God’s Healing Mercy by Kathleen Beckman (Sophia Press, £14). The author, describing her book as “finding your path to forgiveness, peace and joy”, bases this useful guide on Scripture and the lives of the saints. An excellent companion for the Year of Mercy, the book reveals how Divine Mercy can heal families, troubled marriages, the sick and the elderly – and, indeed, enable all who receive grace to understand how much they are in need of it. Each chapter includes a “profile in mercy”: a reflection on a particular saint such as St Faustina, St Maria Goretti, Mother Teresa and St John Paul II.
Desiring a Better Country by Douglas Farrow (McGill-Queen’s University Press, £20.99). In this punchy book Farrow insists that we look more closely at a host of familiar terms and concepts – secularism, rights, freedom – when musing about the “soul of civil society”. Christianity, he writes, is “a very political religion” because it brings the city of God to the city of man. It is, for Douglas, central to a host of contemporary debates, from the nature of marriage to our understanding of a pluralistic society.
The Valiant Woman by Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez (University of North Carolina Press, £20). American Protestants in the 19th century had little time for Marian theology or devotion, but according to Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez this did not prevent them from admiring Mary. She emerged as a “symbol of idealised womanhood” in many corners of popular culture, denoting “purity and power, compassion and transcendence, maternity and queenship”. This surprising and impressively researched volume shows us Mary beyond the devotional context, appearing in the most unexpected places and standing as a truly “shared cultural figure”.
St Faustina Prayer Book for the Holy Souls in Purgatory by Susan Tassone (Our Sunday Visitor, £12). Tassone provides excerpts and meditations from St Faustina’s own diary concerning her revelations from God of his Divine Mercy. Chapters include the Divine Mercy chaplet for the Holy Souls, novena, litanies, selected prayers, and the significance of St Faustina’s revelations for the spiritual lives of Catholics. This little book is an important contribution to the theology of purgatory: how we can avoid purgatory ourselves, yet also help the suffering souls there.
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