John A. O'Brien has crafted the terrifying, inspiring, and true tale of the struggles of the Jesuit missionaries seeking to bring Catholicism to the new world.

Saint among Savages tells the remarkable story of St. Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit who was killed by Mohawks while serving as a missionary in New France. Coming from a upper middle class life in Orleans, he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a priest and serve abroad as a missionary to risk his life in order to save souls. Along with several others, collectively known as the North American Martyrs, he followed his dreams and met death in the American wilderness. Living with the Huron people in what is now Ontario, he was captured by Mohawk warriors and tortured and held captive for over a year. He escaped back to France with help from the Dutch in New York, and remarkably insisted on going back to New France, even though he knew what he might be facing. Besides Jogues' life there is also a lot of material about the lives and customs of the Native American peoples who lived along the St. Lawrence River.

Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters--Bell Mountain Wilderness with Søren Kierkegaard, Moonshine Hollow with Thich Nhat Hanh--demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature. The discipline of backpacking, Lane shows, is a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Just as the wilderness offered revelations to the early Desert Christians, backpacking hones crucial spiritual skills: paying attention, traveling light, practicing silence, and exercising wonder. Lane engages the practice not only with a wide range of spiritual writings--Celtic, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim--but with the fascination of other lovers of the backcountry, from John Muir and Ed Abbey to Bill Plotkin and Cheryl Strayed. In this intimate and down-to-earth narrative, backpacking is shown to be a spiritual practice that allows the discovery of God amidst the beauty and unexpected terrors of nature. Adoration, Lane suggests, is the most appropriate human response to what we cannot explain, but have nonetheless learned to love. An enchanting narrative for Christians of all denominations, Backpacking with the Saints is an inspiring exploration of how solitude, simplicity, and mindfulness are illuminated and encouraged by the discipline of backcountry wandering, and of how the wilderness itself becomes a way of knowing-an ecology of the soul.

Fully revised and expanded, this new work is the first major revision of the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in more than 40 years! It is the official revision of Lesser Feasts and Fasts and authorized by the 2009 General Convention. All commemorations in Lesser Feasts and Fasts have been retained, and many new ones added. Three scripture readings (instead of current two) are provided for all minor holy days. Additional new material includes a votive mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, many more ecumenical commemorations, plus a proper for space exploration. For years the oft revised volume, Lesser Feasts and Fasts (LFF), has served parishes and individuals mark part of the holiness of each day by providing Scripture readings, a collect, a Eucharistic preface, and a narrative about those remembered on the church's calendar that day whose lives have witnessed to the grace of God. Holy Women, Holy Men (HWHM) is a major effort to revise, but also to expand and enrich LFF. Where LFF provided two readings (gospel and other New Testament) plus a psalm, HWHM adds an Old Testament citation. Where LFF was limited to few non-Anglicans in the post-reformation period (and few non-Episcopalians after 1789), HWHM dramatically broadens appreciation for other Christians and their traditions. Over-emphasis on clergy is redressed by additional laity, males by females, and "in-church" activities by contributions well beyond the workings of institutional agendas. These almost daily commemorations occupy over 600 of the book's 785 pages, by far the lion's share of its content. Remaining sections address: principles of revision and guides for future revision; liturgical propers for seasons (Advent/Christmas, Lent, and Easter); and new propers for a miscellany of propers usable with individuals (or events) not officially listed in the formal calendar. Two cycles of propers for daily Eucharist are also included, one covering a six week period, the other a two year cycle.

Stories of 55 saints, beati, and holy people of the past 200 years, along with their pictures; most are actual photographs. Includes St. Gemma Galgani, St. Bernadette, St. Maria Goretti, St. John Neumann, Padre Pio, Edith Stein, St. Peter Julian Eymard, St. Frances Cabrini, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John Bosco, St. Dominic Savio, and many, many more. Will bring hours and hours of pleasure and entertainment to the entire family.

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST "Brilliant, honest, and equal parts heartbreaking and soul-healing." --Laurie Halse Anderson, author of SHOUT "A singular voice in the world of literature." --Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it. As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.

The life and death of St. Isaac Jogues and seven other Jesuit martyrs. These missionaries came from France to evangelize the native peoples of North America.

Since his canonization in 1970, St. Herman has been remembered for his just treatment of native peoples and his respect of the environment. Explaining how it came to be that this simple Russian Orthodox monk eventually settled in Kodiak, Alaska, this account brings to light many primary sources that illuminate the story of St. Herman and the wider context of the little-known history of Russian colonization in the Pacific Northwest. Providing a considerable amount of new information about his life, this book also reveals his fascinating connection to St. Seraphim of Sarov, the most universally recognized saint of the Russian Orthodox Church today.

Bestselling author David Gessner’s wilderness road trip inspired by America’s greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, is “a rallying cry in the age of climate change” (Robert Redford). “Leave it as it is,” Theodore Roosevelt announced while viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. “The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.” Roosevelt’s pronouncement signaled the beginning of an environmental fight that still wages today. To reconnect with the American wilderness and with the president who courageously protected it, acclaimed nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner embarks on a great American road trip guided by Roosevelt’s crusading environmental legacy. Gessner travels to the Dakota badlands where Roosevelt awakened as a naturalist; to Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon where Roosevelt escaped during the grind of his reelection tour; and finally, to Bears Ears, Utah, a monument proposed by Native Tribes that is currently embroiled in a national conservation fight. Along the way, Gessner questions and reimagines Roosevelt’s vision for today’s lands. “Insightful, observant, and wry,” (BookPage) Leave It As It Is offers an arresting history of Roosevelt’s pioneering conservationism, a powerful call to arms, and a profound meditation on our environmental future.

Fundamental to the rapid growth of the Church in America are these exceptionally inspired men and women, not yet canonized, who lived heroic virtue and thereby changed the face of our country. Author Michael O'Neill unveils twenty-four of America's greatest "blesseds" and "venerables," whose causes for canonization are already underway. You'll meet young Europeans who gave up secure lives for the wilderness of America - knowing they would never see their families again. You'll meet the husband and wife who, despite being slaves, showed remarkable charity to their so-called owners. You'll explore the miraculously productive life of Knights of Columbus founder Fr. Michael McGivney, who died at the age of thirty-eight, as well as the twenty-three-year-old explorer priest who covered two hundred thousand square miles, heard confessions for up to fourteen hours at a stretch, ate prairie rats when necessary - and founded thirty parishes. You'll also enjoy the remarkable stories of: Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, America's first TV evangelist, Pierre Toussaint, once a slave, then an entrepreneur devoted to the poor, Henriette DeLille, the remarkable "Saint of New Orleans", Fr. Augustus Tolton, the nation's first black priest, himself a former slave, Cornelia Connelly, whose children were stolen from her because of her conversion, Fr. Patrick Peyton, "the Rosary Priest," of Hollywood Book jacket.