History of the origin and foundation of the Pontifical institute of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. This book spiritually chronicles the birth of the Franciscan-Marian religious community. Franciscan Legend of the Immaculate documents the history of the Franciscans of the Immaculate from their beginnings in an abandoned friary in Frigento, Italy, with two young priests in 1970, up to their erection as a Religious Institute of Pontifical Rite with around 600 friars and sisters throughout the world by 1998. It recounts the manifold goodness the Blessed Virgin has done to this religious order and the achievement the friars and sisters have accomplished for Our Lady. This inspiring story provides hope for the whole Church in these times of great difficulty.

This volume offers a sample of the many ways that medieval Franciscans wrote, represented in art, and preached about the ‘model of models’ of the medieval religious experience, the Virgin Mary. This is an extremely valuable collection of essays that highlight the significant role the Franciscans played in developing Mariology in the Middle Ages. Beginning with Francis, Clare, and Anthony, a number of significant theologians, spiritual writers, preachers, and artists are presented in their attempt to capture the significance and meaning of the Virgin Mary in the context of the late Middle Ages within the Franciscan movement. Contributors are Luciano Bertazzo, Michael W. Blastic, Rachel Fulton Brown, Leah Marie Buturain, Marzia Ceschia, Holly Flora, Alessia Francone, J. Isaac Goff, Darrelyn Gunzburg, Mary Beth Ingham, Christiaan Kappes, Steven J. McMichael, Pacelli Millane, Kimberly Rivers, Filippo Sedda, and Christopher J. Shorrock.

In this third volume of Collected Essays, Peter Damian Fehlner traces the Franciscan Marian-ecclesiological vision and mission back to its sources in Francis and Clare of Assisi. Fehlner shows how the quintessentially Franciscan theological themes and their elaboration down the centuries find their roots in the Poverello, the “Man totally Catholic and Apostolic,” as well as in Clare, the “imprint of the Mother of God.” In thoroughly Trinitarian fashion, Fehlner unveils Francis’s understanding of Mary—type and exemplar, mother and member of the church—as the firstborn daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Mary is, therefore, primordially the Virgin-made-Church. Flowering out into the Franciscan theological tradition, this volume features two studies where Fehlner unpacks this Franciscan, Marian-ecclesiological tradition in systematic and mystical theology. Fehlner takes St. Francis Anthony Fasani, his Conventual predecessor, as his guide in the spiritual exegesis of Scripture and Catholic devotion, unveiling the ecclesiological and Marian implications of the Song of Songs. In systematics, Fehlner analyzes the love song of the Son for his church in his definitive study of Bonaventure’s understanding of charity and the divine missions in the church.

This multifaceted work contextualizes Jesus in religion and culture by bringing together articles on folklore, history, literature, philosophy, popular culture, and theology. Many books have been written about Jesus, but this two-volume work takes a different approach than most. What sets it apart is that it emphasizes Jesus' lasting impact on world history and his legacy in the imagination over 2,000 years. Written as an introduction, the encyclopedia is equally suitable for Christians who wish to better understand the history and philosophy of their religion and for non-Christians who wish to grasp Christianity in its historical and social contexts. Alphabetically arranged entries cover representations of Jesus in the bible and the writings of key theologians, examining the essentials of philosophical and religious views across history. The set also includes hundreds of entries that reflect on the role Jesus has played in popular culture and contemporary vernacular religion—perspectives that are not usually placed alongside theology. Through the encyclopedia, students will see how artists, writers, philosophers, church figures, and others have imagined Jesus and been influenced by their perceptions of him. At the same time, primary documents will encourage students to compare and contrast ideas and evaluate arguments that have arisen over 20 centuries.

Your special Annotated edition:+Over 1600 pages reduced into 1 volume!+Book Club questions+A full exclusive Biography of Ven. Mary of AgredaIn the 16th Century, at a time of Protestant persecution, The Blessed Virgin spoke to Ven. Mary of Agreda Mystical City of God is an amazing collection of four books of revelations about the life of Mary and the divine plan for creation and the salvation of souls that has been enthralling readers for centuries.The complete collection includes the Conception, Incarnation, Transfixion and Coronation. You will be taken on a journey like no other through through life of the Holy Virgin Mother of God and her Son our Saviour.(If you need a larger font size please search for our Kindle Version which is due to be published April 2014!)

Overlooking Lago di Orta in the foothills of the Northern Italian Alps, the Renaissance-era Sacro Monte di Orta (a UNESCO World Heritage site) is spectacle and hagiography, theme park and treatise. Sacro Monte di Orta is a sacred mountain complex that extolls the life of St. Francis of Assisi through fresco, statuary, and built environment. Descending from the vision of the 16th-century Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, the design and execution of the chapels express the Catholic Church's desire to define, or, perhaps redefine itself for a transforming Christian diaspora. And in the struggle to provide a spiritual and geographical front against the spread of Protestantism into the Italian peninsula, the Catholic Church mustered the most powerful weapon it had: the widely popular native Italian saint, Francis of Assisi.Sacred Views of Saint Francis: The Sacro Monte di Orta examines this important pilgrimage site where Francis is embraced as a ne plus ultra saint. The book delves into a pivotal moment in the life of the Catholic Church as revealed through the artistic program of the Sacro Monte's twenty-one chapels, providing a nuanced understanding of the role the site played in the Counter-Reformation.The Sacro Monte di Orta was, in its way, a new hagiographical text vital to post-Tridentine Italy. Sacred Views provides research and analysis of this popular, yet critically neglected Franciscan devotional site. Sacred Views is the first significant scholarly work on the Sacro Monte di Orta in English and one of the very few full-length treatments in any language. It includes a catalogue of artists, over one hundred photographs, maps, short essays on each chapel, and longer essays that examine some of the most significant chapels in greater detail.

Author David Armstrong shows that the Catholic Church is the "Bible Church par excellence," and that many common Protestant doctrines are in fact not Biblical.

Quill and Cross in the Borderlands examines nearly four hundred years of history, folklore, literature, and art concerning the seventeenth-century Spanish nun and writer Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, identified as the legendary “Lady in Blue” who miraculously appeared to tribes in colonial-era New Mexico and taught them the rudiments of the Catholic faith. Sor María, an author of mystical Marian works, became renowned not only for her alleged spiritual travel from her cloister in Spain to the New World, but also for her writing, studied and implemented by Franciscans on both sides of the ocean. Working from original historical accounts, archival research, and a wealth of literature on the legend and the historical figure alike, Anna M. Nogar meticulously examines how and why the legend and the person became intertwined in Catholic consciousness and social praxis. In addition to the influence of the narrative of the Lady in Blue in colonial Mexico, Nogar addresses Sor María’s importance as an author of spiritual texts that influenced many spheres of New Spanish and Spanish society. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands focuses on the reading and interpretation of her works, especially in New Spain, where they were widely printed and disseminated. Over time, in the developing folklore of the Indo-Hispano populations of the present-day U.S. Southwest and the borderlands, the historical Sor María and her writings virtually disappeared from view, and the Lady in Blue became a prominent folk figure, appearing in folk stories and popular histories. These folk accounts drew the Lady in Blue into the present day, where she appears in artwork, literature, theater, and public ritual. Nogar’s examination of these contemporary renderings leads to a reconsideration of the ambiguities that lie at the heart of the narrative. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands documents the material legacy of a legend that has survived and thrived for hundreds of years, and at the same time rediscovers the historical basis of a hidden writer. This book will interest scholars and researchers of colonial Latin American literature, early modern women writers, folklore and ethnopoetics, and Mexican American cultural studies.