Small Books Under $10.00

Br. Charles Madden, OFM Conv. - 88 pages Small Book

Just like the Four Green Fields of the famous Ballad, the articles comprising this book are arrayed like glittering gems in four sections entitled’ Our Lady, The Saints, Church History and Christian Living. These essays appeared over a period of thirty years in Immaculata Magazine, the publication issued from Marytown, the American headquarters of the Conventual Franciscans, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Knights of the Immaculata.
The Message of the title is the same message that the Church of Jesus Christ has been uttering for over 2000 years, the message of the Gospel of Salvation, but with a special urgency and a special messenger—Our Lady Queen of Angels—who has visited her world many times, and in many guises, over the last two hundred years in order to bring her children a special Message, so well described by Bro. Charles Madden, her son.
Such titles as,  To Sanctify, Teach, and Rule, As Moslems See Mary, The Chair of St. Peter, Angels in our Lives, Catholics in Freemasonry, The Fire of St. Patrick, Home-schooling: A Positive Good, A Commentary on Legalized Usury, and Our Lady of the New Millenium, promise something for all Catholic readers.

Rev. T. J. O'Kane - Small book - 88 pages

This Catechism of 84 pages was originally published by the Catholic Social Guild of Oxford England in 1936.
It contains all of the essential teachings of the Church on man’s nature, purpose, and destiny, as well as his fall and redemption. There are sections on the divine and natural law, the right to life—one’s own and that of others— as well as extensive Q&A sections on education, marriage, private property, wages, the family home, the state and Catholics in politics. This is a great teaching tool and very much needed today in America.

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!

By Cardinal Manning - 72 Pages - Small book Originally published in 1861

No, this book is not about current events. The book was written in 1861 by Cardinal Manning and dedicated to his good
friend John Henry Newman. It is a study of the prophecies in scripture and the comments and explanations given
by the Fathers and Doctors about the Great Apostacy and the preparation for the coming of the Antichrist. The great
Cardinal then comments on the prophecies relative to the circumstances of his times. This short but powerful treatise is
very much applicable to the 21st century as well as the mid-nineteenth.

“In the following pages I have endeavored, but for so great a subject most insufficiently, to show that what is passing in our times is the prelude of the anti-Christian period of the final dethronement of Christendom, and of the restoration of society without God in the world.”

With these words the great Cardinal Manning presents his study of the prophecies of scripture and the writings of the Fathers on the coming of the Great Apostacy and the advent of the Anti-Christ. No, this treatise was not written recently, but rather in 1861. Yet, it is about our times as well as his.

Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was the youngest son of Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and younger brother of Edward Frederic Benson. Benson was educated at Eton College, and then studied Classics and Theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1890 to 1893. In 1895, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England by his father, Edward White Benson, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore head of the Anglican Church. As such, his son's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1903, and his subsequent ordination, caused a sensation.

His father died suddenly in 1896, and Benson was sent on a trip to the Middle East to recover his own health. While there, he began to question the status of the Church of England and to consider the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. His own piety began to tend toward the High Church variety, and he started exploring religious life in various Anglican communities, eventually obtaining permission to join the Community of the Resurrection. Benson made his profession as a member of the community in 1901, at which time he had no thoughts of leaving the Church of England. But as he continued his studies and began writing, he became more and more uneasy with his own doctrinal position, and on 11 September 1903 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Not since Newman's conversion almost 60 years earlier had the reception of a convert into the Church caused such a commotion. Shudders of shock shook the Anglican establishment. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1904 and sent to Cambridge. He continued his writing career along with the usual elements of priestly ministry. He was named a monsignor in 1911. Before his untimely death in 1914 at the age of 43, he would write 15 highly successful novels as well as many other books on the Catholic faith. He was a friend of Chesterton and they were in mutual admiration of eah other’s literary works. Both Chesterton and Ronald Knox admitted the influence of Benson on their own conversions.
Robert Hugh Benson: Life and Works , a biography by Janet Grayson was published in 1998. This 68 page book is an abridgement of his famous work titled Christ and His Church. Two of his best known novels are Come Rack, Come Rope and Lord of the World.

Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen PH.D., D.D., LL.D., Litt. D. —  Small book - 60 pages

“The most sublime act in the history of Christ was His Death. Death is always important for it seals a destiny.”
“Any dying man is a scene. Any dying scene is a sacred place. That is why the great literature of the past, which has touched on the emotions surrounding death, has never passed out of date. But of all deaths in the record of man, none was more important than the death of Christ. Everyone else who was ever born into the world, came into it to live; our Lord came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to the life of Socrates, but it was the crown to the life of Christ. He Himself told us that He came ‘to give his life a redemption for many’; that no one could take away His life; but He would lay it down of Himself.”

—from the Prologue

The primary act of Christian worship is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—the death of Our Lord on Calvary re-enacted daily on our altars. Archbishop Fulton Sheen here gives us a series of sublime meditations on Calvary and the Mass. They are arranged in seven sections. Each section of the Mass is paired with the seven last words of Our Lord from the Cross. The book is subtitled A Missal Companion. You will find by using it that way, that your devotion to the Holy Sacrifice will be deepened and your prayer life enriched.

Also Available as Ebook

C.C. Martindale, S. J.         64 Pages - $5.95

Father Martindale’s is a truly helpful book on the study of sex psychology. The author shows a profound knowledge of his subject and discusses with much penetation, lucudity, and candor the difficult problem of control of the sexual instinct. It is refreshing to find among so many nauseatingly sentimental books on the subject, one which treats of sex matters with reverence and elevation, being, moreover, enlightening and constructive. Human nature needs intellectual and psychologic help as well as physical and spiritual, and these pages aim at inducing an intelligent understanding of difficulties encountered in the attainment of self control.
This publication first appeared in England and the USA between the World Wars. The language is typically British, but the principles remain the same. We at Loreto hope that the modern reader will discover in this little volume much useful material for helping the young man to find real help and joy in overcoming temptations against the sixth commandment.

Also Available as Ebook

Treatise By Saint John Eudes - Booklet - 68 pages $6.95

Saint John Eudes wrote many books and is best known today as the Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In fact, he composed the Masses for those feast days. One of his most eloquent and powerful works is this treatise on baptism originally entitled, Le contrat de l’homme avec Dieu par le Saint Baptême.   

This translation was done in 1859 by Rev. J. M. Cullen and published in Philadelphia. Over 30,000 copies were quickly sold here in the USA. Other than spelling updating and some layout, citations, and punctuation changes, this 2012 edition is the same as Fr. Cullen’s edition of 1859. This treatise is one of the clearest and most lucid explanations of the essential nature of the sacrament ever composed. Due to his Jesuit training and his great sanctity, this saint is able to make such a clear and orderly presentation of the effects of this solemn contract between God and his children that it is hard to imagine anything better ever being written on the subject.

The truth about Purgatory . . . revealed more than 500 years ago to a canonized saint!

Here is the sensible view of Purgatory, tainted by neither childish superstition nor modern skepticism.

From these holy pages by St. Catherine of Genoa, you’ll learn:

Five hundred years ago, Fire of Love! transformed the world’s view of Purgatory, revealing these purifying fires to be the glow of God’s love. Now is the time to let these pages transform your own view of Purgatory, and to discover in them a sweet manifestation of the unfathomable depths of God’s love.

Also Available as Ebook

A Trappist Talks to Nuns About Doubling for the Mother of God - 56 pages Small Book
This book was originally published in 1941 and was written by a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He had a sister who was a nun, and he dedicated this treatise—it is actually written more in the style of a letter of instruction or exhortation—to her and therefore by proxy to all female religious. It presents to them a challenging meditation on what the essence of their vocation is. He calls it “Doubling for the Mother of God.”
This book has been brought back into circulation by Loreto Publications at the request of a traditional house of Sisters who have found it very useful and inspiring to them in their spiritual life and their apostolate.
We are certain that not only those female religious who take their vocation of assisting others to attain salvation very seriously, but also many whose vocation is in the world or in the clerical state but who also have that same burning desire to help save souls and to build up the Mystical Body of Christ in the modern world, will find solace and sound advice in the pages of this powerful meditation.
Theologically sound and based upon years of meditation, especially on the doctrines of the mystical body, this work is certain to be of interest to all who are called to be mothers.

