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Author: Alex A. Meñez
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781098064778
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Love stories are always captivating. And when it is the love story of a catholic priest, it is intriguing. This book is about the love story of two priests. "Both stories reveal their pain and struggles to decide against a law imbedded for centuries in the solid structure of an institution and in the cultural psyche of both laity and clergy. In the end, love and grace triumph" (From a peer review). A highlight of this book is my reformist concern related to clerical behavior. And I speak from my experience and expertise of forty years in the ministry. Ecclesiastics should know that when I left the service of the altar, I bore no bitterness or regret. I am, therefore, their best ally to tell them the truth in love. An added weight for my credibility is because my observations are based mostly on the pronouncements of Pope Francis. The book will make some clerics uncomfortable. Many will find it comforting and uplifting. All will find it a good resource for reflection and a compelling guide for examination of conscience to hopefully bring about the clergy reform in attitude and lifestyle. I have a chapter on celibacy. Some will ask, what more is there to talk about this topic. And I say, because I present celibacy with a focus on chastity. Celibacy without chastity is a farce. Perhaps someday the church will change its law on celibacy, definitely not in my lifetime. But it will. This book will tell you why. This book can be used as a primer in the seminary formation program. As Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned, "The Christian priesthood is going through a major crisis," and at the root of this quagmire "is a deep flaw in their formation." The laity will benefit from this book, especially among the churchgoing, those engaged in religious formation, those in search of their faith's relevance or simply the spiritually hungry and the families and friends of priests all over the world. The book strongly emphasizes the equality in dignity of all Christian faithful (clergy and lay) based on the grace of baptism. This will help the laity value and uphold their proper role, viz. that together they build up the Church of Jesus Christ.
Author: Alex A. Meñez
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781098064778
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Get Book
Book Description
Love stories are always captivating. And when it is the love story of a catholic priest, it is intriguing. This book is about the love story of two priests. "Both stories reveal their pain and struggles to decide against a law imbedded for centuries in the solid structure of an institution and in the cultural psyche of both laity and clergy. In the end, love and grace triumph" (From a peer review). A highlight of this book is my reformist concern related to clerical behavior. And I speak from my experience and expertise of forty years in the ministry. Ecclesiastics should know that when I left the service of the altar, I bore no bitterness or regret. I am, therefore, their best ally to tell them the truth in love. An added weight for my credibility is because my observations are based mostly on the pronouncements of Pope Francis. The book will make some clerics uncomfortable. Many will find it comforting and uplifting. All will find it a good resource for reflection and a compelling guide for examination of conscience to hopefully bring about the clergy reform in attitude and lifestyle. I have a chapter on celibacy. Some will ask, what more is there to talk about this topic. And I say, because I present celibacy with a focus on chastity. Celibacy without chastity is a farce. Perhaps someday the church will change its law on celibacy, definitely not in my lifetime. But it will. This book will tell you why. This book can be used as a primer in the seminary formation program. As Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned, "The Christian priesthood is going through a major crisis," and at the root of this quagmire "is a deep flaw in their formation." The laity will benefit from this book, especially among the churchgoing, those engaged in religious formation, those in search of their faith's relevance or simply the spiritually hungry and the families and friends of priests all over the world. The book strongly emphasizes the equality in dignity of all Christian faithful (clergy and lay) based on the grace of baptism. This will help the laity value and uphold their proper role, viz. that together they build up the Church of Jesus Christ.
Author: Tim O'Donnell
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 0984534407
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Engages with the taboo questions of Christianity as investigative reportage, exploring the "mysteries of faith". Is America becoming preoccupied with religion? In a country with a tradition of keeping matters of creed private, we are now seeing religion in the headlines almost daily, while ironically, escalating numbers of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether. A recent Pew survey of Americans show: 91% believe in God, 44% have switched religions, 71% of 18-30 year-olds are “spiritual but not religious” and the Catholic Church estimates at least one third of Catholics are lapsed. We are a nation under God, a country of believers it seems, but one undergoing a collective shift in our allegiance to organized religion. But, before the individual shifts they are aided by looking at what they were taught to believe in the first place. A View from the Back Pew: God, Religion & Our Personal Quest for Truth investigates the mysteries of faith in a no-holds-barred exposé into the very core of the Christianity. Candid, humorous and controversial, Tim O’Donnell takes us on a powerful search for balance – between faith and personal experience, between the roots of Christianity and layers of doctrine and between ritual and the connection to the entity we call God. A View from the Back Pew is not written for theologians or the so-called spiritual illuminati, but for ordinary people who are asking deeper questions about their faith. Before one can venture from the safe harbor of organized religion to the open water of spirituality, it helps to be clear about what causes our quandary. This book helps deal with the imprint religion has made while leaving out the guilt commonly linked to asking such questions. “My hope” writes O’Donnell “is that if you are drawn to the Divine but labor over dogma and ritual, you will find a fresh perspective in my view from the back pew”.
