BOOKS

Celebrate with us the 800th Anniversary of the Order of Preachers by learning about the man and saint who started it all.

Unless you lived under a cabbage leaf for the past 30 years or so, you already know that the Mother Angelica (1923-2016) of this book’s title was the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network. As such, she became the first Catholic media personality to garner the attention of the public in anywhere near the numbers racked up by the late, much-admired Archbishop Fulton Sheen in the mid-20th century.

The book categorizes mercy in every form: hopeful mercy, personal mercy, tireless mercy, enduring mercy, empathetic mercy, triumphant mercy, and many more, so that we can see that the truth of mercy is meant to envelop our lives completely and become a part of who we are as Christians.

“This is about all of us,” Judy Keane wrote in the introduction. “Those who are just starting out, those who have never married, those who have survived broken relationships, those who have not lived according to the Church..."

Pair of books remind parents of their primary role as their child's educator and remind them that any hope of having children living the faith must be preceded by parents who are fully engaged in living the faith.

We can still remember the photos and the videos of a woman without fear who went into the poorest places of the poorest and lifted the most downtrodden to a place of dignity.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Defending religious freedom, fighting indifference to attacks on human dignity and promoting care of creation are obligations that Orthodox and Catholics share and areas where Pope Francis said he and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople are in deep harmony.

Joyce Coronel has never been to Iraq or Syria, but you couldn’t tell by reading her latest book, “Cry of Nineveh.” Coronel, a longtime reporter for The Catholic Sun, just published her second novel based on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

I know, as Catholics, we like spiritual self-help books, saint biographies, devotional and even fiction works. Of the books I’ve reviewed, some were so good that I labeled them “The Book.” In the case of Kenneth Woodward’s new book, “Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama,” it’s true, this is THE Book.

Christmas is upon us once again and we drift from the embrace of day-to-day living to the morass of consumerism and the occasional religious expression. After all, Christ is revealed upon the world and stories of Christmas ghosts, spirits of revelry, and visions of sugar plums dance in our heads.