Roses Among Thorns & The Sign of the Cross (2 Book Set)

• 2 Book Set
• Roses Among Thorns: Simple Advice for Renewing Your Spiritual Journey
• A short practical guide that will help you take the next step on your spiritual journey
• The Sign of the Cross: The Fifteen Most Powerful Words in the English Language
• Traces the origins of the Sign of the Cross back to the Fathers of the Church, the Apostles, and to our Lord Himself

Roses Among Thorns:

From the thousands of personal letters by St. Francis de Sales comes this short, practical guide that will develop in you the soul-nourishing habits that lead to sanctity. St. Francis de Sales is widely regarded as one of the greatest spiritual advisors in the history of the Church, and we have drawn from his letters the wisest advice for those prepared to take the next step on their spiritual journey. As he did for saints and sinners in his own time, St. Francis de Sales will stiffen your resolve, help you gain small victories over unruly passions, and restore in you a trusting confidence in Jesus Christ. Soon you’ll find yourself delivered from the chains of self-love as your soul opens to divine goodness and your heart shaped into a fitting place for Christ to dwell and reign eternally.

If you find it difficult to live amid the clamor of the world with your eyes fixed on Christ alone, let St. Francis de Sales teach you how to live as a true rose among thorns as you learn . . .

• What to do when you stop finding consolation during prayer
• How to place yourself in the presence of God
• How busy people should pray
• Do you fear vice more than you love virtue? A guide to discernment
• How to be patient with your family
• The dangers of too many devotions
• How to know when your feelings are from God or the devil
• What to do about repeated spiritual dryness
• The three things you must do to be at peace
• How to avoid thoughts that give us anxious and restless minds

Absorb the wisdom in these holy pages, and you’ll soon make true progress on your spiritual journey and navigate with confidence the treacherous waters of our secular world.

 

The Sign of the Cross:

From the young St. Francis de Sales’s heroic efforts to bring Calvinists back to the Faith comes this succinct, eloquent defense of the age-old Catholic practice of making the Sign of the Cross, which sixteenth-century Calvinists denounced as a Popish invention and many Protestants scorn even today.

Embodying the zeal of youth and the wisdom of age, this gentle jewel of Catholic apologetics traces the origins of the Sign of the Cross back to the Fathers of the Church, to the Apostles before them, and finally to our Lord Himself.

Along with St. Francis’s other lucid explanations of our Catholic Faith and his undaunted love even for those who hated him, this modest book helped restore to their native Catholic faith tens of thousands of heretics who not long before were intent on killing him.

As they did for the Calvinists in St. Francis’s day, so in our day these pages will bring you a better understanding and a renewed love the Sign of the Cross, that brief and lively exterior prayer by which, from time immemorial, God has been invoked by serious Christians before all of their endeavors.

In addition, you will learn what scores of saints have said about it, including St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Basil, St. Clement, St. Cyril, St. Cyprian, St. Dionysius, St. Efraim, St. Eugenius, St. Gregory of Tours, St. Hilarion, Saint Hippolytus, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. James, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Lawrence, and many others.

Outside the Creed itself, there are few topics to which the Fathers testify as universally and unanimously as the pious practice of making, frequently and well, the Sign of the Cross. With the help of these holy pages, the saints’ love for it will enkindle yours. Soon you’ll be saying with St. Jerome, “With every work, with all of my comings and goings, may my hand make the Sign of the Cross!”. "Whether you sleep or wake, travel or work, eat or drink, sail on the sea or cross a river, cover yourself with this breastplate, clothe yourself with the saving Sign of the Cross, and evils will not meet you."

 

Dimensions & Specifications

Roses Among Thorns

• Author: St. Francis de Sales, Christopher O. Blum (translator)
• 128 pages
• Softcover
• 5 x 7 inches
• ISBN: 978162282206

The Sign of the Cross

• Author: St. Francis de Sales, Christopher O. Blum (translator)
• 128 pages
• Softcover
• 5 x 7 inches
• ISBN: 9781933184975