Category: Bereavement/Sympathy

We’re beset with distractions: traffic, notifications, texts, emails. It can sometimes seem impossible to focus on God and truly pray.

But the stirring meditations in this profound book will help fix your gaze on Christ on the Cross. There is no better way to pray, to focus, to engage in consistent, fruitful prayer, than to contemplate the Passion of Our Lord.

Over the course of a month, each day offers three short, yet deep meditations on the suffering and death of Jesus, followed by practical advice for putting the fruit of your prayer into practice.

Perfect for taking the next step toward a truly fruitful Lent, and ideal all year round at home, before Mass, or combined with our other devotions, Meditations on the Passion and Death of Christ, packs huge spiritual rewards into short, manageable meditations.

Christ is the summit of our lives. To reach him, we must walk with him up the arduous road to Calvary, and climb onto His cross. Only then can we gain the true peace and joy of resting in his suffering heart like the saints.

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How will we face the end? On whom does our hope finally depend? In short, what are the last things ever to be remembered? These are the questions examined in this course, whose lectures abound with insight and imagery drawn from the rich patrimony of the Church’s wisdom and experience.

What can we know from the lives of saints and sages – sinners, too – that will illumine the mysteries surrounding our lives?

In this course, Dr. Regis Martin presents a comprehensive overview of the finalities that frame our human story and how our action (or inaction) when faced with the end will determine where we spend eternity. It is essential to the Christian vocation that we always be mindful of our end. Whereas the world persists in denial of death, in flight from God and the judgment that follows, the Christian looks forward to both his death and the resurrection of all the dead. A lively interest in death and the life to come is necessary to the maintenance of our identity as Christians.

“Nothing is more certain than death,” declares St. Anselm, “nothing more uncertain than its hour.”

Faced with the inevitability of death, we all share that deep and persisting need to know what comes after. While others recoil from the prospect of death, preferring the false comforts of denial and flight, we who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ remain serene in the knowledge and practice of hope, which alone enables us to face the end with joy and gratitude.

Professor Martin identifies the Last Things each of us is destined to face – namely, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell – reviewing them in the context of Christian hope, which is the virtue most necessary to the happy outcome of our journey home to God.

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It has ever been the practice of the Catholic Church to recommend to her spiritual children the meditation on man’s Four Last Things: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

Keeping these sobering aspects of human destiny ever before our eyes, we will be that much less likely to fall into mortal sin and be lost eternally. This treatise provides many facts we should meditate on as we contemplate death. This book has converted numerous Protestants in our day because of its cogent reasons for rectifying our lives. Impr. 223 pgs, PB

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In Consoling Thoughts on Sickness and Death, St. Francis de Sales, the beloved Doctor of the Church, teaches how to grow closer to God through suffering well the most bitter trials.

The bed of sickness is an altar of sacrifice, writes the saint in this treasure of spirituality. He explains what prayers are suitable for the sick, how to persevere in patience, and even how to overcome an excessive fear of death. Most importantly, St. Francis de Sales teaches about abandonment to God’s will in both life and death, drawing from his memories of the deaths of his own mother and sister.

Readers of Consoling Thoughts on Sickness and Death will experience firsthand why St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is known to history as the Gentle Saint. St. Francis was Bishop of Geneva and a tireless preacher, who yet made time to correspond with numerous souls who wrote him for his insight and guidance. His Consoling Thoughts are compiled from these letters as well as from his other spiritual works.

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The Last Things is an accessible and deeply profound look at those four most important things: Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven. Professor Regis Martin expertly guides the reader through the eschatology, with the aid of popes, theologians, and even literary greats. The Last Things is at once entertaining and enlightening; it is a must-read in preparation for the inevitable final days.

“Try to imagine the one thing in this world that is most worth knowing—by everyone. The thing that is most worth having. Something the sheer longing for which could never be dismissed merely as a function of time or space, tribe or temperament. Is there a sentient being around who has not felt it, wondered about it, made some effort to obtain it? Could it have something to do with the final outcome of our lives? Or the lives of those whom we love? Lives no longer with us but lost, whom we long once more to see, to be with. What does Christianity offer us in this regard? Has the Church anything distinctive to say about it? And if so, can it assuage this most deep and persisting of human hungers? The answers to these questions, and a clutch of others besides, are to be found in the Church’s doctrine of the Last Things.” [Excerpt pg 7]

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Why do we suffer so much in this life? What is the purpose and meaning of our trials? How can we find hope and healing amidst our sorrow? Dr. Bob Schuchts, Founder and President of the John Paul II Healing Center, seeks to answer these difficult questions in a new 4-part series by Saint Benedict Press: Real Suffering: Finding Hope and Healing in the Trials of Life.

Suffering is something that touches everyone from the poor to the powerful. It can lead to doubts about God’s love and can leave hearts unhappy for a lifetime. But it doesn’t have to be this way. What if suffering was the catalyst to our union with Christ?

Drawing on decades of experience as a Marriage and Family Therapist, as well as on his own personal crosses, Dr. Schuchts expertly and compassionately examines the complex nature of human suffering. Dissecting the three basic categories of human trials—physical pain, emotional loss, and spiritual guilt—he shows the underlying purpose of our sorrows and helps us to see how, if we bear our crosses with faith, they can be a means for us to draw closer to God.

In Jesus’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, we have the key to discovering redemption in our suffering.

