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 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 Teresa of Avila

WHEN S. Teresa had taken possession and founded the first monastery of her nuns in Avila, 24th August 1562, she was summoned back to the monastery of the Incarnation, where she had made her profession, for that monastery was thrown into trouble by the act of the Saint, and the nuns were very angry with her. She was made to give an account of her conduct, and the provincial was sent for, before whom she had to make what defence she could: that defence she made in the presence of the nuns her sisters, and so successfully that no one was found to blame her. When she had appeased her sisters, she had to meet other troubles: the people of Avila had been also disturbed, and a new house of religion seemed for the moment to be an offence to them. The magistrates of the city resolved to suppress the monastery, but on finding that it was lawfully established with the consent of the bishop they had recourse to the courts of law. Aeterna Press

The Book of the Foundations of Saint Teresa of Jesus

Saint John of Damascus 

SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS COLLECTION [4 BOOKS] Saint John of Damascus, also known as John Damascene and as Chrysorrhoas was a Syrian monk and priest. Born and raised in Damascus, he died at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he is said by some sources to have served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus before his ordination. He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter. He is one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox church and is best known for his strong defense of icons. The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary. —BOOKS— BARLAAM AND IOASAPH EXPOSITION OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH ON HOLY IMAGES ON THE TRINITY PUBLISHER: AETERNA PRESS

Saint John of Damascus Collection [4 Books]

Richard Travers Smith B.D.

Basil the elder—for father and son were named alike—was a teacher of rhetoric, and an advocate in large practice. He was a Christian of the best and most earnest type, and when Gregory of Nazianzus addressed his panegyric of the younger Basil to a large audience he was able to assume that the reputation of the father would be known to them all. But the future saint owed his earliest religious education to his grandmother Macrina, who brought him up with his brothers, and formed them upon the doctrine of the great Origenist and saint of Pontus, Gregory Thaumaturgus. Aeterna Press

Saint Basil the Great

THERE ARE TWO sorts of unions of the soul with God in this world: the first by grace, which is made in Baptism, or by means of Penance; the second by devotion, and this is made by means of spiritual exercises. The one makes us innocent and the other spiritual. Solomon, considering himself to have given sufficient instruction on the first sort of union in his other books, only teaches the second in the Canticles, in which he supposes the spouse, that is, the devout soul, to be already married to her Divine Beloved, and represents their holy and chaste married loves, practiced by mental prayer, which is simply the consideration of God and Divine things. Aeterna Press

The Mystical Explanation of the Canticle of Canticles

Reverend Jean-Joseph Gaume

One word on the publication of this little work, and the unexpected success it has obtained. How did the idea of this book occur to us? Who arranged the unforeseen circumstances to which it owes its origin? Why does a work, destined to reawaken the faith of the Catholic world in the Sign of the Cross, appear at this time, and not two or three centuries ago? Why is it, that until now, no pope thought of attaching a spiritual favor to that formula, the most venerable, most ancient, and most customary of our religion? How is it, that amidst so many solicitudes, Pius IX has deigned to listen to our feeble voice, and hastened to admonish the Christians of our day to have recourse as frequently as possible to the Sign of the Cross, conformably to the example of their primitive ancestors? Aeterna Press

The Sign of the Cross in the Nineteenth Century

Saint Anselm 

Saint Anselm Collection [3 Books]

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Fifteen years ago the English Dominican Fathers embarked on what was considered by many the hazardous and even useless venture of translating the Summa Theologica of the Angelic Doctor. Yet although there were critics adverse to the project, there were others, not a few, who approved and encouraged; these and the favour with which the effort, notwithstanding its many deficiencies, was received, heartened the translators to persevere, and enabled them to bring their work to a happy conclusion. For the venture has proved a success beyond the most sanguine expectations; and already the work has entered into a second edition.

The Summa Contra Gentiles

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.

Aeterna Press

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