Biographies & Lives of the Saints

The most popular autobiography ever written may well have been that of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Unlike the stigmatist Padre Pio, who is the only saint of modern times to compare in popularity with the Little Flower'’s universal appeal, Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus, during her mortal life (1873-1897), was hardly known outside the walls of her Carmelite cloister. And, she may have never been well known this side of heaven had she not been ordered by her superiors to write a personal journal of her own exquisite growth and fruition in the spiritual life – a growth that never idled from the time she was three. “From the age of three years,” she testified, “I never refused anything to the Great God.” Before the youngest child of Louis and Zelie Martin left this world, she prophesied that her greatest active work would “begin” in heaven and that she would employ herself in beatitude “doing good upon earth.” From there, just as she promised, she has never ceased to “let fall a shower of roses” upon all who invoke her. Such devotion of the universal church, as that bestowed upon Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus, was quickly rewarded by the Vicar of Christ. She was canonized only twenty-eight years after her death by Pope Benedict XV.

Loreto Publications is thrilled to publish Carmelite Father Albert Dolan’'s unique collection of eight monographs, each of which deals with the temporal spiritual journey of our chosen vessel of grace, either as the saint saw herself in the eyes of God, or as she was intimately known by her parents, four sibling sisters, fellow religious, childhood friends and others whose lives she touched after her death. One might call this redolent nosegay of inspirational testimonies, an anthology, in the Greek sense of that word, for anthos literally means a “gathering of flowers.” In order to compose his octave of devotion, Father Dolan traveled, in 1924, to France: to Normandy’'s Alencon, where Saint Thérèse was born, to her family home in Buissonnets, to the Carmel at Lisieux, and to other French towns. Then, he went to Rome, where he and Pope Pius XI had a mutually productive discussion of his apostolate to make the “Little Way” of the Little Flower better known in homes and monasteries in America. At the Carmelite convent he was blessed by priceless interviews with Saint Thérèse'’s three sisters (who were nuns there), and one of her teachers. At Caen, he visited a fourth sister, who had joined the Visitation order. One third of this book is dedicated to these precious recollections gathered from her living siblings. In fact, one of the eight monographs, “Book Five,” is completely devoted to the Little Flower’'s saintly mother Zelie, who died when Thérèse was only four years old.

Archbishop Alban Goodier - PB 280 pages - 8.5" x 5.5"

These pages remind us that God's grace can conquer every human flaw . . .

Christ came not to call saints but to make them — often out of weak, stupid, and sinful men. That’s why the saints are not only models of holiness for us to imitate; they’re reminders that God’s grace can outshine every human flaw.

As Alban Goodier’s classic Saints for Sinners shows us, even the greatest saints had to battle the same stubborn vices, temptations of the flesh, and bouts of spiritual dryness that afflict you and me today. In these pages, with a style that perfectly blends hagiographical detail, spiritual meditation, and a skilled storyteller’s touch, Archbishop Goodier brings us the tales of:

BY JOSEPH GREGORICH - Small booklet - 74 pages

Frederic Baraga was born in Slovenia to a very pious family of the lower nobility when George Washington was president of a newly founded republic in the New World. The ‘Northwest Territories,’ where this newly born child was destined to spend thirty years of his life as a missionary to the Indian Nations of the western Great Lakes, had just been ceded to the new nation upon her independence from England and would soon be incorporated into the United States.
After being counselled by his friend and confessor in Vienna, St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, he was ordained and after a few years service in Slovenia he decided to become a missionary in the new world and was accepted by Bishop Fenwick for work in the diocese of Cincinnatti.
Bishop Baraga was well known and loved during his lifetime, and his letters about his missionary work among the Chippewa and other Indian Nations were published widely in Europe, inspiring Saint John Neumann and Father Francis Xavier Pierz, among many others, to emigrate to the United States. He spent his life working for the conversion of the native inhabitants of this new young nation, and most certainly wished that the Faith would be more widely accepted here by all men, natives and immigrants alike.
Venerable Irenaeus Frederic Baraga (June 29, 1797–January 19, 1868), Pray for us!

Written by
Rev. Charles B. Garside, M.A.
Preface by
Rev. Edward F. Garesché, S.J.

Garnering his material from the last two of the four Books of Kings, Father Charles Garside, M.A., paints a portrait of a thundering visionary, who lights up the Old Testament perhaps more brilliantly than any other Biblical figure. A man of prayer and solitude, celibate and chaste, he moved courageously with every heavenly summons, never failing, never daunted. So much a contemplative and a teacher of eternal truth that, even though his inital mark on history falls in the Old Dispensation, he is nevertheless justly claimed as "the founder" of the Carmelite order. Taken by God, who came to seize him in a whirlwind, he was assumed into the heavens by way of a fiery chariot, and placed in the Garden of Eden from whence he shall come in the last days to do battle with the Antichrist.

