Fr. John Hugo - 422 Pages - PB
Fr. Onesimus Lacouture was a Jesuit who had the great gift of being a masterful director of souls. Being a Jesuit formed in the old mold of true Ignatian spirituality and deeply affected by the so-called “French School” of Cardinal Berulle, St. John Eudes, and St. Louis Marie de Montfort, his retreats, given to over 6000 American and Canadian priests, produced extraordinary results. His most well known disciple and good friend, Fr. Hugo, has produced for posterity, the Notes from those Ignatian retreats as given by Fr. Lacouture and subsequently by himself and many other priests.A Sign of Contradiction is Fr. Hugo’s apologia for the work of Fr. Lacouture and the “spiritual movement” that grew spontaneously from the ardent, enlightened, and effective preaching of the retreats. He describes the movement, its opponents and its supporters as well as the revelatory doctrines so convincingly presented by Fr. Lacouture. This book is spiritually motivating, historically informative, and powerfully illuminating in regard to the condition of the Church and the faithful in North America during the mid-twentieth century. The Gospel of Peace, and Applied Christianity (the retreat notes of Fr. Lacouture) by Fr. Hugo are also available from Loreto Publications.
This "retreat in a book" presents to the busy reader of today a perfect little tool to assist in translating from inspiration to action, the exquisite lessons gleaned from The Autobiography of a Soul. One day a novice, coming to Sister Thérèse for advice, said to her, “Oh, when I think of all I have yet to acquire.” “Say, rather, to lose,” was the answer—an answer alight with wisdom. Let us think that we have much more to lose than to acquire if we are to profit in Thérèse’s school, and learn, from her the science of holiness.
Volume Three: The Church and the Revolt against it of the Church-created World
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB
The first volume, then treats of the Church in the West up to the conversion of Constantine (312) but in the East up to Justinian I—or rather a century and a half beyond to allow for the consummation of the disunion that followed Chalcedon. This second volume carries the history through to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, while the third volume takes the story from Aquinas to Martin Luther.
Volume One: The Church and the World in which the Church was FoundedVolume Two: The Church and the World the Church CreatedVolume Three: The Church and the Revolt against it of the Church-created World
Volume Two: The Church and the World the Church Created
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB - 500 pages
Volume One: The Church and the World in which the Church was Founded
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB - 344 pages
The first volume, then treats of the Church in the West up to the conversion of Constantine (312) but in the East up to Justinian I—or rather a century and a half beyond to allow for the consummation of the disunion that followed Chalcedon.
Marie de Sainte-Hermine - PB
Plunged into the disasters following the murder of King Louis XVI, Marie de Sainte-Hermine shares the eye-witness account of her noble family’s struggle against the tyranny of the Revolution. She tells of her gilded childhood, the Vendean War of 1793, the massacres and atrocities of the revolutionaries, and the sinister prison of Nantes where her family paid the ultimate price. In spite of the darkness brought on by the Terror, the light and power of Christian nobility and virtue always endures. This story will inspire all who read it and stands, to this day, as an enduring example of Catholic heroism in times of persecution and war.
This is a Catholic historical adventure filled with intrigue, disguises, escape, betrayal, revenge, danger, death, and love. It exemplifies the Catholic ideals for marriage and shows how God must be served above all else even when revenge and hate are common everywhere.
“In reading the history of your ancestors who have suffered so much here below, you will understand better that there is but one irreparable disaster: to betray one’s duty and to lose one’s soul. You will understand that the greatest evils of this life last but for a time, and that the Christian must keep his eyes ever raised toward Heaven…Always keep the Faith, the Faith for which your ancestors died; it is the most precious of all goods.” —Marie de Sainte-Hermine
Fr. Walter Farrell, O. P. - Hardcover 430 pages
Volume FourSt. Thomas died too soon to finish his book, the Summa Theologica. Not all authors are so fortunate. This book marks the completion of a series, projected long ago perhaps with an eye to Thomas’ good fortune. The first was a search for the ultimate answers that form the bedrock of human life, human action, and the living of human life; the second furnished the key to human life and human action; the third concentrated on the living of human life in all its exuberant fullness; this, the fourth, traces the royal road a man’s feet must walk and the goals that await him at the end of the journey. It was the Son of God Who declared. “I am the way”; this book takes His words literally, as they were meant to be taken. Its subject matter, then, is the sublime mystery by which the Son of God became man to lead men to God, the mystery of the Incarnation. It does not stop at an examination of the mystery but goes on to trace all the consequences of God’s dwelling among men: the life of Christ, detail by detail; His blessed mother; the continuation of His life in the sacraments; and the goal of heaven which is at the end of the royal road, the goal of hell which is the terminal of any other path. From beginning to end, this book deals with the supernatural, and that without apology, excuse, or defense; all this has been taken care of in previous volumes. Its contents are thus not so much an argued thesis as a divinely stated fact. If a modern reader is avid of facts, he will find a sublime diet of divine facts here; if, however, he is fastidious in the matter of facts, particularly supernatural facts, this diet may well prove too much for him. It was not, however, for the fastidious, but for those who were hungry for God that these books were written. If they do something to stave off starvation from those who have the courage to admit their hunger, Thomas may be pardoned for not having seen to it that they were not finished, and I may be forgiven for the effrontery that began them. Again, I wish to express my gratitude to Thomas for the good things in these books, and to my critics that the bad things are not worse.
Fr. Walter Farrell, O. P. - Hardcover 464 pages
Volume ThreeOriginally, Fr. Farrell published Vol. Two and Vol. Three before Volumes One and Four. Chesterton, in his Saint Thomas Aquinas, has explained both my order of publication and the title of this volume. “He (Thomas) did, with a most solid and colossal conviction, believe in Life; and in something like what Stevenson called the great theorem of the livableness of life.… The medievals had put many restrictions, and some excessive restrictions, upon the universal human hunger and even fury for life.... Never until modern thought began, did they really have to fight with men who desired to die. That horror had threatened them in Asiatic Albigensianism, but it never became normal to them—until now.” The whole second part of the Summa, covered by Vols. two and three, deals precisely with the living of human life, the invaluable meaning of that life, and the secrets of the fullest success in the living of it. This part was published first, had to be published first, because of that unholy, perverted eagerness of modern men to throw away their lives and to discard their humanity. This is St. Thomas’ superb defense of the humanity of man. The remaining volumes of this work plumb the depths and scale the heights of the unutterable truths, the mysterious beginnings and glorious goals, that interpenetrate that human life with something of divinity, the truths that are the ultimate explanations of its incredible significance. This is not a book about the Summa, but the Summa itself reduced to popular language; and Thomas is not read in a day or a year, nor can we suffer an introduction to him, shake hands and then dismiss him from our lives. If we make the happy mistake of so much as smiling at him, he moves bag and baggage into our minds, to become an increasingly more delightful intimate as the years move on.