Is Harry Potter Bad or Good?

Nancy Carpenteir Brown, a homeschooling Catholic mom has an answer for you:

DeStefano's "Yes" Prayer Set to Music

On You Tube so with video also! From his new book...Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To: Divine Answers to Life's Most Difficult Problems

Four New Offerings from Doubleday

Not the Pope book yet....one more week until that is out!

So far, I've only had a chance to browse these four books...but all are very interesting and different in there own way....

1. Mother Angelica's short pithy sayings (compiled by Raymond Arroyo) is an excellent little book that can be read in chunks--or whenever you feel you need a boost in relation to a particular area of your life. By now everyone knows about the little nun from Canton, OH who built an international Catholic network (where many more powerful entitities have failed)...and how she did it with a great deal of Faith in God. So there has to be a lot we can learn from her and there is...for example:

"If you are following God, He never shows you the end. It’s always a walk of faith.”

If you know Mother's story you can see the wisdom in that saying...



2. Anthony DeStefano's Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To: Divine Answers to Life's Most Difficult Problems is an excellent little book that could serve as a primer on what is really important to pray about--namely how God wants me to live my life with all the reality that it brings. Too often prayer is addressed to God in a way that is asking God to make me something else, rather than make me what I am and give me the tools to do it with joy. DeStefano gives a good foundation here and then neatly ties it all together with a prayer at the end of the book that incorporates the "ten" prayers all into one.

3. The Physics of Christianity by Frank J. Tipler would not be a book that I normally would even pick up, but I when I did--I found a wealth of very accessible answers to the big questions that people's faith often hinges upon...like the problem of evil and free will (something that Einstein rejected). I have to think that this book is a must read for anyone involved in apologetics--explaining the faith to a modern world. Great insights here and the possibility of seeing the world in a different light.

4. Scott Hahn's latest offering is an apologetic book, but as he told me a few monthis ago when I asked him about it, not your typical apologetics book. This is a book that helps you through Scott's own story to learn to look for answers as to why do we believe as we do (you might want to also check out Father Benedict Groeschel's little book Why Do We Believe?). Written in the very accessible way that all Hahn books are this will please both longtime fans and those who haven't been exposed to him yet. Faith is not unreasonable, and here Scott gives you a reason to believe!

Catholic Author Karl Schultz

I have worked with Karl Schultz on a number of projects: a pamphlet on the Bible, The How-To Book of the Bible and Praying with the Bible. There is one project that he had been after me to publish ever since I first had contact with him back in the late 1990's--a book that extolled the teachings of Pope Paul VI We never took him up on this offer, but thankfully the book is now published.
Last week the former Univeristy of Michigan basketball player (6'7") presented me with a copy that he autographed. It is a great overview of the teachings of Paul VI, check it out--as well as Karl's new book on Lectio Divina:

The Power of the Rosary Against the Devil

From Vultus Christi:

Concerning the Holy Rosary, once while the priest placed a rosary around the neck of the person who was being exorcised, all of a sudden the demon began crying out, "It is crushing me, it weighs on me, it is crushing me, this chain with the Cross on the end of it." The exorcist exclaimed, "From this day forward this sister of ours will pray the Rosary every day."

Immediately the demon replied, "But you are so few who say it (the Rosary), compared to the whole world!" It is just as well for me that it should be so, because it (the Rosary) harms me. You invoke That One (referring to our Lady), you make me remember the life of That One (referring to the life of Jesus meditated in the mysteries of the Rosary).

Another day, while exorcising the demon, the exorcist pulled a rosary out of his pocket; immediately the demon cried out: "Take away that chain, take away that chain!" "What chain?" "The one with the Cross on the end. She whips us with that chain." This, of course is metaphorical language; it makes us understand, all the same, in very concrete terms, the power of the Rosary and how much the devil fears it.

Translated from Possessioni diabolici ed esorcismo by Father Francesco Bamonte (Paoline, 2006)

You Tube: HUnting Fishing Priest

And Catholic author Father Joe Classen....

New Father Benedict Groeschel Book

Released this month:

Seach Inside of my New Book

Bulletin Insert in Florida

Its the first time I've walked into a Catholic bookstore and seen one of my books featured...and praised. The manager was effusive with her praise (and she didn't even know that I was the author)!

Here is the book:

A Unique Florida Church

Yesterday the Vicar General of the St. Petersburg Diocese gave me a short tour of a truly unique church (in Florida anyways). St. Mary's. Even though I'd been to St. Petersburg quite a few times, I'd never noticed this beautiful church before.

I also made a visit to the Cathedral bookstore--where the bookstore manager told me how much she loved one of Our Sunday Visitor's new books and couldn't keep it on the shelves. The book? "A Pocket Guide to the Mass" She was surprised when I told her that I was the author.

On another front, I received an email from a teacher in Iowa yesterday who said that she is using The How to Book of the Mass with her youth group. They talked about one section of it last night and said that the kids were the most interested they have ever been about any subject--the session ran an hour over!

I made a quick visit to my parents last night in upper Florida. My brother in law made an early bold prediction that Kentucky will beat Florida in football (he's from Kentucky). Since he and my sister moved to Florida--the Gators have won three national champions....and the last time that we were in Lexington together the Gators were actually losing 21-0 in the fourth quarter (the Zook era)but ended up winning...I reminded him of that...we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm tired of being on the road.