J. J. Barry - PB - 516 pages

Christopher Columbus is one of the most saintly and heroic Catholic laymen in the annals of our glorious history, whose true life-story should be known by all Catholics, but especially by Catholic Americans who owe so much to him.
It is very important for Catholics to have a sense of gratitude, and to express it. Columbus Day is still, in this age of secularism and hatred of the Faith, a civil holiday; one that should be celebrated with great reverence, especially by Catholic Americans.
The true story of his life and the glories of his achievement (indeed all of the achievements of that great Catholic nation called Spain), have been under attack for a long time now by the Christ-haters, some of whom even pretend that it might be true that the people of the Americas would have been better off without Columbus’ discoveries and the subsequent events of conquest and evangelization due to his efforts. This book refutes those calumnies.
To recognize and admit that the success of the great voyages of discovery was truly due to the special designs of the providence of God and under His direct protection, was the first impulse of the heart of Columbus. His life of faith and devotion is truly inspirational.
The miraculous nature of Columbus’ life and work is the subject of this extensive biography. Here you will discover the hidden reasons and plans that propelled him on his voyage of discovery, and how God ultimately frustrated some of those plans and made others fruitful.

First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church - PB 278 pages

By the inscrutable designs of divine providence, during the fateful year of 1917, when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, there were two events that also occurred in Russia. The very first Catholic Exarch (a bishop approved by, and under the direct jurisdiction of, the See of Peter) for the Russian Catholic Church was named. He was Blessed Leonid Feodorov. The other event was of course the Revolution, accomplished by Kerensky and Lenin in two stages, that turned over the vast Russian Empire of the Romanovs to a clique of anti-Christian persecutors. Holy Mother Russia (and the whole world) has suffered greatly from this Revolution, and both still suffer from the scars and effects of it.
The message(s) of Fatima, given both in 1917 and in subsequent apparitions to Sr. Lucia dos Santos, show Heaven’s concern with Holy Mother Russia and her errors and her coming conversion. The conversion refers of course to the end of Russia’s first and most fundamental “error”—her separation from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church under the Vicar of Christ. The holy reunion that the Mother of God desires (and demands) is the perfection of the Orthodox Church of Russia that is to be accomplished by a miracle of Grace resulting from the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart by the Pope and all of the Bishops in union with Peter.
The erection of the Exarchate by Pope St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XV set the pattern for proper and fruitful reunion of the Orthodox. The holy life of the first Exarch, Blessed Leonid Feodorov (and his only successor Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytskyi, who died in 1951) established the norm that all should look to who pray and work for the successful reunion of the two Churches as Heaven wishes.
The Exarchate has been extinguished since 1951, but we believe that its resurrection is only a matter of time, and that its previous existence, and the life of Blessed Leonid, remain as divine signposts on the path of the most glorious and fruitful reunion that is to come.

For more information on Leonid Feodorov see the wonderful article here.

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints Vol. 1

Introduction, Prefaces, and January - Hardcover - Illustrated -520 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

Fr. Hugh P. Donlon - PB - 150 pages

Auriesville - The Martyr’s Shrine

The breathtaking view of the Mohawk river valley from the front of the Shrine of the North American Martyrs at Auriesville New York gives the visitor cause to stop and remember that one day, long ago, our martyrs “ran the gauntlet” up that hill from the riverfront to the hilltop on which he now stands. Modern day Pilgrims who have for almost 20 years now made the yearly Pilgrimage for Restoration on foot, either from the Shrine of Kateri Tekawitha at Fonda New York only seven miles away, or the three-day Pilgrimage from the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament (Lake George) 72 miles away, can attest to the energy it takes to climb that hill after their long hike—and that is without running any gauntlet of blood-thirsty Mohawks!

This shrine is one of the glories of the Catholic church in North America and all who can visit it are encouraged to do so, at least once in their lives. The editor can attest to the deep spiritual peace that is present on that hallowed ground. The famous Ravine where St. René Goupil’s relics were lost (and presumably are still part of the landscape there) is hauntingly beautiful and a place where many graces have been bestowed and received.

This is the story of that Shrine and of the heroes who made it a place of heavenly peace and grace—The Land of Crosses!

