Brother Lawrence

Aeterna Press

THIS little book contains the Conversations and Letters of one Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, a lowly born and unlearned man; who, after having been a soldier and a footman, was admitted a lay-brother among the Carmelites Déchaussés (bare-footed) at Paris in 1666, where he served in the kitchen of the community. He was afterwards known by the name of Brother Lawrence. He died in February 1691, at the advanced age of eighty, after a life the true saintliness of which can be well realised from these collected Conversations and Letters. Aeterna Press

The Practice of the Presence of God

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

THE whole sanctity and perfection of a soul consists in loving Jesus Christ, our God, our sovereign good, and our Redeemer. Whoever loves me, says Jesus Christ himself, shall be loved by my Eternal Father: My Father loves you because you have loved Me. Some, says St. Francis de Sales, make perfection consist in an austere life; others in prayer; others in frequenting the Sacraments; others in alms-deeds. But they deceive themselves: perfection consists in loving God with our whole heart. The Apostle wrote: Above all things, . . . have love, which is the bond of perfection. It is love which keeps united and preserves all the virtues that render a man perfect. Hence St. Augustine said: “Love God, and do whatever you please;” because a soul that loves God is taught by that same love never to do anything that will displease him, and to leave nothing undone that may please him.

The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ

Saint Louis de Montfort

BIOGRAPHERS have already told us much about St. Louis De Montfort and the Rosary; now, with this first English edition of THE SECRET OF THE ROSARY, we can listen to Montfort speaking for himself. Drawing upon his own experience as well as upon the experience of others, he endeavors to bring home to the reader, “in a simple and straightforward manner,” as he himself tells us, the authentic message of the Rosary; namely, that it is a veritable school of Christian life. He sees it as including essentially the meditation of the mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus and Mary, with a view not only to honoring but especially imitating their virtues as held up to our consideration in each mystery.

The Secret of the Rosary

Richard Rolle 

Richard Rolle Collection [2 Books]

Saint Francis de Sales

THE following Treatise presents, at first sight, considerable difficulties. They do not arise from any defect in the Saint’s mode of expression, but are inherent in his subject and manner of treatment, “going deep down into the roots” of the Love of God. Thus he speaks in his Preface, and continues: “The first four books, and some chapters of the others might doubtless have been omitted without disadvantage to such souls as seek only the practice of holy love. . . . I have been forced to say many things which will appear more obscure than they are. The depths of science are always somewhat hard to sound.” But he tells us that the state of the minds of his age required this deeper treatment; and whatever may be thought as to the best way of presenting modern religious teaching to an age so ignorant, so shallow and so unthinking as is our own with regard to spiritual truths, there can be no question that this masterpiece of the chief doctor of ascetic theology must not be brought down to our level, but that we must raise ourselves towards it. Aeterna Press

Treatise on the Love of God

G. K. Chesterton

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, eugenics, the scientific control of human breeding, was a popular cause within enlightened and progressive segments of the English-speaking world. The New York Times eagerly supported it, gushing about the wonderful "new science." Prominent scientists, such as the plant biologist Luther Burbank, were among its most enthusiastic supporters. And the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations generously funded eugenic research intended to distinguish the 'fit' from the 'unfit.' Aeterna Press

Eugenics and Other Evils

Rev. Joseph Pohle Ph.D. D.D.

1. Definition.—Eschatology is the crown and capstone of dogmatic theology. It may be defined as “the doctrine of the last things,” and tells how the creatures called into being and raised to the supernatural state by God, find their last end in Him, of whom, and by whom, and in whom, as Holy Scripture says, “are all things.” Eschatology is anthropological and cosmological rather than theological; for, though it deals with God as the Consummator and Universal Judge, strictly speaking its subject is the created universe, i. e. man and the cosmos. Aeterna Press

Eschatology or the Catholic Doctrine of the Last Things: A Dogmatic Treatise

Saint Gregory of Nyssa

“This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth ,” saith the Scripture, when all that is seen was finished, and each of the things that are betook itself to its own separate place, when the body of heaven compassed all things round, and those bodies which are heavy and of downward tendency, the earth and the water, holding each other in, took the middle place of the universe; while, as a sort of bond and stability for the things that were made, the Divine power and skill was implanted in the growth of things, guiding all things with the reins of a double operation (for it was by rest and motion that it devised the genesis of the things that were not, and the continuance of the things that are), driving around, about the heavy and changeless element contributed by the creation that does not move, as about some fixed path, the exceedingly rapid motion of the sphere, like a wheel, and preserving the indissolubility of both by their mutual action, as the circling substance by its rapid motion compresses the compact body of the earth round about, while that which is firm and unyielding, by reason of its unchanging fixedness, continually augments the whirling motion of those things which revolve round it, and intensity is produced in equal measure in each of the natures which thus differ in their operation, in the stationary nature, I mean, and in the mobile revolution; for neither is the earth shifted from its own base, nor does the heaven ever relax in its vehemence, or slacken its motion.

