J.R.R. Tolkien.
Harper Collins. 1995.

The approach of the new millennium prompted a predictable flurry of polls seeking to identify the greatest scientist, the most iconic film, the best painting or the tallest chimpanzee of the twentieth century. Few people will be surprised to learn that JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (first published in 1954) emerged in a succession of polls as the century's favourite work of fiction. Tolkien's epic has roots that penetrate deep into the soil of European culture, and seems to speak to the concerns of the modern world on an intimate level. Yet there is one dimension of this work which seems to escape most commentators. In a letter to a Jesuit friend Tolkien wrote that "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work"*. In an era that proclaimed the death of God, it is surprising and, perhaps, telling that such a book should so deeply penetrate the modern imagination.

Scott and Kimberly Hahn

Ignatius Press. 1993.

If you have EWTN you will have come across Scott Hahn. If you frequent religious bookstores you will have come across Scott Hahn. If you have been to any major Catholic event in the U.S. you will (more than likely) have come across Scott Hahn. He has been a busy man.  But before Hahn became one of the most recognised names in the Catholic world he was a prominent figure in an entirely different world - the world of evangelical Protestantism.

Peter Kreeft.

Ignatius Press. 1989. 

Picture for a moment the conventional image of heaven. A soft focus land of fluffy clouds, choral music and flocks of cherubs sporting nappies. Not exactly an inspiring recruiting poster for the communion of the saints. Our depictions of hell are far more vivid and creative. Most tragic of all they are often more appealing - at least those trident wielding demons look like they are having fun.  Does this say a lot about our culture? Probably. We have a seemingly insatiable appetite for the ugly, the mutilated and the horrific. To us goodness and beauty can often seem insipid and unreal.

 

Harper Collins. 2001. 

Before deciding on the priesthood Karol Wojtyla's heart seemed to be set on acting, yet the drama of his own life far outstrips the most fanciful of stage storylines. The main facts seem more at home in a Hollywood blockbuster than in the real world: the early death of his parents, Nazi occupation, hairs-breath escapes, the shadow of the Holocaust, a glittering academic career, resistance to the Communist regime, election as the first non-Italian pope in centuries, an assassination attempt, a pivotal role in the fall of Communism and so on.  Yet the real drama of Wojtyla's life is not located in these events. Facts, statistics and chronologies cannot reveal the truth about Karol Wojtlya the person. In the pontiff's own words, to truly understand any human being is to understand them "from inside"*. This is the task which George Weigel sets himself in the opening chapter of "Witness to Hope" and one of which he does not loose sight throughout the entire work. 

I. C. S. Publications. 1999.

"I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children" (Mt 11:25).There are few saints to whom these word's of Christ's are more appropriate than Therese of Lisieux. The youngest daughter of a Norman jeweller, Marie Francoise Therese Martin's academic formation was minimal; she left school at fourteen and entered the enclosed Carmelite Order one year later. Therese had a sheltered upbringing, travelled outside France only once, founded no order, experienced no great visions and died unknown at the age of twenty-four. Yet in the years that followed her death devotion to her spread with a rapidity that Pius XI dubbed a "glorious hurricane". The source of this remarkable phenomenon was a small book: her spiritual autobiography "The Story of a Soul". Written at the request of her sister Pauline as a private family memoir, "The Story of a Soul" was to become the spiritual bestseller of the twentieth century.