Author: Catherine Lacey
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720134
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
WINNER of the 2021 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award. Finalist for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize. Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fiction Books of 2020. One of Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2020. “The people of this community are stifling, and generous, cruel, earnest, needy, overconfident, fragile and repressive, which is to say that they are brilliantly rendered by their wise maker, Catherine Lacey.” --Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy In a small, unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives for a service and finds a figure asleep on a pew. The person is genderless and racially ambiguous and refuses to speak. One family takes in the strange visitor and nicknames them Pew. As the town spends the week preparing for a mysterious Forgiveness Festival, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next. The earnest and seemingly well-meaning townspeople see conflicting identities in Pew, and many confess their fears and secrets to them in one-sided conversations. Pew listens and observes while experiencing brief flashes of past lives or clues about their origin. As days pass, the void around Pew’s presence begins to unnerve the community, whose generosity erodes into menace and suspicion. Yet by the time Pew’s story reaches a shattering and unsettling climax at the Forgiveness Festival, the secret of who they really are—a devil or an angel or something else entirely—is dwarfed by even larger truths. Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: its contradictions, its flimsy morality, and the limits of judging others based on their appearance. With precision and restraint, one of our most beloved and boundary-pushing writers holds up a mirror to her characters’ true selves, revealing something about forgiveness, perception, and the faulty tools society uses to categorize human complexity.
Author: Patricia G. Brown
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664500191
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
In this deeply spiritual and prophetic collection of sermons, meditations, and prayers, Pat Brown takes the reader on a personal journey into and out of some of the most critical challenges facing the church in these turbulent and confusing times. She unveils her story of God's handiwork in shaping her life as a child of the Reformed tradition and as the mother of a special needs son. In a time when the call for justice withers on the vine as the church struggles with itself, this book is required reading for every perplexed servant of Jesus Christ.
Author: Forrest Davis
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1434321142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
Just who was Abraham Lincoln? How did he become one of the most admired persons who ever lived? What daily experiences lead him on the path to the Presidency of the United States of America at the most difficult time of its existence? Why is he the man visitors come streaming to discover in the heartland of central Illinois This work of Historical Fiction answers the question of what Lincoln's daily life was like. By selecting 3 very different years and researching them on a day-to-day, month-by-month basis, the picture of our 16 President becomes clearer. What Did Lincoln Do in 1832? is told through the eyes of Peggy Rutledge, one of Anne's younger sisters, and details the daily life in the remote log cabin New Salem Illinois Lincoln Do in 1842? is told through the eyes of Jed, a twelve-year-old boy whom Lincoln befriends in the booming town of Springfield Illinois What Did Lincoln Do in 1862? is told in a stream-of-consciousness style by Tad Lincoln, Abraham's youngest son. It details the year in the White House in which Willie dies and writes the Emancipation Proclamation. This work of Historical Fiction is grounded in research and footnoted for those whose spark is lit to do further study on this unique American who strode from obscurity to center stage not so long
Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 164028477X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
A View from the Pew is a compilation of Bible mysteries that the author was compelled to research and interpret himself, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, due to his mistrust in individual church doctrines, personalities, and their misguided Bible interpretations. The reader will discover everything the Bible really says about the tribulation, what truly was the thorn that tormented Paul, the true name of God, the exact location of the kingdom of God, and many other topics not normally discussed in church. A View from the Pew comprises over forty individual Bible topic studies written by a Spirit-filled recovered alcoholic and drug addict with thirty-two years of sobriety. After reading A View from the Pew and applying the principles held within, it is the sincere hope of the author that you find the power within yourself that he found, which allowed him to walk away from cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. The author was forced into early retirement and was told he had three to five years to live in 2003. Thirteen years later after two strokes, two heart attacks, and then being diagnosed with diabetes, Steven has found a useable power that heals, guides, and protects his life to this very day. A View from the Pew is written from the skeptical viewpoint of a member of the congregation and not a seminary student or doctor of theology. To the author, it is not true unless you can show him Bible and verse. Your burning questions about prophecy (does God test man, and is America found in the Bible?) will be shown to you in A View from a Pew.
Author: Gil Gadzikowski
Publisher: BookLocker.com, Inc.
