Good Enough Is Good Enough


Book Description

The truth about parenting is that you don't have to get everything right and your family doesn't need to be perfect. Colleen Duggan learned those lessons through years of struggling with unrealistic expectations. In this frank and intimate story, Duggan explores the emotional and spiritual healing that needed to take place in her life in order to be the parent, spouse, and follower of Christ God created her to be. Sharing both funny parenting moments and difficult times of self-scrutiny, Duggan invites us to join her in experiencing God's healing mercy and shows how to allow that healing to rejuvenate our lives and revitalize our families. As a child, Duggan smoothed over the jagged edges of her difficult home life with good grades and perfect behavior. By the time Duggan was an adult, her drive to constantly be in control was her way of life. It was only when she began raising her family that she realized how damaging this compulsion was for both her and the people around her. That's when she began her faltering journey toward letting God be in control. In Good Enough Is Good Enough, Duggan shares her heartaches—learning her child has a genetic disorder that might lead to cancer; realizing that her drive to do and be everything for everyone strained her marriage; and struggling with feelings of worthlessness after leaving her job to become "just" a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. She also shares parenting difficulties we've all faced—trying to keep her kids quiet during Mass; wondering whether she's giving them enough opportunities for growth; and balancing time spent on herself, her kids, and others. With each story, we feel the brokenness she tried to cover by being a "perfect" parent and the eventual realization that she needed to find healing. Through the saints, the Sacraments, and Catholic traditions and literature, Duggan found the Church a place where God's love and healing grace embraced her. She invites us to the same conclusion: whether we are dealing with everyday frustrations or life-changing tragedies, it is in the heart of the Catholic Church that we are finally free to let go of our facades in order to embrace our brokenness and find healing.







The Church in the Modern World


Book Description

Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, marked fundamental shifts in ethical methodology, in how we do ethics in the Catholic tradition, and in how we think about ethical and ecclesial issues in the Catholic Church in the modern world. On the document’s fiftieth anniversary, this book explores the historical origins of Gaudium et Spes, its impact on the Church’s ecclesial self-understanding, and its implications for doing Catholic theological ethics for the specific ethical issues of marriage, social justice, politics, and peacebuilding.The book engages in the ongoing communal discernment of the aggiornamento sought by the council’s convener, Pope John XXIII, seeking to bring the Church up to date in the twenty-first century.




Our Lady of Fatima


Book Description

When a little boy stops in to see Sister Lucia on his way to Catechism Class, she tells him the amazing story of Fatima. As the boy's eyes fill with wonder, so too will readers respond to the appearance of The Virgin Mary to Lucia and her cousins as little children. They will be fascinated to learn about what Our Lady taught Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco. They will be inspired to Our Lady's pleas to pray the Rosary, do penance, and follow Jesus as the three shepherd children did. Readers will marvel as they watch the courageous response of the children of Fatima to the Blessed Mother's message. Their eyes will widen in wonder as they learn about the "Miracle of the Sun". The Graphic Novel is a particularly effective way to bring the powerful story of Fatima alive. Packed with charming illustrations, Our Lady of Fatima - The Graphic Novel will delight readers, whether they're children or children-at-heart.




When Life Gives You Pears


Book Description

The Big Sick meets Dad is Fat in this funny and heartfelt New York Times bestselling memoir from writer, director, wife, and mother, Jeannie Gaffigan, as she reflects on the life-changing impact of her battle with a pear-sized brain tumor. In 2017, Jeannie's life came to a crashing halt when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. As the mother of 5 kids -- 6 if you include her husband -- sat in the neurosurgery department in star-covered sweats too whimsical for the seriousness of the situation, all she could think was "Am I going to die?" Thankfully, Jeannie and her family were able to survive their time of crisis, and now she is sharing her deeply personal journey through this miraculous story: the challenging conversations she had with her children; how she came to terms with feeling powerless and ferociously crabby while bedridden and unable to eat for a month; and how she ultimately learned, re-learned and re re-learned to be more present in life. With sincerity and hilarity, Jeannie invites you into her heart (and brain) during this trying time, emphasizing the importance of family, faith and humor as keys to her recovery and leading a more fulfilling life.




Kissing Fish


Book Description

Christianity receives a lot of attention in the media, but the most frequently discussed version represents a type of Christianity that sometimes turns people away from the Church. Kissing Fish presents a postmodern systematic theology of progressive Christianity, a growing movement that reclaims the radical message of the Gospel. This informative, contemplative, and entertaining book will guide you through the beliefs that inspire us to love one another in the transformative way that Jesus proclaimed, including practices that will take your faith to a new level. Kissing Fish is a scholarly yet thoroughly accessible introduction to progressive Christianity. While the intended target audience for this work would seem to be those who have either left the Christian faith or never adopted it at all; the work is filled with pearls of wisdom for all of us, whether associated with Christianity or not. Kissing Fish is a truly remarkable work, serving both as a reminder of the beauty and grace that form the central tenets of the faith, while offering a graceful yet prophetic rebuttal to its more exclusionary tendencies. Kissing Fish is part theological text and part tell-all personal spiritual journey. Imagine a down-to-earth combination of the works of Marcus Borg, Anne Lamott, Jim Wallis, Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, Diana Butler-Bass, Brian McLaren, Walter Wink, Wes Howard-Brook, and Donald Miller. A profound romp that informs and inspires.







Month by Month with Mary


Book Description

Would you like to deepen your relationship with Mary? This book offers a beautiful Marian reflection for each month of the year, based on her liturgical feasts. Enriched with profound insights from Saint Louis de Montfort and Blessed James Alberione, the reflections will help you to discover how these feasts can open new avenues of grace in your life. If you have made a Marian consecration or make the First Saturday devotions, you will find this a valuable resource to grow in devotion. Either way, this book will inspire you to draw closer to Mary and to feel the effects of her intercession. Book jacket.




A Pilgrimage to Eternity


Book Description

From "the world's greatest tour guide," a deeply-researched, captivating journey through the rich history of Christianity and the winding paths of the French and Italian countryside that will feed mind, body, and soul (New York Times). "What a wondrous work! This beautifully written and totally clear-eyed account of his pilgrimage will have you wondering whether we should all embark on such a journey, either of the body, the soul or, as in Egan's case, both." --Cokie Roberts "Egan draws us in, making us feel frozen in the snow-covered Alps, joyful in valleys of trees with low-hanging fruit, skeptical of the relics of embalmed saints and hopeful for the healing of his encrusted toes, so worn and weathered from their walk."--The Washington Post Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity to explore the religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and travels overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy, accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.