St. Benedict Press

St. Anne, the beloved Mother of Our Lady and Grandmother of Christ Our Lord, has proven herself a heavenly helper for every need. Although we know next to nothing of her historically, the traditions record that she was a pious and holy woman. Like St. Elizabeth, she was sterile until her older years, when God finally heard the fervent prayer of St. Anne and her husband St. Joachim, the Grandparents of God, to grant them a child—indeed, the most extraordinary in history, after Christ: for to St. Anne was granted the immeasurable grace of conceiving in her womb immaculately the holy Mother of God, destined to be a spotless Bride of the Lord. In Good St. Anne, find the tale of this holy matriarch, and learn how to call upon her intercession. Among her titles, she is especially invoked as: Patroness of Mothers, Comfort of the Sorrowing, Mother of the Poor, Health of the Sick, Patroness of the Childless, Help of the Pregnant, Model of Married Women and Mothers, Protectress of Widows, and Patroness of Laborers. The Mother of the Mother of God, the holy St. Anne, prays for us in our every need if we only ask her. She is of course especially close to Our Lady, and she provides for us a means of securing the heavenly patronage of Our Sweet Mother Mary, who is the surest means of knowing Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Anne, privileged to bear the Mother of God, and to become in Christ a daughter of the one you bore, pray for us to Our Lady and to God!. SKU: 97981

The Soldier of Christ The founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola was one of the most startling and imposing saints in the history of the Church. Born in 1491 to Spanish nobility, he spent his youth as a courtier, focused on worldly things like his appearance and gaining temporal glory. He described himself later as a manifold sinner. Eventually, he became a soldier in the Spanish army. In 1521, at age 30, his life conversion struck: hit by a cannonball, he was forced into a convalescence of several months. To spend the time, he read; when he found the romantic and knightly novels he requested were not available, he read the lives of the saints and of Christ. His heart was stirred to repentance and imitation of the saints, and he began to compare his dreams for his life: serving the king and wooing a particular woman of the king's court or serving God and imitating the penances and fasts of the saints. The former left him sad and dissatisfied, and the latter left him peaceful and joyful: thus he knew what was the way, and this became the foundation of his method of discernment. After his recovery, Ignatius was a new man. After confessing and vowing his life to Our Lady, he lived in a cave for a time and performed exceeding fasts and penances. Throughout this period, he was tempted by suicide and was filled with scruples, but he persevered and gained the grace of visions and discernment of spirits. He recorded the first elements of his famous Spiritual Exercises, made a harrowing pilgrimage to the Holy Land (only to be turned away), and studied at universities for 11 years. Eventually, he gathered six companions and formed the basis of the Society of Jesus, that monumental, titanic, and legitimately world-shifting religious order which owes its existence to him. After ordination, Ignatius took 18 months to prepare for his first Holy Mass. When at last the society was formalized, the pope took a great liking to them. Among their constitutions were the revolutionary rule not to accept ecclesiastical dignities and the extremely long period of probation. Ignatius guided the order through massive growth spurts and trials, ultimately succumbing to illness in utter peace, passing quietly into eternity. This life of the soldier saint will inspire you and invigorate your faith life. No one is too far gone to turn back to God, and, if his own life experience is any indication, this biography will work wonders in stoking your desire to become a saint!

Saint Gerard Majella, the Wonder-Worker and "Patron of Expectant Mothers," is worth far more to the veneration of Catholics than he has been afforded for much of history. Though he died of tuberculosis at only 29 as a lay brother, he achieved paramount sanctity, as great as the wonderworkers of the first millennium. His character was such that his religious superiors attested not only that he had never committed a mortal sin, but also that they could not detect a single trace of guilt at all! St. Gerard was born in Muro, south of Naples, in 1726. His father died while he was a child, and so his mother sent him to be an apprentice tailor under his uncle, who was a kind master, though Gerard suffered on account of the foreman. Eventually, St. Gerard found work on his own as a servant of the rather picky Bishop of Lacedonia, who died, leaving Gerard to go back to work as a tailor. He gave to his mother and the poor and also donated for Masses for the poor souls in Purgatory. Hearing God's call to religion, he tried to become a Franciscan and then a hermit but failed both times. At last he managed to enter the newly founded Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer—the Redemptorists—at age 26. His jobs included all manner of manual labor, which he performed dutifully, and he even bound himself to an additional vow to always do that which seemed more perfect, not only exhibiting perfect obedience when asked but also obeying his superiors' unspoken desires even in their absence. He became called the Father of the Poor for his strenuous work, despite his frail health, and it was a mortification of the will for him to stay away from the Lord in the tabernacle. One particular example of his sanctity comes from early in his career as a Redemptorist. Though he was a marvel of chastity, when he was 27, he was accused of being the father of a young pregnant woman's child. He bore the lie resolutely, patiently, and silently, barred from receiving Sacramental Communion on account of his unwillingness to deny his guilt. It was not for years, until the woman died having revealed the truth, that Gerard was finally acquitted, earning the astonished praise of St. Alphonsus Liguori himself. His miracles were intense and known to many, including raising a boy from the dead who had fallen off a cliff; multiplying wheat and bread; walking on water to save fisherman from a storm; and posthumously saving an expectant mother and baby in childbirth by his handkerchief. St. Gerard became famous for these miracles and more: cures, charities, ecstasies, mortifications, prayers, purity, obedience, zeal for souls, discernment of spirits, penetration of hearts, infused knowledge, prophecies, knowledge of distant events, bilocations, and power over nature and over other human hearts—and even over the devil. Finally, he predicted the day and hour of his own death of tuberculosis in 1755. Recounted in this sizeable biography are also his funeral, posthumous miracles, beatification, and canonization in 1904. You will have to search far and wide to find another Saint's life as inspiring as that of St. Gerard Majella. For God has surely manifested His approval of this servant and his wonderful sanctity through such many and great miracles of grace.

