Sometime in November, or commonly as early as October, Christmas songs are heard in shopping malls, in discount stores, on the radio, on TV, and through all manner of electronic devices. The secular form of Christmas is characterized by its own music, just like the religious seasons of Advent and Christmas have their own hymns and carols. Revisit these tunes and focus your faith this year with reflections that connect the daily Advent and Christmas readings from the Lectionary to religious...

A Biblical Morning & Evening Prayer Manual is a reworking of the sixth-century Christian tradition of fixed times for prayer. All entries are taken from various English translations of the Bible. Because the principal times for prayer are morning and evening, this manual is a complete handbook of biblical passages for the modern person, consisting of material taking ten to fifteen minutes to absorb before beginning the day and ten to fifteen minutes when ending the day. Through daily praye...

How well-known is the prophet Agabus? How about the prophetess Anna? Daniel? Or Deborah? Besides the prophets who have biblical books named after them, there are over eighty other prophets found in biblical literature. This book presents all the prophets and prophetesses found in the Bible. While most are named, there are a few who are known simply as “Man of God.” Among the 104 entries, readers will read and learn about Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Elijah, Elisha, and Noadiah, and E...

If there were only one Paul in the Christian Bible (New Testament), it would not be so difficult to understand him. However, there are three faces (and maybe more) of Paul found in the Bible. In biblical book order, there is the Acts-of-the-Apostles Paul; this Paul is generated by the same author--whoever he was--who wrote Luke's Gospel. Second, there is genuine Paul, the author of seven letters. Third, there are the multiple faces of second-generation Paul; these faces represent believers...

The Spirit of the Lord God presents seventy-three biblical-based reflections on the invisible power and life-source of God, known as Spirit, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Old Testament (Apocrypha), and the Christian Bible (New Testament). Each exercise begins with a biblical quotation about the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, or Spirit. The biblical words are followed by an in-depth reflection highlighting both the names for and the images of the Holy Spirit ...

The title of this book, Very Short Reflections--for Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, Ordinary Time and Saints--through the Liturgical Year, accurately describes its contents. Chapter 1 presents a short reflection for every day of the Advent Season. Chapter 2 does the same for every day of the Christmas season. Lent is covered in chapter 3, the Sacred Paschal Triduum in chapter 4, and the fifty days of the Easter season in chapter 5. Chapter 6 covers Ordinary Time. And chapter 7 prese...

The title of this book, Shhh! The Sound of Sheer Silence: A Biblical Spirituality that Transforms, comes from the biblical narrative about the prophet Elijah experiencing God on a mountain in a sound of sheer silence. Many people seek a way of life that involves silence because it nourishes the individual spirit connected to Spirit. Developing a spirituality of silence enables the individual spirit to connect to the divine Spirit. The transformation that occurs through silence here and now...

Thousands of readers have found Fr. Mark Boyer’s The Liturgical Environment: What the Documents Say to be a useful compendium of the church’s law and guidelines on the liturgical environment. Rooted in the norm of active participation as the guiding principle for all liturgical celebration, each chapter considers the ecclesial documents that pertain to the particular objects under discussion, the theology found in the documents, and the praxis that flows from the theology. Now in ...

The village of Old Mines is the oldest settlement in the state of Missouri. Lead miners were in Old Mines as early as 1719. The founding of Old Mines in 1723 coincides with the land grant awarded to Philippe Francois Renault by French authorities on June 26, 1723, to mine lead. Thus, the oldest village in Missouri began as a mining town. In 2023, the village marks three hundred years of the French in Old Mines. This book narrates the history of people in remote Louisiana and how they have ...

This book continues The Shelbydog Chronicles by Shelby Cole, in which Shelby, a sixty-pound Labrador-Boxer mix, narrates the events of the first ten years of her life. As she approaches her twelfth birthday, she has delegated her friend, Mark G. Boyer, to write More Shelbydog Chronicles. Boyer shares the experiences he has had with Shelbydog in twenty-seven short reflections with the goal of fostering reflection on how one's life intersects with one's pet. At the end of each chapter are re...

While the complete title of this book might be clumsy, it expresses what is contained between the covers. Spiritual refers to the need to nourish the human spirit. The forty spiritual exercises in this book begin with a short Scripture passage, which illustrates the topic of the chapter, and end with a Psalm response, a few verses from a psalm that mentions the topic of the exercise. The traditional five senses--tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, and smelling--are presented by E. E. Cummi...

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is known in the Catholic Church as Our Lady of Grace, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, and more. Her various titles describe her various functions within the Church. Many books on Mariology, the study or doctrine relating to the Virgin Mary, either treat the liturgical aspects or the devotional aspects of the topic. Here, they are br...