Stepping On The Serpent

Saying the prayer, “Jesus, I trust in You,” is easy. Living this prayer as Mary did is not so easy. Mary has learned, though, and as a good Mother, teaches us how to trust, take a step along the path to life, and step upon the serpent who brings distrust and death. Stemming from years of personal prayer and lived experience, Fr. Thaddaeus Lancton, MIC, hopes to encourage the reader to take the next step in their own journey with the Lord.

The prayer "Jesus, I trust in You" is a whole program of life, Fr. Thaddaeus Lancton, MIC, explains in Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary. In fact, it tells us how to make our pilgrimage home to God the Father through the Son with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, especially through the Church and Our Lady. Father Thaddaeus, a priest with the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, explains that life is a continual choice between two paths: trust and distrust. A Christian cannot remain neutral. To advance on our journey, we need to know our enemy, Satan, but more importantly, we need to know our companion, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She teaches us how to live the prayer "Jesus, I trust in You" in all our difficulties and trials; recognize the temptations of the serpent of distrust, the devil; step on him; and leave him in the dust. Saying the prayer "Jesus, I trust in You" is easy. Living this prayer, as Mary did, is not. Father Thaddaeus shows us the way. Book jacket.

The global prominence of snakes in religion, myth, and folklore underscores our deep connection to them—but why, when few of us have firsthand experience? The answer, Isbell suggests, lies in snakes’ singular impact on primate evolution; predation pressure from snakes is ultimately responsible for the superior vision and large brains of primates.

He's b-a-a-ack! Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sade Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all.

Esta uses her affinity for time to give her an edge, and she's trained her whole life for one mission: travel back to 1902 New York, steal the ancient Book of Mysteries, and use its power to destroy the Brink and free the Mageus from the Order's control. But Seshat, an angry goddess was trapped within its pages. Now that terrible power lives within Harte, and if given the chance, Seshat will use Esta to destroy the world and take her revenge. Searching for the elemental stones needed to bind Seshat's power, Esta and Harte have found themselves stranded in time with a continent between them. And the Order is no longer the only obstacle standing in her way. -- adapted from jacket

Dillard Early, Jr., Travis Bohannon and Lydia Blankenship are three friends from different walks of life who have one thing in common: none of them seem to fit the mold in rural Tennessee's Forrestville High. Dill has always been branded as an outsider due to his family heritage as snake handlers and poison drinkers, an essential part of their Pentecostal faith. But after his father is sent to prison for sexual abuse of a young parishioner, Dill and his mother become real pariahs. His only two friends are Travis, a gentle giant who works at his family's lumberyard and is obsessed with a Game of Thrones-like fantasy series (much to his alcoholic father's chagrin); and Lydia, who runs a popular fashion blog that's part Tavi Gevinson and part Angela Chase, and is actively plotting her escape from Redneckville, Tennessee. As the three friends begin their senior year, it becomes clear that they won't all be getting to start a promising new life after graduation. How they deal with their diverging paths could cause the end of their friendship. Until a shattering act of random violence forces Dill to wrestle with his dark legacy and find a way into the light of a future worth living.

Tess sets out a sea-faring adventure to stop a war in the latest fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hartman. Tess has a mission from the Queen: sail across the oceans to the bottom of the world and prevent a war. Unbeknownst to the Queen, Tess also intends to find the last World Serpent -- a once-mythical creature with the magical ability to heal her best friend Pathka from a life-threatening injury. Tess never was one to follow the rules and this self-assigned mission feels like her duty, her calling, her destiny. Destiny has other ideas. When someone from Tess's past makes a surprise return, old wounds are cracked open, throwing her mission -- both the Queen's and Tess's personal agenda -- into complete disarray. What's more, Tess's personal pain is intertwined with a history greater than her own and the mending of it threatens the delicate balance of the entire Southlands. Tess was sent on this journey to prevent a war, but she may be starting one of her own.