Compiled in 1969, Mary: Mother of the Church is a reference work of quotations and excerpts from Popes, from Blessed Pius IX to Pius XII, about the Blessed Mother and her role in salvation history, particularly as "Mother of the Church." This title was formally given to her at the closing of the third session of the Second Vatican Council by Pope St. Paul VI, at the ardent request of Blessed Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński. By it, we are called to recognize that Mary is an integral part of our salvation; devotion to her is not external to the common life of the Church, but rather one of its most important components, after devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and Sacred Liturgy. The work is handily split into sections related to various aspects of Mariology, including Mary as "Universal Mediatrix," "Co-Redemptrix," and other facets of her monumental, integral role, ever more appreciated by the Church and drawn more and more heavily into its very life. She is the all-holy, ever-virgin Mother of God; she is the Gate of Heaven, the Tower of Ivory, the House of Gold, the Ark of the New Covenant, the New Eve, the Queen of the Universe, the Ray of the Noetic Sun, the Unshakeable Fortress, the Unvanquished Champion, and the Mother of the Church. Let us humbly approach and beseech her intercession, for wherever God her Son is, she is also. Fr. Francis Ripley was born in 1912 in England. He studied in the London Jesuit novitiate before determining that his vocation was as a diocesan priest. His books include The Diary of a Small Town Priest and This Is the Faith (the latter is available from TAN). Pages: 112 Paperbound. SKU: 97971

"Their angels in the heavens gaze always upon the face of My Father, Who is in the heavens." —cf. Matthew 18:10 Angels are often the first to go when people begin to question Catholic doctrine. However, it is a definitive tradition of the Faith that the angels and other spirits are real and present—even more so than we are—in Creation. Not to mention that Our Lord said so Himself! Each one of us has a guardian angel, and there are myriads of other angels from all ranks of the nine choirs ready to aid us if we but call upon them, our "bigger brothers and sisters," as it were, in heaven. In All about the Angels, mainstay author Fr. Paul O'Sullivan offers a wonderful exposition on the bodiless spirits of heaven, showing how they visit people many times in the past and present. They would do so still if we but asked! Fr. O'Sullivan relates how the angels: Prevent accidents Comfort us Help us Protect us from the devils All about the Angels contains beautiful stories about the great archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, along with stories from the lives of St. Gemma Galgani, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Bosco, and many others! Let Fr. O'Sullivan's words inspire in you a desire for greater communion with the angels, who reflect the glory of God most perfectly. SKU: 97995 Paperback 148 Pages

The Sinner's Guide is the most famous work of one of one of the most prominent and exceptional spiritual teachers of the sixteenth century. It has been compared to The Imitation of Christ for its breadth, intensity, and usefulness for devotion and has been translated into Italian, French, German, Polish, Latin, and Greek. Covering what many spiritual writers neglect, Venerable Louis discusses both virtue and vice—how to both do good and avoid evil. Included in this volume are chapters on: Eleven motives for practicing virtue Twelve privileges of virtue Cautions against deferring conversion Remedies for the seven deadly sins and others Virtues and duties of our state And far more! Venerable Louis stands as a master of the spiritual life throughout the whole Christian tradition. Born in extremely poor circumstances, his mother was widowed when he was five, and the pair subsisted on alms gathered from outside the gate of a Dominican priory. Eventually, Louis became a Dominican himself, and began a career of preaching that resulted, at length, in traveling throughout Spain and Portugal. He attained—despite the humble friar's best efforts—various posts in the Order of Preachers and served at courts of nobles and the queen regent of Portugal. He was offered bishoprics and the cardinalate, but declined all offers. He suffered much in his life, accused by the Spanish Inquisition of heresy unjustly; he was later vindicated by the Council of Trent and the witness of subsequent saints. Indeed, he counts among his readers and recommenders such pillars of sanctity as St. Rose of Lima, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Louise de Marillac, and St. Francis de Sales, who recommended Venerable Louis's works be read as a "second Breviary." But Venerable Louis's primary mission, quite unusually for his time, was to write and preach for the laity. Indeed, a disapproving observer said Venerable Louis wrote for "wives of carpenters," maybe forgetting who the Blessed Virgin was. Let, then, the words of this venerable Spanish preacher illuminate your heart with the light of Christ, speaking, as it were, straight from the bosom of the Master.

"See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you that their angels in Heaven always see the Face of My Father, Who is in Heaven." —Matthew 18:10 Father Pascal Parente compiles in this little book nearly everything that is known with certainty about the angels. Drawing heavily from Tradition and Doctors and Fathers of the Church, Parente explains the angels' creation, intelligence, free will, language, powers, movements, number, and particular duties. He also relates the history of devotion to the holy angels and discloses such little-known facts as that there are guardian angels not only of individuals, but also of churches, dioceses, and nations! In a world that is increasingly curious about spiritual beings and at the same time skeptical about the existence and power of those beings, The Angels: In Catholic Teaching and Tradition is a crucial tool for distinguishing the true from the false and the known from the unknown. It is a sure guide through the unseen and holy world of the angelic spirits—a book that truly instructs and inspires us to live in the presence of the Holy Angels!

"What if nothing happens on the 13th? Aren't you afraid people will laugh at you?" asked the parish priest as he looked closely at 10-year-old Lucia. "Oh no,Father!" replied Lucia. "I know something wonderful is going to happen on the 13th. The Lady told us so." This book tells what happened and gives the wonderful story of Our Lady's appearances to little Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia. Imprimatur.