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This collection of daily reflections--a perennial favorite of Paulist Press readers--is an ideal way to prepare for Advent. Instead of being a month of increasing stress, with the help of this book Advent can be a quiet season reflection on the miracle that God has come to us, will come, and is already with us now. For each day the author includes a selection from scripture or the divine office, a brief meditation, and a prayer. Together they help the hassles and trivialities of the season fall away to reveal the real and unchanging meaning beneath.
Children learn about Advent and Christmas through the activities collected in this volume. Includes entertaining word finds, crossword puzzles, color-by-number puzzles, and crack-the-code puzzles on reproducible sheets. Consumable.
Living the Faith Community explains why Christians long to be in community and the quality of the communities they need to receive, sustain, and deepen their faith. In this eloquent summary, John Westerhoff identifies four essentials of religious community: a common story and memory; a common authority; common rituals; and a fulfilling common life. Westerhoff then goes on to describe with clarity and insight the narrative character of church life, the role of worship, the importance of liturgy to Christian nurture, and the role of catechesis in forming Spirit-filled churches.
Every person has seen a tree and maybe planted or climbed one! In all world religions, various trees are considered sacred. Trees have the ability to help us reach wholeness if we learn their wisdom and integrate it into our lives. This abecedarian--a book whose contents are in alphabetical order--explores the spiritual growth that is possible by reflecting on the wisdom of woody plants, which help humans experience the divine. In these pages you can explore trees from Acacia to Zaqqum. For each of the forty entries, the author presents a text identifying the tree, a reflective study, a question for journaling or personal meditation, and a concluding prayer. Some trees you may have heard about, and some may be new to you. The spiritual life is enhanced by the trees that surround and share the earth with us while also disclosing the divine to us.
Almost every person has owned a pet at one time or another in life or known someone who has. In all world religions, animals serve as spirit guides; there is spirituality to animal and human dialogue. Animals have the ability to help us reach wholeness if we learn their wisdom and integrate it into our lives. This abecedarian--a book whose contents are in alphabetical order--explores the spiritual growth that is possible by reflecting on the wisdom of creatures, which serve as spirit guides in all world religions and help humans experience the divine. The author explores animal spirit guides in the Bible, The Quran, The Dhammapada, The Rig Veda, The Analects of Confucius, stories from Aesop and Grimm, and much more. In these pages you can explore bears and bees, eagles and elephants, ravens and roosters, tadpoles and turtles, and many more. For each of the thirty-two entries, the author presents a text identifying the animal spirit guide, a reflective study, a question for journaling or personal meditation, and a concluding prayer. The spiritual life can be nourished in many ways; in this book it is enhanced by animal spirit guides.
Play allows the fulfilment of one’s dreams, yet also teaches subjugation to the norms governing daily life. Furthermore, traditional forms of play, transmitted from one generation to another, guarantee a culture’s continuance and perpetuation in time. Contemporary forms of play integrate a populace, creating a specific community of laughter which places a high value on individuality and the ability to lead social games. Play invalidates social divisions, but also diversifies behaviours through the introduction of changes in the rules, depending on the age of those engaged. Furthermore, it adapts to the forms by which social reality is created, as well as that reality’s goals, which, in turn, impart sense and meaning to something which, of its own nature, seems deprived thereof.
Once liberal Christianity was preached in ways that defined it in the public eye. Now Christianity is identified almost exclusively with its conservative expressions. Seasons of the Christian Life presents a series of sermons articulating a liberal Christianity over against its conservative neighbors. They were preached at the University Church (Marsh Chapel) at Boston University (save for one preached in Memorial Church at Harvard) during the 2004-2005 academic year when President George W. Bush was reelected and the country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at war with terrorists wherever they could be imagined. The sermons follow the Revised Common Lectionary and focus on biblical interpretation as it is applied to the then-current spiritual, cultural, social, and political situation. The author is a professor of theology and at the time was Dean of Marsh Chapel and Chaplain of the University.
As a people whose faith is formed and nourished by the Bible's stories of creation and fall, salvation and redemption, Christians hunger to order their lives by the church's story and their own. Our journey to God leads us through the cycle of the church year from Advent and Christmas to Easter and the season called "ordinary time" as we tell and retell God's story and make it the story we live by. In A Pilgrim People John Westerhoff looks at the gospel texts season by season and relates their teachings not only to Christian life and ministry but to the life cycle of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. In teaching the lessons of the church year, Westerhoff starts not with Advent but with Holy Week and Easter, which marks the birth of Christian faith and its vision of a dream come true. Commenting briefly on each of the gospel readings for each Sunday, he moves from Eastertide through Ascension and Pentecost, the season after Pentecost, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Lent, offering useful themes for preaching and education. The final chapter incorporates a radical proposal for Christian education to reform the church's organization, worship, education, and outreach.