Living The Beatitudes

The newest title in the Discipleship Series of compact small-group resources "for people with busy lives but open hearts." Features 6 engaging sessions that reflect on the Beatitudes, drawing on Scripture and the Catechism and illustrated through brief stories of people touched by grace: Blessed Solanus Casey, St. Gemma Galgani, Blessed Padre Pro, a Death Row inmate, a saintly young boy with Down syndrome, and St. Teresa of Calcutta. Includes prayer and discussion questions integral to growth as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

In Living the Beatitudes, you are invited to drink from the fountain of holiness and re-discover the mystery of Grace and the peace of living life in the Spirit. The beatitudes are a path that is right in front of us if only we would move from our fears and allow the spirit to guide us. Best-selling author J. Brian Bransfield helps you re-invigorate your spirituality by offering a life-giving practice and understanding of the Catholic faith.

In this encouraging, easy-to-read book, Father Jeffrey Kirby offers hope to the tired, overburdened, and unhappy. He reminds us that we are made for happiness. But he goes beyond that, showing us the path to achieving happiness. It's not a new path. In fact, Jesus showed us the way in the Beatitudes, but Kingdom of Happiness reveals how these aren't merely nice sayings, they are powerful ways of living.

When we think of happiness, we have to admit that our idea is at times worldly and self-centered. Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount showed us that true happiness will elude us, however, if we follow that kind of thinking. And, in the form of a series of promises and challenges, which we have come to know as the Beatitudes, He told us how to find perfect happiness--both here and in the hereafter. In a world that is capable of the best and the worst, we all have reason to be concerned about the very possibility of ever finding happiness in our lifetimes. The good news of the Gospel message is that we can. Even more, it teaches a way based not on rules and obligations so much as one founded on love, a way that depends upon and leads to the blessings of God Himself. These pages have been written in the conviction that every seeker should make the Sermon on the Mount the primary source of what will and will not make her happy. In His approach to the question, Jesus insists from the outset that we face up to the inevitable trials of life: poverty, tears, hunger and thirst, and shows us how we can find God--the source and object of our joy--in the midst of them.

Father Benedict Groeschel believes that we've lost touch with how revolutionary the Beatitudes really are! The plain but astounding truth is that the Beatitudes reveal to us the very heart of God. When you begin to comprehend the beauty of living the Beatitudes that Jesus gave us, you'll discover that he's placed heaven in our hands. A Servant Book.

Drawing on stories from the lives of the saints, scripture, and everyday life, Jim Forest opens up the mysteries of the Beatitudes. These ancient blessings, with which Christ began his Sermon on the Mount, are all aspects of communion with God. As Forest shows, they are like rungs on a ladder, each one leading to the next. They appear at the doorway of the New Testament to provide an easily memorized summary of everything that follows, right down to the crucifixion ("Blessed are you who are persecuted") and the resurrection ("Rejoice and be glad").

"Most people think of the Beatitudes as a collection of idealistic sayings- beautiful to read but impossible to practice. How wrong they are! In fact, the entire Sermon on the Mount is a glorious explanation of what life is really like when you reign through the power of the Holy Spirit," says Warren Wiersbe. Why wait until we get to heaven to reign? Thanks to Jesus Christ we can do it in this life. This inspiring study of the Beatitudes shows how to reign over ego, power, and appetite. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the believer can live like a king.

Complete with prayers, reflections, and practical advice, this book will become your companion for simply living these words from Jesus in Matthew's Gospel"--Page 2 of cover.