of the Church will be felt at every level. It is my prayer and hope that those who read and study this work will find the same inspiration and stimulus that I found in having the privilege to read the manuscript before publication. We are much indebted to Brother Anthony Josemaria Pasquale, a Franciscan Tertiary of the Immaculate and gifted scholar, for the effort he has expended to find qualified contributors and to offer so well edited a book to the general public." -From the Foreword by Father Peter M. Fehlner, FI, theologian, sponsor of the International Symposium on Marian Coredemption

You would never dream so much is known about Purgatory! Not only is the basic teaching of the Church given here, but also countless true stories of apparitions and revelations on Purgatory from the lives of St. Margaret Mary, St. Gertrude, St. Bridget of Sweden, the Cure of Ars, St. Lidwina of Schiedam, etc.

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