Frank Sheed

The acclaimed Catholic writer and apologist Frank Sheed presents one of the most clear and outstanding explanations of the central doctrines of the Christian faith ever written. He starts with a compelling case of good reasons for anyone to study theology, and the wonderful rewards that accompany such a pursuit. After explaining how God is Spirit, Sheed examines God's infinity and man's creation from nothing. He then covers in depth such key doctrines as the Trinity, the Fall, the Incarnation and Redemption, the Mystical Body, Grace and the Sacraments, and the Last Things. For those to whom these doctrines seem formidable, Sheed brings a fresh approach with lucid and carefully reasoned prose. His beautiful insights and clear explanations will help stir our minds to the inspiring truth of the spiritual realities at the center of human existence.

Theology for Beginners

Vatican II issued an urgent call for the laity to take a more active role in the life of the Church. What should the life of the Christian believer be like? How are average lay Christians called to help save the world? How does theology fit into the picture? One of Frank Sheed's most popular books, this ideal volume for the layman shows the practical aspects of theology in the life of a Christian believer. Logic, clarity, and simplicity permeate this eminently readable book. Drawing from his fifty years of street-corner preaching, as well as his long career as an author, lecturer and publisher, Sheed understands and communicates better than anyone the importance of theology and its relationship to living sanely in today's world. A brilliant synthesis of the Catholic view of life.

Theology and Sanity

MY concern in this book is not with the will but with the intellect, not with sanctity but with sanity. The difference is too often overlooked in the practice of religion. The soul has two faculties and they should be clearly distinguished. There is the will: its work is to love—and so to choose, to decide, to act. There is the intellect: its work is TO KNOW, TO UNDERSTAND, TO SEE: to see what—TO SEE WHAT’S THERE. I have said that my concern is with the intellect rather than with the will: this not because the intellect matters more in religion than the will, but because it does matter and tends to be neglected, and the neglect is bad. I realize that salvation depends directly upon the will. We are saved or damned according to what we love. If we love God, we shall ultimately get God: we shall be saved. If we love self in preference to God then we shall get self apart from God: we shall be damned. But though in our relation to God the intellect does not matter as much as the will, (and indeed depends for its health upon the will) it does matter, and as I have said, it is too much neglected—to the great misfortune of the will, for we can never attain a maximum love of God with only a minimum knowledge of God. For the soul’s full functioning, we need a Catholic intellect as well as a Catholic will. We have a Catholic will when we love God and obey God, love the Church and obey the Church. We have a Catholic intellect when we live consciously in the presence of the realities that God through His Church has revealed. A good working test of a Catholic will is that we should do what the Church says. But for a Catholic intellect, we must also see what the Church sees. This means that when we look out upon the universe we see the same universe that the Church sees; and the enormous advantage of this is that the universe the Church sees is the real universe, because She is the Church of God. Seeing what She sees means seeing what is there. And just as loving what is good is SANCTITY, or the health of the will, so seeing what is there is SANITY, or the health of the intellect. This classic is organized as follows— 1. Religion & the Mind 2. Examination of Intellect 3. He Who Is 4. The Mind Works on Infinity 5. God Tells Man 6. Three Persons in One Nature 7. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 8. Some Further Precisions 9. Concluding This Part 10. God as Creator 11. The Created Universe 12. Angels, Matter, Men 13. The Testing of Angels and Men 14. The Fall of Man 15. Between the Fall and the Redemption 16. The Mission of Christ 17. The Redeemer 18. The Redeeming Sacrifice 19. Redemption 20. The Kingdom 21. Dispensing the Gifts 22. The Mystical Body of Christ 23. Life in the Body 24. Life After Death 25. The End of the World 26. Habituation to Reality 27. Habituation to Man 28. The Insufficiency of Man 29. Sufficiency in the Church 30. The Life of Grace 31. The Landscape of Reality 32. Idyll and Fact

Catholic Way Publishing

THEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS FRANK SHEED — A Catholic Classic! — Includes Linked Headings, Index and Table of Contents — Includes Religious Illustrations Publisher: Available in Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1-78379-502-4 “Not on bread alone doth man live,” said Christ Our Lord, quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil. Everybody knows the phrase, and most people tend to complete it according to their own fancy of what is most important to the hungry soul of man. But it had its own completion in Deuteronomy and Our Lord reminded the Devil of that too—“but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.” Revealed truth, then, is food. Now it is a peculiarity of food that it nourishes only those who eat it. We are not nourished by the food that someone else has eaten. To be nourished by it, we must eat it ourselves. PUBLISHER: CATHOLIC WAY PUBLISHING

Atheists deny we can know God because they deny there is a God to know. But even believers who affirm Gods existence sometimes dont know him. They dont know much about God because they neglect to think much about God and what God has revealed about himself. They accept that there is a God but they dont give much thought to what God is like. And even if they know a great deal about God in the sense of being able to state truths about him, they dont necessarily know him personally and intimately. In Knowing God (previously titled God and the Human Mind) the great Catholic writer, teacher, and publisher Frank Sheed helps readers to know that God exists, to think about who and what God is, and to know God personally. He clears away popular misunderstandings of God, often held by otherwise knowledgeable people. A masterful, lucid writer, Sheed is not timid about tackling the most challenging questions the human mind can pose about God, yet he does not reduce divine mystery to dry propositions or neglect the necessity of faith. Sheed acknowledges the limits of human words and human minds when it comes to God. At the same time, he carefully explains the meaning of Spirit, the role of theology and revelation, including the place of the Bible in the Church, and the experience of God in mysticism. In the final section, Sheed goes into the heart of the mystery of God, exploring God as the Trinity and the difference the Trinity should make in understanding God and ourselves.

Frank Sheed

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