Small booklet - 60 pages

The Dogma of Faith Defended:

There is no dry theologizing in this spirited rebuttal, written in 1974, to defend the clear meaning of the thrice defined dogma: Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (Outside the Church there is No Salvation). What you will read in this exposition is a hearty response, not laced with anything but the truth, as the supreme magisterium has already expounded it, concerning the visible whereabouts of the only means instituted by Jesus Christ for salvation.

Baptism of Desire:

This ground-breaking article by Brian Kelly lays to rest any thought that the Baptism of Desire theory deserves any description such as; "It is practically unanimously defended by the Fathers and Doctors." In fact, as you study this second article you will find that the primary proponent, and perhaps the originator of the theory, Saint Augustine, later in his life abandoned any belief in it. This proves to be problematic for the few later Doctors such as Sts. Bernard, Aquinas, and Liguori who all traced their acceptance of the theory to Augustine.

Saint Vincent Ferrer

Also Available in Ebook format

Any book written by a saint is a treasure, but a book written by one, who was hailed in his time as the “angel of the Apocalypse,” his Treatise consists of nineteen brief instructions on a variety of timeless spiritual topics, all but two of which are easily translatable to the lay apostles of today. The reader will find especially relevant this great preacher’s remedies for getting rid of the devil, keeping him always at bay, and discerning true from false revelations. If you want to be a saint, do as Louis Bertrand did, and take to your heart and to your domestic hearth this handy and portable book, written by a thaumaturgus (wonder-worker) who raised over thirty dead people to life and who converted twenty-five thousand Jews, thousands of Mohammedans, and countless thousands of heretics and sinners of all kinds.

Also Available as Ebook

Right Rev. Francis Aidan Gasquet, Abbot-General of the English Benedictines

In these days when there is a strong movement afoot without the fold to restore the unity of the Christian Faith, we can indulge the hope that the four lectures of the distinguished abbot will prove fruitful. They are on subjects so vital to unity, i.e., the supremacy of the pope, the sacrifice of the Mass, the eternal priesthood, the universal Church. We pray that these sermons will attract the attention of many outside the Church, and make them meditate on the bitterness of breaking from their “Father's House”. May God's holy grace prove stronger than prejudice, as it has so often in the past, and may it soften the hearts which have been hardened by cruel legislation rather than by wilful disobedience.

Also Available as Ebook

Norbert Georges, O.P.

Preface

When this little book was composed no one dreamed that it would be an  instrument of God to arouse devotion to Blessed Martin over the English speaking world and bring men to a realization of his right to be a patron of social and interracial justice. As a matter of fact, the interest it has created among English-speaking people has renewed the fervor of the Spanish-speaking people. Peru, in particular, had come to a greater realization of the treasure it possessed, and a governmental decree in November, 1939, declared Blessed Martin national patron of all works of social justice. Requests for literature in Spanish, French, Polish, Italian, German, Slovak and even Russian and Armenian, have come to the office of the Blessed Martin Guild. Everywhere, Blessed Martin is being recognized, not only as a friend in time of need, but also as a star of hope, a leader and a guide in the difficult process of spiritual growth of rehabilitation. This is undoubtedly a sign of God’s approval and  a proof that Blessed Martin is a modern saint with a particular mission at this time when men are so persistently tempted to turn from God and seek their ultimate happiness and destiny in the things of earth. Blessed Martin, by his life, shows conclusively that true peace and happiness can be found only in God, that it can be found in God even by those whom the world despises and who have not the advantages of temporal prosperity and education.
May this little book continue to bring joy to those in sorrow, inspiration to those in doubt, and courage to those who are depressed by suffering and the trials of this world.

Also Available as Ebook

Fr. Francis J. Connell, C.SsR - Small Book 48 Pages

This beautiful history of the famous painting of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was translated from the original Italian by Fr. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R. and originally published in 1940. Tradition holds that the original of this miraculous painting was created by Saint Luke the Evangelist (The original was destroyed by the Moslem invaders who conquered Constantinople in 1453. It had been venerated there since the 5th century.) and that the most famous copy of it is now in Rome. This is the story of that painting.