The Whole-Life Confession


Book Description

The Whole-Life Confession is inspired by Ignatian Spirituality. This four-week method is adapted from the work Forty Weeks: An Ignatian Path to Christ. The confession method itself is inspired by the life confession St. Ignatius Loyola made early in his conversion journey.




Celebration of Discipline


Book Description

In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be. Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found. Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God. Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.




Confession Can Change Your Life


Book Description

Knight examines why our practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation has become stagnant. And, by sketching the evolution of the sacrament, he offers us challenging insights from the past to help revitalize our celebration of the sacrament today.




The Whole Life


Book Description

Many of us live at a pace that is impossible to keep. Unrelenting busyness might feel necessary, but it can lead to chronic stress and burnout that hinders our love for God and others. Instead of adding more to our long to-do list, counselors Eliza Huie and Esther Smith guide readers in how to think biblically about their whole life. They give Christians a framework for biblical self-care that will help them live for Christ by stewarding the spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical aspects of life. The Whole Life: 52 Weeks of Biblical Self-Care outlines a balanced life of stewardship, offering practical strategies for Christians to grow in honoring God and caring for others. The authors focus on six key areas: faith, health, purpose, community, work, and rest. Each chapter addresses a specific topic and guides readers in thinking biblically about their whole life. Breaking down the misconceptions that self-care is not biblical, The Whole Life reveals that caring for yourself doesn’t mean you are being selfish or lazy. Instead, it’s a way of stewarding every part of your life for God’s glory and the good of others. Contrary to what our culture might lead us to believe, exhaustion and burnout are not unavoidable pitfalls of a faithful Christian life. Instead, they are warning signs that we need to turn to God for daily help. This book will reorient readers to the core value of resting their heart, mind, and strength in Christ.




Forty Weeks


Book Description

Thousands of people all over the world have taken the spiritual journey of Forty Weeks since we first published the program in 2013. We express our gratitude for the countless individuals who have written Sacred Story institute to tell us how Forty Weeks transformed their spiritual lives and the life of their faith communities. We also thank the countless number of individuals who have become missionary disciples and encouraged others to encounter Christ with Sacred Story Prayer. Thank you! We also wish to thank all those generous souls who have helped shape this second edition of Forty Weeks. with suggested edits to the text for clarity and readability. Special thanks go to Betsy Stokes our managing editor, and to Eileen Meinert our associate editor, for many hours of labor to make this second edition possible. Thank you! Sacred Story Institute explores dynamic new dimensions of classic Ignatian spirituality, based on St. Ignatius' Conscience Examen in the Sacred Story prayer method pioneered by Fr. Bill Watson, S.J. We are creating a new class of spiritual resources. Our Sacred Story Press publications are research-based, authentic to the Catholic Tradition and designed to help individuals achieve integrated, spiritual growth and holiness of life. Sacred Story prayer, modeled on St. Ignatius' classic examination of conscience, is a proven path to spiritual growth. It is the narrow road, but the one taken by many saints and ordinary laity in the Church's history. If you are ready to make Christ the center of your life, you will find no better daily spiritual prayer discipline. Divine love is an abiding relationship that God invites you to share daily. Listen to the wisdom below to help prepare you to enter this daily abiding love relationship with God. Integrated spiritual growth requires no money, foreign travel, gurus or years with a counselor. Forty Weeks offers us a highly practical, easily understood week-by-week process to find integrated healing and peace in Christ. Enter the Sacred Story of a new heavens and new earth that Christ is now writing in the universe and on your heart. YOU WILL LEARN TO BRING YOUR LIFE TO CHRIST FOR HEALING "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." (Mt. 11:28-30) YOU WILL LEARN TO CONNECT TO CHRIST IN YOUR DAILY LIFE "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another." (Jn. 15: 16-17) YOU WILL DISCERN TRUTH FROM FALSEHOOD IN YOUR CORE IDENTITY "Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 Jn. 4: 1)




Augustine's Confessions


Book Description

From Pulitzer Prize–winner Garry Wills, the story of Augustine’s Confessions In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the Confessions--what motivated Augustine to dictate it, how it asks to be read, and the many ways it has been misread in the one-and-a-half millennia since it was composed. Following Wills's biography of Augustine and his translation of the Confessions, this is an unparalleled introduction to one of the most important books in the Christian and Western traditions. Understandably fascinated by the story of Augustine's life, modern readers have largely succumbed to the temptation to read the Confessions as autobiography. But, Wills argues, this is a mistake. The book is not autobiography but rather a long prayer, suffused with the language of Scripture and addressed to God, not man. Augustine tells the story of his life not for its own significance but in order to discern how, as a drama of sin and salvation leading to God, it fits into sacred history. "We have to read Augustine as we do Dante," Wills writes, "alert to rich layer upon layer of Scriptural and theological symbolism." Wills also addresses the long afterlife of the book, from controversy in its own time and relative neglect during the Middle Ages to a renewed prominence beginning in the fourteenth century and persisting to today, when the Confessions has become an object of interest not just for Christians but also historians, philosophers, psychiatrists, and literary critics. With unmatched clarity and skill, Wills strips away the centuries of misunderstanding that have accumulated around Augustine's spiritual classic.




Lord, Have Mercy


Book Description

An illuminating, reassuring explanation of the Catholic Church’s teachings on confession and forgiveness by the bestselling author of The Lamb’s Supper and Hail, Holy Queen. Jesus told his first clergy, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In Lord, Have Mercy, Scott Hahn explores the sacrament of reconciliation and shows why it is the key to spiritual growth, particularly in these times of intense anxiety and uncertainty. Drawing on the history of ancient Israel, the Gospels, the writings of the early Church, and the lives of the saints, Hahn reveals the living, scriptural heart of the Church’s teachings on penance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It is a story that begins with the sin of Adam and Eve, continues in the biographies of Moses, King David, and the Apostle Peter, and reverberates in the lives of believers today. Hahn presents the Catholic and biblical perspective on sin and mercy, elucidating in clear, easily understood language the true import of Jesus’ simple, yet profound promise–“I am the door; if anyone enters by Me, he will be saved (John 10:9). Like Hahn’s earlier books, Lord, Have Mercy offers thoughtful, authoritative insights into controversial issues and disputed doctrines in a manner that will enlighten lay readers yet is thorough enough for scholars to appreciate. More than just a Bible study, it is a guide for the perplexed, providing practical advice and inspiration that will help readers come to a deeper knowledge of themselves and of Jesus through the sacrament of penance.




Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation


Book Description

The Pocket Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a beautiful, prayerful book by Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. Josh Johnson which helps Catholics enter in to the Sacrament of Reconciliation more deeply.




How to Make a Good Confession


Book Description

"How to Make a Good Confession" gives readers practical methods to start consistently winning their battles against sin. Fr. John Kane not only explains ways believers can determine how free from sin they really are, but he also helps them understand the devastating effects of sin and the urgent need for repentance. This down-to-earth, practical guide shows readers how to transform confession into a profound experience of God's love.




Belgic Confession


Book Description