From Ignatius Press: Father Luigi Gambero, internationally-known expert on early Christianity, presents a comprehensive survey of the development of Marian doctrine and devotion during the first eight centuries. Focusing on the lives and works of over thirty of the most famous Church Fathers and early Christian writers, Father Gambero has produced a clear and readable summary of the richness of the patristic age's theological and devotional approach to the Mother of God. The book contains numerous citations from the works of those men who developed the defining Christological and Mariological positions that have constituted the foundational doctrinal teaching of the Church. Each chapter concludes with an extended reading from the works of the patristic authors. A number of these texts have never before been published in English.

Overview: From the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, essentially the great age of monasticism, much thought was given to developing a ground plan by which the monk or friar could reach contemplation and mystical union with God. Basically, the writers of the age saw a fourfold division of this ground plan: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. While the basic ideas of spirituality were generally accepted by all writers, there were divergent teachings. The author here traces the main threads of these varied teachings from Benedictine spirituality of the eleventh century, through the ideas of the new orders (the Cistercians, the Franciscans and the Dominicans) down to the fifteenth-century writings of Thomas à Kempis, whose Imitation of Christ is still one of the best-known and most-loved spiritual guides. The author also deals at length with the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the major spiritual theologian of the Middle Ages.

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Overview: Provides responses to questions about the Catholic faith. Living in an age of confusion where truth has become blurred and challenges abound, many faithful Catholics want "straight answers" - devoid of personal opinions or trendiness. Straight Answers is designed to be instructive to the regular Catholic reader and empower him to defend the faith.