Dr. Schuchts explores this through the trials of Jesus, Mary, and Peter: Christ, in his physical agony on the cross, Mary, in the wrenching agony of losing her child, and Peter, in the shame he felt at denying Jesus. Through these prototypes of pain, loss, and guilt, we see every facet of human suffering and can learn how to find hope and healing by applying them to our own stories.

Join Dr. Schuchts as he looks at human suffering through the lens of Church teaching and these three prototypes. Accompanying his talks are powerful documentary profiles on ordinary Christians bearing tremendous crosses in their everyday lives. Come see the witness of these faith-filled people, and discover how it is possible to transform even the most bitter suffering into joyful participation in Christ’s ultimate example of redemptive suffering.

Click here for your free book.

Why do we suffer so much in this life? What is the purpose and meaning of our trials? How can we find hope and healing amidst our sorrow? Dr. Bob Schuchts, Founder and President of the John Paul  II Healing Center, seeks to answer these difficult questions in a new 4-part series by Saint Benedict Press: Real Suffering: Finding Hope and Healing in the Trials of Life.

Suffering is something that touches everyone from the poor to the powerful. It can lead to doubts about God’s love and can leave hearts unhappy for a lifetime. But it doesn’t have to be this way. What if suffering was the catalyst to our union with Christ?

Drawing on decades of experience as a Marriage and Family Therapist, as well as on his own personal crosses, Dr. Schuchts expertly and compassionately examines the complex nature of human suffering. Dissecting the three basic categories of human trials—physical pain, emotional loss, and spiritual guilt—he shows the underlying purpose of our sorrows and helps us to see how, if we bear our crosses with faith, they can be a means for us to draw closer to God.

In Jesus’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, we have the key to discovering redemption in our suffering.

Dr. Schuchts explores this through the trials of Jesus, Mary, and Peter: Christ, in his physical agony on the cross, Mary, in the wrenching agony of losing her child, and Peter, in the shame he felt at denying Jesus. Through these prototypes of pain, loss, and guilt, we see every facet of human suffering and can learn how to find hope and healing by applying them to our own stories.

Join Dr. Schuchts as he looks at human suffering through the lens of Church teaching and these three prototypes. Accompanying his talks are powerful documentary profiles on ordinary Christians bearing tremendous crosses in their everyday lives. Come see the witness of these faith-filled people, and discover how it is possible to transform even the most bitter suffering into joyful participation in Christ’s ultimate example of redemptive suffering.

Click here for your free book.

When we are alone, isolated, afraid, and grieving the loss of a loved one, Jesus tells us plainly, “Behold, I am with you always!” It is His presence and constant companionship that brings us comfort, consolation, and hope through all the seasons of our lives.

I Am with You Always invites the ordinary Catholic to once again “behold Jesus.” In doing so, we will realize with joy and gratitude the wonderful connection between the ordinary teachings and practices of our Catholic faith and the strength we derive from them to weather the storms of life.

The authors gently invite their readers to respond to Christ’s perennial call to “come and see” and to verify for yourself that:

• God truly is Love and His mercy endures forever;
• Christ draws near in order to remain with us;
• we truly encounter Christ in the sacraments and in the liturgy;
• we live, even now, in the communion of His saints;
• Our Lady of Compassion constantly intercedes for us; and
• God hears our prayers and responds to our heartache and pain.

This book was written as an act of friendship, as one heart speaking to another about the reality of God’s love for us. It is an act of companionship, a drawing near to a beloved friend in their time of need. It is a gift that reminds a broken heart that there is always hope in Jesus Christ. For He alone is the victory over death that we seek for ourselves and for our loved ones.

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“As I stood at the foot of the cross, this pure white garment became saturated with the streams of crimson blood which gushed from His precious body!”

—Our Lady to Saint Anselm

There is no human person who loved Christ more than Mary. And there is no greater act of love than Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

In these pages, you will find two of the most stirring revelations of Christ’s passion and death ever recorded by Doctors of the Church—Saint Anselm, the Magnificent Doctor, along with writings attributed to Saint Bernard, the Mellifluous Doctor. These private revelations given by Our Lady will enhance one’s prayer life while drawing one deeper into the passion narratives of the Gospels. But what makes this book unique is the heartfelt dialogue between Our Lady and her spiritual sons. Those who read this book will be profoundly moved to not only weep for their sins but to weep for Him whose Blood was completely emptied for our salvation.

The Mother of Sorrows is the woman of the interior life who leads us to the Master of the interior life, the Man of Sorrows. There is no better way to contemplate the passion of Christ than through the eyes of Mary, she who loved Him above everything, she who loved Him with a mother’s heart, and she who stood firmly when everyone else fled. 

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Thinking on death is the most profitable meditation we can make.

Indeed, Our Lord’s most holy passion and death offers us the greatest meditation, but pondering our own imminent death can bring us great fruit as it prepares us for the most important thing we will do: enter into eternity.

“Remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

By meditating on their deaths, many have renounced this fleeting world for the monastery and cloister. By meditating on their deaths, many have conquered the flesh, the world, and the devil. By meditating on their deaths, many have climbed the ladder of holiness in a brief time.

To keep death daily before your eyes is one of the greatest secrets to sanctity, for death is the only certainty in this life. And those who ponder the hour of their death daily will not be surprised when that moment comes; rather, they will have prepared for it their entire lives and will be ready to meet their Creator.

In this soul-jarring work, Thomas à Kempis guides the reader to consider the last four things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. One of the devil’s favorite words is tomorrow. But God’s is today. Meditations on Death is like a mini-retreat that will redirect your heart to eternal things rather than passing things. For to contemplate the hour of your death is to already have one foot in heaven.

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