St. Thomas Aquinas

Are we truly striving for heaven or merely avoiding hell?

The human heart's greatest longing is to see God as He is. And yet, many people simply want to escape hell's pain, or even worse, they follow our disordered fallen nature in choosing sinful pleasures. Our Lord said the road to heaven is narrow, but the road to hell is wide (see Matt. 7:13). Is choosing the road to heaven merely wanting to avoid pain, or is it actively pursuing the greatest good beyond imagining?

Do we choose the good because we strive to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, or do we choose the good merely because we fear hell?

God never leaves us alone in these choices. Indeed, He sends us His grace, but--to help us cooperate with that grace and fight valiantly--He also sends spiritual warriors and guides, of whom one of the greatest is Saint Thomas Aquinas.

In Angelic Virtues and Demonic Vices, Saint Thomas guides us on how to pursue our true celestial homeland while avoiding running to a false heaven. He outlines the various vices, and their forty-plus daughters, and details how to conquer them.

After reading this work, you will not only desire to become a saint because you will see how hideous vice truly is but also see how splendid and virtuous living for God is.

The essentials of the Catholic Faith--
clearly & beautifully explained by one of the Church's greatest thinkers!

Although St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the Church's most intellectually powerful theologians, few know that he also wrote a great deal that's well within the reach of ordinary believers.

In fact, as you'll find in The Aquinas Catechism, St. Thomas had a remarkable ability to communicate the Faith -- including both its most complex and its simplest elements -- in plain language. Here you'll find his deeply insightful, straightforward, and clear explanations of the Apostles' Creed, the Commandments, and the Sacraments -- as well as of the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

In other words, this book will give you a basic course in the Catholic Faith, taught by the Church's greatest theologian.

Let him help you:

Gain a better grasp of Church doctrine

Pray with greater fervor and understanding

Receive the Sacraments more worthily

Learn what God requires of you and why

Explain Church teachings to non-Catholic friends

Discover the scriptural sources of our Catholic Faith

Find remedies for moral weaknesses that still afflict you

Glimpse the greatness of the Church's supernatural mission

And much more!

Above all, let St. Thomas teach you how to explain, defend, and live your Faith . . . with the clear-sighted wisdom of a saint!

The essentials of Catholic doctrine
-- clearly and succinctly presented

Two years before he died, St. Thomas Aquinas -- probably the greatest teacher the Church has ever known -- was asked by his assistant, Brother Reginald, to write a simple summary of the Faith of the Catholic Church for those who lacked the time or the stamina to tackle his massive Summa Theologica.

In response, the great saint quickly set down -- in language that non-scholars can understand -- his peerless insights into the major topics of theology: the Trinity, Divine Providence, the Incarnation of Christ, the Last Judgment, and much more.

Here, then, is not only St. Thomas's concise statement of the key elements of his thought, but a handy reference source for the essential truths of the Catholic Faith.

St. Thomas will show you:

Why faith is reasonable, not blind

Why evil can never be as powerful as good

Solid arguments for Christ's Resurrection

Powerful arguments for God's existence

Why angels are necessary in creation

How Adam's sin differed from Eve's

Why Jesus descended into Hell

Why we must suffer for Adam's sin

Why the truths that you can know
only through Revelation are nevertheless rational

Startling details about God's forgiveness

Facts about the punishment of the damned:
both spiritual and bodily

How a soul's damnation can be
compatible with God's goodness

What Christians should think
about "fate" and "chance"

What life after resurrection will be like

Three ways in which God is in all things

Eternal life: what it is; how to understand it

How you can know God through reason

Hell-fire: whether it's real or symbolic

Why God became man

Why God allows evil

How Jesus "grew in wisdom"

How Christ can have existed for all eternity
and yet be God's Son

The Beatific Vision: what it really is

Why God's knowledge of the future
doesn't deny man's free will

How the Holy Trinity is three
distinct Persons, yet one God

Much more that will help you know
and love God with greater understanding!

Why, since happiness is so universally sought after, are so many people so miserable? The answer can be found by unpacking the wisdom of two of history's intellectual giants who set out to answer the question that has confounded man from time immemorial: What makes us happy?

Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas existed sixteen centuries apart, yet each reached similar understandings about what makes a person happy and what makes him miserable. In these enlightening pages, Dr. Charles Nemeth synthesizes the judgments of history's two greatest thinkers to present for you a life plan that inevitably leads to a happy human existence, whatever your ethnicity, religion, or citizenship.

You will explore what it means to be happy and will come to understand the limitations of happiness. You'll learn how to live in accordance with your basic nature so that your inclinations will not conflict with that which makes you flourish. And you'll calibrate your compass so that you will be able to

25 popes consider St. Thomas Aquinas the Church's preeminent theologian because he saw truths about God, our Faith, and the Christian life which had never been seen before.

But do you have time to read the 3,000 pages in his Summa Theologica? Do you struggle to understand the abstract theological terms he uses in On Being and Essence?

Perhaps you, like so many of us, desire to be taught by such a great philosopher as Aquinas, but feel he is well beyond your reach. Not anymore.

In The One-Minute Aquinas, veteran Catholic author Dr. Kevin Vost provides you with simple, readable explanations of St. Thomas's life-giving wisdom.

In this book's lucid pages, you'll read small, digestible portions of St. Thomas's answers to questions such as...

Why do souls need the sacraments?

Why didn't Jesus write the Bible himself?

What are simple proofs of God's existence?

What is heaven, and what is it not?

Why did Jesus allow himself to be crucified?

How can I grow quickly in virtue?

Who are the angels and what are their powers?

What is God's power and its limits?

Why did God become man?

Why did Jesus allow himself to be tempted?

And you'll learn countless, but quick, refutations to the relativistic and secular ideas that are so destructive to our culture today.

We're not all called to be intellectuals, but we are called to have an ever deeper understanding of our Faith.

A shortened version of Kreeft's much larger Summa of the Summa, which in turn was a shortened version of the Summa Theologica. The reason for the double shortening is pretty obvious: the original runs some 4000 pages! (The Summa of the Summa was just over 500.) The Summa is certainly the greatest, most ambitious, most rational book of theology ever written. In it, there is also much philosophy, which is selected, excerpted, arranged, introduced, and explained in footnotes here by Kreeft, a popular Thomist teacher and writer. St. Thomas Aquinas is universally recognized as one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. His writings combine the two fundamental ideals of philosophical writing: clarity and profundity. He is a master of metaphysics and technical terminology, yet so full of both theoretical and practical wisdom. He is the master of common sense. The Summa Theologica is timeless, but particularly important today because of his synthesis of faith and reason, revelation and philosophy, and the Biblical and the classical Greco-Roman heritages. This little book is designed for beginners, either for classroom use or individually. It contains the most famous and influential passages of St. Thomas' philosophy with copious aids to understanding them.

Here, together in a single volume, are the two biographies that many critics consider to be Chesterton's best and the best short portraits ever written of these two great saints. St. Francis of Assisi was first published in 1923, shortly after Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church. It is a profoundly Catholic work, explaining and illuminating the life of St. Francis in a way no other biography has. The spiritual kinship the author felt with his subject enables the reader to delve into insights on the character of Francis that have eluded many.
St. Thomas Aquinas was written later in Chesterton's career. It also is enriched by the author's unique ability to see the world through the saint's eyes, a view that shows us Aquinas in a fresh way. Chesterton's pen brings the author of the Summa vividly to life.