ISBN: 1647198801
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
THE VATICAN BATTLE OF BISHOPS: A VIEW FROM THE PEW There are two problems with the Catholic Church: the Hierarchy thinks they own the Church, and the pew-Catholic is too comfy in his cushioned pew. The Catholic Laity have been enablers of the Hierarchy. The basic and formal difference is that the Hierarchy sees they own the Holy Spirit. In general, the lay folks have had their voices ignored. The Bishops of Vatican II have decreed and Pope Francis has issued a formal invitation to the pews to present their thoughts. Invited to speak, the pew-Catholics voice their inspirations. The Hierarchy [most] disdain the Faithful’s inspirations. That suggests a Vatican Battle: Bishops defending the status quo versus Bishops defending the pews. Three factors explain why the Church Hierarchy does not listen to the Holy Spirit from the pews. The Hierarchy is not open to “becoming.” They view the status quo as sacred. Second, the Hierarchy is truly convinced they constitute the Church. The oils of Holy Orders mark the anointed with the special gifts needed to guide God’s society. Finally, the Hierarchy has traditionally been a caste of privilege. The Roman Emperor Constantine gave the clerics official Roman rank which in turn offered a paycheck. The clergy were no longer required to work for a living alongside the regular believers. They lost touch with all the other believers. In their minds, the ordained are above listening to the laity. In the pews, Catholics have long been second class citizens. They need question how did the Hierarchy arrive at their status. The Roman Emperor Constantine saw the community-minded Christians as a unifier for his empire, and made all clergy officials of the State. The clergy were the ones who had the time and leisure to make memorial meal arrangements. That’s when the clergy took on a culture of clericalism, i.e. The clergy own the Church and the Holy Spirit through ordination. That was Ancient Rome. Now priests are abusing the innocence of the youth. Pope Francis calls that Church “a bride caught in adultery.” In Biblical terms the use of “adultery” is reserved for the Jews when they went off to worship other gods, idolatry! Pope Francis asserts the Hierarchy worshipped a false god. They worshiped their “ordained-only-church,” a sham church, trying to keep the appearance of “Holy.” They were covering up the sin [also legal crime] of priests who abused children to fake holy. What about the People of God when all of this was going on? Did they just sit there? The answer is “yes” and “no.” Most pew-Catholics did nothing because most did not know what was really going on. Some heard but concluded it must be a lie from some disgruntled Catholic trying to make trouble for one of the priests. These Laity were true enablers of the Hierarchy to sin. But the Holy Spirit managed to alert some of the Catholics. They followed up on what they had heard: “Trust but verify.” When they learned of the abuse, they warned their pastors and Bishops about the problem priests. Their pastors and Bishops went numb, denied, hid the abuse, and some Bishops had their law team actually dishonor the victims in courts of law. Again, the Holy Spirit did not allow silence to cover the snub the Hierarchy had dealt the Spirit’s counsel. An offended Spirit counseled Pope Francis to call for a Synodal Process to allow the pew-Catholics voice. Because the pew-Catholics had listened to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete now favored them with the spiritual opportunity of a Synod. Thus, the pew-Catholic had a chance to speak. The agenda for the Bishops is out. The issues are clearly controversial, (women priests, optional priest celibacy, foundations of sexual morality, divorced-remarried catholics) for The Vatican Battle Of Bishops.
Author: Alex A. Meñez
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 1098041763
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143
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Book Description
Love stories are always captivating. And when it is the love story of a catholic priest, it is intriguing. This book is about the love story of two priests. "Both stories reveal their pain and struggles to decide against a law imbedded for centuries in the solid structure of an institution and in the cultural psyche of both laity and clergy. In the end, love and grace triumph" (From a peer review).A highlight of this book is my reformist concern related to clerical behavior. And I speak from my experience and expertise of forty years in the ministry. Ecclesiastics should know that when I left the service of the altar, I bore no bitterness or regret. I am, therefore, their best ally to tell them the truth in love. An added weight for my credibility is because my observations are based mostly on the pronouncements of Pope Francis.The book will make some clerics uncomfortable. Many will find it comforting and uplifting. All will find it a good resource for reflection and a compelling guide for examination of conscience to hopefully bring about the clergy reform in attitude and lifestyle.I have a chapter on celibacy. Some will ask, what more is there to talk about this topic. And I say, because I present celibacy with a focus on chastity. Celibacy without chastity is a farce. Perhaps someday the church will change its law on celibacy, definitely not in my lifetime. But it will. This book will tell you why.This book can be used as a primer in the seminary formation program. As Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned, "The Christian priesthood is going through a major crisis," and at the root of this quagmire "is a deep flaw in their formation."The laity will benefit from this book, especially among the churchgoing, those engaged in religious formation, those in search of their faith's relevance or simply the spiritually hungry and the families and friends of priests all over the world. The book strongly emphasizes the equality in dignity of all Christian faithful (clergy and lay) based on the grace of baptism. This will help the laity value and uphold their proper role, viz. that together they build up the Church of Jesus Christ.
Author: Parry Ann Brown
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0375757058
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Returning to Baltimore from Los Angeles to bury her late father, Glynda Naylor and her three sisters celebrate their father's life and search for answers about who the real Edward Naylor, who had raised them after their mother's death, was. Original. 35,000 first printing.
Author: Rebecca Nichols Alonzo
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1414338295
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
2011 Retailers Choice Award winner! Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him—with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca’s father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family’s kitchen . . . And Rebecca’s life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family’s faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.
