Making Sense Of Saints

Saint cards, statues, and medals. Saint posters, tee shirts, and costumes. Even saint apps and Facebook pages. Who are these saints and why do they matter to me? Who decided they were "saint-worthy" in the first place? Why aren't there more present day saints? Now, everything you always wanted to know about saints - and some things you didn't know you wanted to know - all in this fun and handy book that is perfect for families, teachers, catechists and everyone hoping to grow in their faith with the help of these holy hall of famers! You'll be fascinated and delighted by topics such as: Just Four Easy (Sort of) Steps: The Canonization Process "Doesn't He Just Glow? Saints' Symbols "There's a Man Buried under the Altar!" Relics of Saints "Holy Haloes, God-Made Man!" Saints and Martyrs as Superheroes "Yo-ho-ho!" The Treasure Chest of the Church And much more! Let Patricia Kasten help clear up canonization, demystify monastics and unriddle relics in Making Sense of Saints!

Now, everything you always wanted to know about saints - and some things you didn't know you wanted to know - all in this fun and handy book that is perfect for families, teachers, catechists and everyone hoping to grow in their faith with the help of these holy hall of famers!

Protestants call it idolatry and modernists see it as superstition, but in these lucid pages, Orestes Brownson shows that veneration of Mary and the saints is not merely permissible; it's essential for every Christian who yearns to worship God in spirit and in truth.

Making Sense of Women's Lives presents a wide range of writings about women's lives in the United States. Michele Plott and Lauri Umansky have drawn on their experiences as both students and professors to assemble the collection. Seeking to provide as full a sampling from a diverse and intellectually vibrant field as one volume permits, the editors have also chosen writing that makes an enjoyable read. A few of the selections here represent the undisputed 'classics' of the field. More of them constitute simply the works, drawn from academic and nonacademic sources alike, that could make a difference in understanding what it means to be female in America. Making Sense of Women's Lives is intended as the primary text in Women's Studies courses. With that usage in mind, Plott and Umansky have provided brief introductions to each article to help students understand the author's perspectives. Thought and discussion questions follow each selection. The book contains, as well, numerous "Flash Exercises" suggestions for class exercises and activities. The editors have used these activities in their courses over the past decade, in conjunction with readings in this volume, and have found that the full complement of materials coalesces into an intellectually powerful introduction to Women's Studies. A Collegiate Press book

This book points out the undeniable similarities between The Gospel of Thomas, the psychedelic experience, the mystic path, and the near death experience in order to put together the big picture and expose the truth about our existence. Can you put together the similarities and understand the TRUTH that organized religion and the government have sought to keep from us? Do you have the ears to HEAR?

Peter Kreeft observes that our world is full of billions of normal lives which have touched by apparently pointless and random suffering. He then records the results of his own wrestling match with God as he struggles to make sense out of this pain.

Grounded in the sister disciplines of sociology and anthropology, this textbook is an accessible and critical introduction to contemporary social research. Alex Khasnabish eschews the common disciplinary silos in favour of an integrated approach to understanding and practising critical social research. Situated in the North American context, the text draws on cross-cultural examples to give readers a clear sense of the diversity in human social relations. It is organized thematically in a way that introduces readers to the core areas of social research and social organization and takes an unapologetically radical approach in identifying the relations of oppression and exploitation that give rise to what most corporate textbooks euphemistically identify as “social problems.” Focusing on key dynamics and processes at the heart of so many contemporary issues and public conversations, this text highlights the ways in which critical social research can contribute to exploring, understanding and forging alternatives to an increasingly bankrupt, violent, unstable and unjust status quo.

To most, myths are merely fantastic stories. But for Luc Brisson, one of the great living Plato scholars, myth is a key factor in what it means to be human – a condition of life for all. Essential and inescapable, myth offers a guide for living, forming the core of belonging and group identity. In 1999 Quebec classicist Louis-André Dorion published a series of French conversations with Brisson on the idea of myth. In Making Sense of Myth Gerard Naddaf offers an extended and updated English translation of these conversations, as well as a new set of discussions between himself and Brisson. Beginning with Brisson's childhood in the village of Saint-Esprit, Quebec, through his education as a gifted child in minor seminaries starting at age eleven, and continuing with his years in Paris, first as a graduate student and later at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Brisson tells the story of his escape from an all-encompassing myth – the one promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church. The philosopher situates Quebec society as inseparable from the history of the Catholic Church in Quebec, and argues that this correlation offers a perfect paradigm of myth and mythmaking. Naddaf’s introduction and afterword contextualize the conversations by discussing Brisson’s and Plato’s understanding of the origin and meaning of myth, elaborating on the role of myth in anthropogeny, in the creation of selfhood, and in multiculturalism. Making Sense of Myth promises both a philosophy of myth and a philosophy of life, one inspired by Brisson’s lifelong engagement with the great Western philosopher Plato.