On the Making of Man

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason. Now one class of such men endeavor to transfer to things incorporeal and spiritual the ideas they have formed, whether through experience of the bodily senses, or by natural human wit and diligent quickness, or by the aid of art, from things corporeal; so as to seek to measure and conceive of the former by the latter. Aeterna Press

On the Trinity

It is very difficult to classify The Man Who Was Thursday. It is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like no-one else. On this level, therefore, The Man Who Was Thursday succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is a magnificent tour-de-force of suspense-writing. Aeterna Press

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

Dionysius the Areopagite

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE COLLECTION [4 BOOKS] — Quality Formatting and Value — Active Index, Multiple Table of Contents for all Books — Multiple Illustrations Dionysius the Areopagite was a judge of the Areopagus who, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts 17:34), was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul during the Areopagus sermon. According to Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius, this Dionysius then became the first Bishop of Athens. In the early 6th century, a series of famous writings of a mystical nature, employing Neoplatonic language to elucidate Christian theological and mystical ideas, was ascribed to the Areopagite. They have long been recognized as pseudepigrapha, and their author is now called "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite". —BOOKS— MYSTICISM: ITS TRUE NATURE AND VALUE ON THE DIVINE NAMES AND THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY THE WORKS OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE PUBLISHER: AETERNA PRESS

Dionysius the Areopagite Collection [3 Books]

Aristotle

EVERY art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. Aeterna Press

Nicomachean Ethics

Saint Justin Martyr 

Saint Justin Martyr Collection [3 Books]

Justin Martyr

As I begin this hortatory address to you, ye men of Greece, I pray God that I may know what I ought to say to you, and that you, shaking off your habitual love of disputing, and being delivered from the error of your fathers, may now choose what is profitable; not fancying that you commit any offence against your forefathers, though the things which you formerly considered by no means salutary should now seem useful to you. For accurate investigation of matters, putting truth to the question with a more searching scrutiny, often reveals that things which have passed for excellent are of quite another sort. Since, then, we propose to discourse of the true religion (than which, I think, there is nothing which is counted more valuable by those who desire to pass through life without danger, on account of the judgment which is to be after the termination of this life, and which is announced not only by our forefathers according to God, to wit the prophets and lawgivers, but also by those among yourselves who have been esteemed wise, not poets alone, but also philosophers, who professed among you that they had attained the true and divine knowledge), I think it well first of all to examine the teachers of religion, both our own and yours, who they were, and how great, and in what times they lived; in order that those who have formerly received from their fathers the false religion, may now, when they perceive this, be extricated from that inveterate error; and that we may clearly and manifestly show that we ourselves follow the religion of our forefathers according to God.

Justin’s Hortatory Address to the Greeks

Tatian

Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the Barbarians, nor look with ill will on their opinions. For which of your institutions has not been derived from the Barbarians? The most eminent of the Telmessians invented the art of divining by dreams; the Carians, that of prognosticating by the stars; the Phrygians and the most ancient Isaurians, augury by the flight of birds; the Cyprians, the art of inspecting victims. To the Babylonians you owe astronomy; to the Persians, magic; to the Egyptians, geometry; to the Phoenicians, instruction by alphabetic writing. Aeterna Press

Address of Tatian to the Greeks

Rev. A. J. Maas S. J.

According to Christian antiquity Matthew wrote a gospel in Hebrew. Our first gospel is identical with Matthew’s Hebrew gospel. Internal evidence: a. it points to Matthew as its author; b. it was written for Jewish converts; c. it has the same object as Matthew’s gospel. External evidence: a. it is quoted as Sacred Scripture from the earliest times; b. passages of it are ascribed to Matthew; c. its incidents are regarded as revealed; d. early heretics appeal to it, e. or mutilate it; syllogistic form of the argument; principal exceptions. Aeterna Press

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew With an Explanatory and Critical Commentary

Saint Ambrose

St. Ambrose writes in praise of gentleness, pointing out how needful that grace is for the rulers of the Church, and commended to them by the meekness of Christ. As the Novatians have fallen away from this, they cannot be considered disciples of Christ. Their pride and harshness are inveighed against.

Concerning Repentance

Adam, our first parent, sins; ungrateful for the great benefits conferred on him, he rebels against God, by a violation of the precept given him not to eat of the forbidden fruit. On this account God is obliged to drive him out of the earthly paradise in this world, and in the world to come to deprive not only Adam, but all the descendants of this rebellious creature, of the heavenly and everlasting paradise which he had prepared for them after this mortal life. Aeterna Press

The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ

Saint Bonaventure

SAINT BONAVENTURE COLLECTION [6 BOOKS] — Quality Formatting and Value — Active Index, Multiple Table of Contents for all Books — Multiple Illustrations Saint Bonaventure, born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonised on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor". Many writings believed in the Middle Ages to be his are now collected under the name Pseudo-Bonaventura. He entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris, possibly under Alexander of Hales, and certainly under Alexander's successor, John of Rochelle. In 1253 he held the Franciscan chair at Paris. Unfortunately for Bonaventure, a dispute between seculars and mendicants delayed his reception as Master until 1257, where his degree was taken in company with Thomas Aquinas. Three years earlier his fame had earned him the position of lecturer on the The Four Books of Sentences—a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century—and in 1255 he received the degree of master, the medieval equivalent of doctor. —BOOKS— HOLINESS OF LIFE LIFE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST THE LIFE OF CHRIST THE LIFE OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY THE VIRTUES OF A RELIGIOUS SUPERIOR PUBLISHER: AETERNA PRESS

Saint Bonaventure Collection [6 Books]

“Blessed is the man whom Thou shalt instruct, O Lord, and shalt teach out of Thy Law” (Ps. xciii, 12.) I hold that only the man taught by the Holy Spirit and imbued with His blessed unction is to be considered wise. The Prophet David lays down the same principle; he alone is really happy and wise whose mind the Lord has made learned in the Law. “The Law of God,” David notes elsewhere (Ps. xviii, 8), is the only law “without fault” and irreproachable. It alone has the secret of “converting souls” to the way of salvation. Aeterna Press

Aeterna Press

About

Books

Join the club