Click to purchase from St. Paul Center. In The First Society: The Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order, Scott Hahn makes the startling claim that our society's ills and its cures are rooted in whether we reject or accept the divine graces made available through the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Man, he argues, is social in his very nature. We were created for community. As it was in the beginning, so it remains today. The family, formed through the Sacrament of Matrimony, is the most basic building block of every society—whether we like it or not. We've corrupted marriage, and so we have a corrupt society. If we get marriage right, our society, through God's grace, will flourish. This is so because Matrimony, like all the sacraments, heals and elevates human nature. Without marriage, our ambitions toward a just social order will remain forever foolhardy. With it, the seemingly impossible, a truly peaceful and humane civilization, becomes possible.

Click to purchase from St. Paul Center. Each hour of each day you are forming habits that shape your character and will determine where you will spend eternity. When your earthly life ends, it will be too late to change your destiny. In the midst of the hectic demands, busy schedules, and countless interruptions of every day, this book gives you the surefire, divinely instituted "apps" for becoming the man God wants you to be. Use them! Your family is counting on you.

Click to purchase from Ascension Press. The word family brings to mind thoughts of joy, sacrifice, affection, hardship, and humor. Yet it is love that defines what it means to be a family, and it is this same love that gives a family their purpose. In bearing witness to the mystery of the love of Christ, the family becomes the domestic sanctuary of the Church. Amazing Grace for Families contains 101 stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. Some are sorrowful, others are humorous, but all will inspire you and your family to grow in love for each other as you fulfill your roles in the domestic church.

Click to purchase from Angelico Press. How does one develop a space for one's children free from the worst aspects of the surrounding culture? How to foster a spiritual life where children can develop a vision of God, themselves, and the world, and an approach to Him through prayer and the habits of daily life? Mary Reed Newland, in We and Our Children, here offers wise counsel on making the home a domestic church for the raising of Catholic children in holiness, truth, and the Christian virtues. All things central to a child's life--play, work, school, creative activity, family responsibilities, prayer, the sacraments, and the Mass--are shown to be occasions for encouraging a spiritual outlook and the formation of sound Catholic habits. Here is an inspiring and common-sense guide to help all Catholic parents develop the spiritual and moral character of their children.

Click to purchase from Our Sunday Visitor. Do you have a child who is into everything? Your energetic, bubbly child is often the center of attention and sometimes in the middle of trouble! Or perhaps you have a child who is just the opposite: quiet, studious, and slow to warm up in social situations. Then there's the future lawyer: that argumentative, willful child who sometimes makes you want to pull your hair out. As parents, we all have, at one time or another, wondered: Where did this child come from? Why isn’t he just like me? Am I doing something wrong? You are not doing anything wrong, and there is very likely nothing wrong with your child! The differences described above are all differences in God-given temperament. When you understand your child's unique temperament, you will have the key to unlocking his behavior, moods, and motivational forces. The end result is not only more effective discipline for day-to-day adventures but also a lifelong recognition of how to nurture your child's strengths as a loving and supportive parent, teacher, or grandparent. Become an active, compassionate participant in your child s social and spiritual formation and bring peace, happiness, and holiness to your family in the way God intended.

Click to purchase from EWTN Religious Catalogue. Family therapist and parent Gregory Popcak and his wife, Lisa, are back with their second edition to guide parents through each stage of child development, from infancy through adolescence, offering additional age-specific advice on "parenting with grace". This book's uniquely Catholic approach to parenting combines vigorous relational advice with careful theology and plenty of good humor to help you discover: Seven factors that make Catholic parents unique; how to C.A.R.E. enough to parent your very best; and practical, faith-filled solutions to common problems of every childhood stage.

Click to purchase from Amazon. Conversion happens when the Word of God comes alive for people and transforms them. How does this happen in the RCIA? This book shows how the readings for the rites of the catechumenate both describe conversion and help bring it about. Journeybread for the Shadowlands offers those who prepare people for Baptism a source-book for meditation on the relationship between the liturgical readings and ritual actions of the rites, and the faith-experience of the converts. It provides a liturgical spirituality for the RCIA. But this book is also addressed to all who seek a deeper conversion by listening in on the experience of the catechumens, and allowing the Word of God to come alive for them, too.

Click to purchase from Amazon. Anyone with a serious pastoral or scholarly interest in the rite will benefit from this definitive, readable blend of history, theology, patristics, and liturgy. Each period and step of the RCIA is explained and compared to the fourth-century rite after which the modern one was modeled. In addition to more subtle improvements, this second edition gives a clearer and more accurate account of the three anointings, and a better explanation of the scrutinies. The sermons of Cyril, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Theodore, which form the basis of our understanding of the rite as originally celebrated, are conveniently gathered in this one volume in an accurate and readable English translation, with introductions and notes.

Click to read on EWTN Website. "I take it, as regards the aim of the teaching of Religion in Catholic schools, that we are agreed on something like this: that the indispensable minimum is that the Catholics coming out of our schools should emerge with a tremendous devotion to Christ, Our Lord, with an awareness of Him, a considerable knowledge of His Life and Personality, and a desire to increase that knowledge; if they have got that, they are all right; even if they have got nothing else, they are still all right, they will come to very little harm. But if they have not, all other excellences don't do them a great deal of good. None the less, the other excellences are excellences and to be striven for. It should surely be the aim of religious teaching that, by the time the pupils leave, they should have learned the great doctrines of the Church, up to the level of their capacity to absorb them at that age and with the somewhat scanty experience of life they have so far had; and that they should have acquired such a liking for the doctrines that they will want to go on studying them, roughly pari passu with their experience of life."