These Three Hearts:

Saint Claude de la Columbiere, Saint Margaret Mary Aloocoque, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

By Margaret Yeo - PB - 282 pages

“My pure love unites forever these three hearts.”

These were the words spoken to St. Margaret-Mary on Friday, June 21, 1675 by Our Lord as she received Holy Communion from the hands of St. Claude de la Colombière, just after they had knelt together before the Blessed Sacrament and dedicated themselves to serve the Sacred Heart.
This was not the first time, nor the last, that Our Lord had spoken to her. Indeed, most of her life was lived in constant and intimate communion with the Sacred Heart of her spouse. The first time she laid eyes upon St. Claude Our Lord told her, “This is he whom I have sent you. He is My faithful servant and perfect friend.”
This book, unlike others about St. Margaret-Mary or the revelations of the Sacred Heart, contains the full story of St. Claude’s life and the role that he played in hers and in the task of “making known” the Sacred Heart and the promises made to those who live and promote that devotion.

On May 31, 1992, Claude de la Colombière was canonized. His feast day is Feb 15.

By Professor Roberto de Mattei - Paperback - 444 pages

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints - April & May- Hardcover - Illustrated -722 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints Vol. 2

February & March - Hardcover - Illustrated -578 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

by Dom Guy Marie Oury, O.S.B. Translated by Hope Heaney - PB 440 pages

After the devastation of the French Revolution, the first abbot of Solesmes launched the ecclesial movement which invited
all Christians to experience a spiritual participation in the liturgy, “the initial source of the true Christian spirit.” Dom
Guéranger worked to instill knowledge and love for the origins of Christianity and the Church of the Fathers, thus preparing a
fertile and fruitful “return to the sources” for the entire Church.

He defined himself as “a man of the spiritual order,” opposed in every way to the naturalism of his era. It seemed to him, and
rightly so, that God’s mystery could not be treated as were the human sciences—He transcended them. Throughout his entire
life, Dom Guéranger never stopped protesting against “the diminished truths” mentioned in Psalm 11:2.

Butler's Original Lives of the Saints Vol. 4

June & July - Hardcover Illustrated - 806 pages

Putting these invaluable books together in a new and modern format has been a joy for us.  Some of the longest treatises are contained in it. The section on St. Ignatius of Loyola is almost a complete biography!

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Covering topics from literature to philosophy, history to social criticism, this is a snapshot of thought on 20th-century Europe (and the world) by one of Europe’s sharpest wits and ablest pens. The volume includes 39 brief sketches of individuals, each one of whom illustrates an aspect of contemporary society. Social, historical, and religious thought all figure prominently in this book, making it of great use in any study of the literary, religious, and social aspects of early 20th-century England and Europe. It will be of interest to students and scholars of the essay in English literature. It is a fine introduction to Chesterton’s social criticism, which remains unique for its willingness to criticize some of the uncomfortable truths about capitalism without straying toward an inhuman bureaucratic socialism.

ORDER NOW FOR SHIPMENT NOVEMBER 20

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints Vol. 7

December plus Appendices etc. - Hardcover - Illustrated -632 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints - August & September- Vol. 5

Hardcover - Illustrated -840 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

Translated by Helen Waddell - 312 Pages - EBOOK - PDF

For several hundred years, in the youth of the Church, countless men, and a few women, fled the world and flocked to the deserted places of this earth wishing to found (and to find) their lives in God alone.
Their experiences transformed not only their own lives, but also in many ways, the world they left behind.
The beauty and timelessness of their stories has captured the imagination of men throughout the ages that have followed. To live in search only of God and the eternal verities is a theme that men never weary contemplating and often imitate.
The original of these translations is the Latin of the Vitae Patrum, a vast collection of the lives and sayings of the Desert Fathers, edited by the learned Rosweyde, and printed at the Plantin press in Antwerp in 1615. The original ran to 1600 pages. These extracts assembled by Helen Waddell are among the best.

Butler's Original Lives - Vol. 6 - October & November  - HC - 954 pages

Volume 6 of Butler’s Lives covers the months of October and November. Putting these invaluable books together in a new and modern format has been a joy for us. We hope that you are enjoying them. Vol. 6 at 954 pages is the largest. Some of the longest treatises are contained in it and these two months are very rich in the sanctoral cycle and full of famous saints.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that
truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.

