Best Catholic Spirituality Writing 2012 is a compilation of 30 essays published in the National Catholic Reporter. Since its founding in 1964, NCR has published many well-known authors of Catholic spiritual writing. This collection features works from Michael Leach, John Dear, Kathy Coffey, Michael Sean Winters, Joe McHugh, Melissa Nussbaum, Michael Morwood, Robert McAllister, James Behrens, Miriam Therese Winter, Heidi Schlumpf, Sidney Callahan, Joyce Rupp, Claire Bangasser, Sharon Abercrombie, Fran Rossi Szpylczyn, Nicole Sotelo, Tina Beattie, Jay Cormier, James Martin and Marty Haugen. From prayer to creation spirituality; the legacy of the Second Vatican Council to Facebook, NCR’s Best Catholic Spirituality Writing 2012 takes you through the Catholic liturgical year with reflections from 21 authors.

Best Catholic Spirituality Writing 2013 is a compilation of 25 essays published in the National Catholic Reporter. Since its founding in 1964, NCR has published many well-known authors of Catholic spiritual writing. This collection features works from Michael Leach, Melissa Nussbaum, Brian Cahill, Alex Mikulich, Angelo Stagnaro, Joseph Veneroso, Ed Hays, Donna Schaper, Ginny Kubitz-Moyer, Eloisa Perez-Lozano, Michael Sean Winters, Diane Pendola, Loretta E. Johnson, Jeannine Gramick, Patty McCarty, John McCarthy, Peg Ekerdt, Joshua J. McElwee, Brian Harper and Eileen Reutzel Colianni.

Why Stay Catholic? is a lively, timely book about the "good stuff" within the Catholic Church today.

Barbara Mahany writes, “Mothering was my crash course in love. Love of the sort I call Divine. Love in the way we yearn to be loved: Without end. Without question. Without giving in to exhaustion. Love with a big and boundless heart. Love with eyes and ears—and soul—wide open. Love even when it’s not so easy.” In Motherprayer, Mahany generously shares personal love letters on the mysteries and gifts of mothering, interspersed with family recipes and gentle essays, all offering beautiful lessons in how to love, and how to love well. In her bracingly honest style, she captures the ephemeral moments of motherhood—the hard, the glorious, the laughter, and the tears—and invites readers to pay attention, cradle our loved ones in prayer, and see the sacred lessons in loving. These stirring meditations bring into sharp focus one essential question: How do we love breathtakingly?

The compelling autobiography of a remarkable Catholic woman, sainted by many, who championed the rights of the poor in America’s inner cities. When Dorothy Day died in 1980, the New York Times eulogized her as “a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality . . . founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and leader for more than fifty years in numerous battles of social justice.” Here, in her own words, this remarkable woman tells of her early life as a young journalist in the crucible of Greenwich Village political and literary thought in the 1920s, and of her momentous conversion to Catholicism that meant the end of a Bohemian lifestyle and common-law marriage. The Long Loneliness chronilces Dorothy Day’s lifelong association with Peter Maurin and the genesis of the Catholic Worker Movement. Unstinting in her commitment to peace, nonviolence, racial justice, and the cuase of the poor and the outcast, she became an inspiration to such activists as Thomas Merton, Michael Harrinton, Daniel Berrigan, Ceasr Chavez, and countless others. This edition of The Long Loneliness begins with an eloquent introduction by Robert Coles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and longtime friend, admirer, and biographer of Dorothy Day.

Many of us struggle to understand and receive food as a natural gift from God. Some of us eat too much food. Or we eat too little. Often, we eat without gratitude, without charity, without respect. But, as award-winning author Emily Stimpson Chapman explains in The Catholic Table, with a sacramental worldview the supernatural gift of God's grace can transform and heal us through the food we make, eat, and share.

When Texas Prison Scams Religion exposes corruption in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, especially in the abuse of religion. In many ways, this book is a literature review of 1,800-plus works that defends freedom of conscience in prison while exposing the unconstitutionality of the seminary program that “buys faith with favor” from prisoners. The state veritably ordains the prisoner a “Field Minister” that represents the offices of the Governor, TDCJ Director, and wardens throughout the prison. Therein, TDCJ lies about neutrality in a program all about Christian missions and lies again in falsely certifying elementary Bible students as counselors. Why is the director sponsoring psychopaths counseling psychopaths? In fact, TDCJ pays $314 million a year to UTMB for psychiatric care and receives not a single report of the care given, and worse, for UTMB generates no reports itself. The underbelly TDCJ’s executive culture of cover up is exposed. TDCJ has hired the lowest qualified of the applicant pool many times in the last 25 years and regularly destroys statistics on violence. TDCJ Dir. Collier led the prison to model Louisiana Warden Burl Cain, the most scandal-ridden in penal history according to a host of published news stories for 20 years. Therein, Collier led TDCJ to favor the smallest segment of religious society within Evangelical Dominionism. Texas has no business endorsing the truth of any religion over another. We close with a proposal that utilizes the 400,000,000 hours of officer contact over ten years as a definitive influence in contrast to a commissioner that spends less than 10 minutes on each decision. Maness has been lobbying Austin for 15 years to definitively access staff for his “100,000 Mothers’ 1% Certainty Parole Texas Constitutional Amendment,” which would revolutionize prison culture and save Texans millions of the dollars.

Traces the decline of Christianity in America since the 1950s, posing controversial arguments about the role of heresy in the nation's downfall while calling for a revival of traditional Christian practices.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

Winner’s original Mudhouse Sabbath has sold 45,000 copies, been translated into three languages, and spawned a successful video study series. After her conversion from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity, Winner found that her life was indelibly marked by the rich traditions and spiritual practices of Judaism. She here presents eleven Jewish practices that can transform the way Christians view the world and God, including attentive eating, mourning, candle-lighting, and Sabbath-keeping. Since first publishing the book, Lauren has earned her MDiv and PhD, and become an Episcopal priest. Her thought has deepened and developed. This new Study Edition incorporates the complete original text plus primary texts from Jewish and Christian sources, and new material on each of the eleven topics. The result is a powerful work for Christians wanting to explore in depth and understand the Jewish origins of Christianity. “At a time when we are so aware of the differences between Judaism and Christianity, Lauren Winner’s book on what we can learn from each other is so refreshingly welcome.”—Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People