vitis Sanctorum

Mario Peterson & Tom Concert — 96 Pages - EBOOK - Kindle & EPUB

Searching for Fine Pearls is an easy-to-read summary of the monumental Catholic classic The Mystical City of God that was written by Venerable Mary of Agreda, a 17th century Franciscan abbess, who had mystical visions and revelations concerning many intimate details of the life of our Lord and his Blessed Mother not revealed in the Gospels. These revelations were described and published in four volumes, in Spanish, during her lifetime.
For those readers who might be daunted by the thought of reading the full work of over 2,000 pages, this short summary may encourage them to make the effort. Many saints, popes, religious, and other holy men and women, as well as humble laymen from all walks of life have found great grace and consolation in the pages of The Mystical City of God.
This work has received the approbation of seven popes and has been read and meditated upon by millions in the four centuries since its original publication. An English translation was produced in 1912 and has enjoyed a wide readership.
Mary of Agreda’s incorrupt remains and the well documented facts of her evangelizing bilocations to the New World attest to her holy life. Fray Junipero Serra, the founder of so many of the famous California missions, and a brilliant scholar and theologian, was profoundly influenced by her inspirational writings. He always carried with him three books; his breviary, a copy of the bible, and The Mystical City of God.

Fr. Walter Farrell, O. P. - Hardcover 430 pages

Volume Four
St. 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.

Rev. Alban Butler's ORIGINAL Lives of the Saints Vol. 1 - EBOOK - PDF, Kindle, & EPUB

Introduction, Prefaces, and January - Hardcover - Illustrated -520 pages

Very few published works require such a lengthy explanation of exactly WHICH edition is being offered, in what format, and why, than Fr. Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints. The reason is that there are so many very different books being printed under this author’s name and under this title due to it’s long history (the work is almost 300 years old) and its universal popularity. Few catholic books except the Bible, the Confessions, the Imitation, and the Summa, are as widely read. This book has also been extensively revised, altered, and updated since its original publication, with new editions, even 21st century revisions being made, that we feel the time is ripe for an original, unexpurgated, and unrevised print version to be made available.
This edition is widely considered to be the most complete and authoritative ever issued. It is the 1854 edition of D. J. Sadlier of New York, and in the Preface it gives its “pedigree.” The original was printed anonymously in London in 1759, after 30 years work on the project. The edition published by Sadlier is an exact replica of the Dublin and London edition of 1833. Being a scholarly work, but also a work deeply imbued with the piety and devotion of a priest’s lifetime effort, it is loaded with footnotes which comprise a significant proportion of the total text. In the original book, the footnotes were printed in such a small, closely-set typeface, that they were almost unreadable.
Loreto Publications has utilized the recent development of OCR scanning to extract the original text and to put it into a modern, highly readable, and much larger font typeface than any of the old editions. We have extensively proofread the text thus generated, and have made the layout “user friendly” as the moderns so succinctly state. In addition, our already available edition of Butler’s Little Pictorial Lives—which is a drastic abridgment of this original edition to one volume, illustrated, with one saint and one image for each day of the year—has provided us with 365 beautiful 19th century engravings which we have added to this original un-illustrated text.
Loreto has made a few corrections of obvious typographical errors and has slightly altered some capitalization rubrics and some spellings, but we have has refrained from alterations to the text. We think that modern readers are not so uneducated as to need the work “updated” for them, either as to content or style, since the beautiful expressiveness of Butler’s 18th century grammatical and rhetorical mastery is not so far removed historically as to render it unintelligible to any ordinary 21st century reader. We are certain that our readers will appreciate the original work for its piety, beauty, and comprehensive scholarship.

A great man once said that “History is the laboratory of Wisdom.” And where do we find the best history? It is found in the lives of the saints, for it is through their lives on earth, lived within the union of Christ’s mystical body, the Catholic Church, that we see the only history that truly matters for all eternity.

This spectacular history by Fr. Alban Butler, The Lives of the Saints, presents to the reader the life story of over 1600 saints and their times. In the original introduction we find this bold statement:

“It is on this account we have ventured to designate The Lives of the Saints an historical supplement to the
Old and New Testaments. We think this work deserves to be so considered, on account of the close resemblance it bears to the historical portions of holy writ. Let the divine economy, in this respect, be for a moment the subject of
the reader’s consideration.”
Loreto Publications has here reproduced the finest original edition of the text from the early 19th century with no modernization, alterations, deletions, or additions to the product of Father Butler.

Father Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. Orphaned at the age of eight, he was sent to be educated at the English College, Douay, in France. In 1735, Butler was ordained a priest. At Douay, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douay, he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints. He also prepared material for Richard Challoner’s Memoirs of Missionary Priests, a work on the martyrs of the reign of Elizabeth. He labored for some time as a missionary priest in Staffordshire, and was finally appointed president of the English seminary at Saint Omer in France, where he remained till his death in 1773.