Missionary Priest
In Missionary Priest, Fr. Tom shares the richness of the ministerial life that has taken him throughout the world, engaging with people of all faiths and backgrounds. His work has encompassed campus ministry, founding a center for spirituality, leading retreats, preaching parish missions, engaging in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogues, and writing books and articles. His educational journey included Europe and the Middle East. After directing the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism for 14 years and working in all 10 provinces of Canada, he founded and directed an ecumenical retreat center (Unitas) in Montreal before returning to the U.S. to found and direct the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations for 20 years. Unity among the followers of Jesus and collaboration with the members of all world religions has been at the core of his ministry. At the heart of this book is the spirituality and practices that sustained him on this journey.
2024 - Price: $29.95 - Order Online Here - Or call: 800-218-1903
ISBN: 978-08091-5681-8 (paperback)
Praying by Hand, Praying with Beads -
A Universal Form of Prayer
By and large, the only reference most Christians of other denominations have for prayer with beads is Catholics and their rosaries. This devotional landscape is however now changing in remarkable ways. Various forms of prayer with beads are developing within Anglican, Lutheran, and Protestant contexts, in addition to the creation of an Ecumenical Miracle Rosary by a Lutheran pastor. And as our societal constituency becomes increasingly pluralistic religiously, it is of interest for members of all faiths to become aware that this is not just something members of their own religion do, but that it is truly a universal form of prayer. And when we become aware of a spiritual practice that has emerged throughout the human family in different cultural and faith contexts but which has little or no place in our own spiritual lives, we have to ask ourselves the question, "Am I missing something helpful here?"
2019 - Price: $16.95 - Order Online Here - Or call: 800-218-1903
ISBN: 978-08091-5445-6 (paperback)
Using personal stories and concrete recommendations, Ryan offers practical examples of how lay persons and pastors, interchurch couples and religious communities, social action groups and people in the business community can contribute to the lived experience of unity among Jesus" followers.
Christian Unity also gives voice to the experience of others from around the continent and beyond who have shared the journey with in-depth experience in particular domains of ecumenical endeavor.
Challenging each church member to be tangibly involved in the work for Christian unity, this book offers specific, attainable ideas for living out Jesus" twin imperatives of mission and unity. It is ideal for parish study groups who want to deepen their engagement with other parts of the Christian family. It is also a valuable resource for students of theology, Christian ministers, and lay movements.
In the words of one reviewer, "Christian Unity "s an extraordinarily useful, up-to-date, and informative resource showing Christians how they can make a difference in realizing the prayer of Jesus that they may be one."
We are witnessing the emergence of a new reality: the priority of Christian community over a purely doctrinal approach. And the implications are both profound and exciting. The question framed for the reader is: If you are not already doing so, how might you participate and make a difference there, where you are?
(2015 - www.paulistpress.com - Phone: 800-218-1903)
ISBN: 978-0-8091-4950 (paperback) PRICE: $22.95 ISBN: 978-1-58768-549-1 (e-book)
Remember to Live! Embracing the Second Half of Life
This is a book about the importance of living your life now, about "remembering to live" by keeping your priorities clearly before you and using your time, talent, energy, and material resources accordingly. When we face the fact that this precious gift of life on planet earth is not given in limitless supply, it clarifies our vision and intention. We stop putting things off for "some day." (2012 - www.paulistpress.com - Phone: 800-218-1903) To read a review of this book, click here. Living the Eucharist
This is a new, comprehensive parish program that has, at its core, one crucial objective: to help Catholics involve themselves more fully in the Eucharist so that they connect the celebration of this sacrament more closely with the mission of Jesus and the Church. Living the Eucharist takes place over three years, with a concentration on Lent.
To learn more about Living the Eucharist, click here (2011 Published by Paulist Evangelization Ministries www.pemdc.org Phone: 202 832 5022) Interreligious Prayer: A Christian Guide Interreligious Prayer is a compass to help Christians find their way responsibly in the increasingly frequent interreligious encounters occasioned by national holidays, school assemblies, and religious festivals, as well as in communal responses to events such as war and peace, tragedies or natural disasters. The book addresses head-on the questions that inevitably arise in these encounters, such as "What is the basis for coming together to pray?" and "Are there any boundaries?" (2008
- www.paulistpress.com - Phone: 800-218-1903) To read a published review of this book, click here. Soul Fire: Accessing Your Creativity Creative energy is inherent in each of us, burning like a fire deep within our souls. By ignoring it, we risk extinguishing our creative spirit and disconnecting from an aspect of ourselves that gives life's pursuits and relationships meaning. But fuel it and you unlock the secret to lifelong spiritual vitality and regeneration. Whether you are drawn to painting, dancing, music, cooking, writing, gardening or sculpting, whether a novice or an expert, whether young adult, middle age, or golden age, here is an invigorating call to set free your creative potential. (2008
- www.skylightpaths.com - Phone: 800-962-4544) Now available in e-book format: click here. To read a review of this book, click here. Reclaiming
the Body in Christian Spirituality This
book addresses those who cycle, swim, ski, jog, garden, dance, play
ball, practice yoga, engage in manual labor, work for justice, care
for the earth and make love. It's central issue and focus is the
place of the body in the spiritual life….It relates to all
those on the planet who walk upright on two legs and who have the
capacity for self-reflection. In short, the question is this: What
are the implications of our embodied being for the way we go to
God?
Reclaiming
the Body in Christian Spirituality examines the role of the human
body in the Christian spiritual life. With its liberating and inclusive
approach to spirituality, it invites us to recover a conviction
of the goodness of our bodies and how God created us, so that we
can reclaim a positive, healthy attitude toward our individual bodies,
toward the body of believers who make up the Church, toward the
societal community around us and the “earthbody” of the
natural world. Editor
and contributor, Thomas Ryan, is joined by James Wiseman, Jim Dickerson,
Casey Rock, and James Hall in providing this unique overview of
Christian attitudes toward the body, and the ways of integrating
personal spiritual practices with political, social, and environmental
justice. (2005
- www.paulistpress.com
- Phone: 800-218-1903) To read a published review of this book, click here. The
Sacred Art of Fasting: Beginning to Practice The
Sacred Art of Fasting serves as a welcoming introduction to the
whys and ways of fasting. This ancient practice has roots in nearly
every religion around the world. In different forms in different faiths,
people fast as an expression of God-consciousness, humility, repentance,
purification, and concern for others. "The Sacred Art of Fasting is a feast of words that cannot fail to delight all who partake of it. With an economy of words and a reader-friendly style, Ryan has penned a work of substance." (2005 - www.skylightpaths.com
Phone: 800-962-4544) Now available in e-book format: click here. To read a published review of this book, click here. Hopkins: The Mystic Poets
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), Christian mystical poet, is beloved for his use of fresh language and startling metaphors to describe the world around him. Beneath the surface of this lovely verse lies a searching soul, wrestling with and yearning for God. Hopkins writes from a Christian background, and yet his themes speak to people of all faiths who seek a deeper understanding of the presence of God in all of life. Yoga Prayer - DVD Imagine
what it would feel like to pray with your whole body--how powerful
your prayer could become! For centuries, yoga has been used to
prepare the body for meditation and communion with the divine.
Now, with Yoga Prayer, Thomas Ryan offers an embodied practice
to renew and invigorate your connection to God. "Salvation
doesn't mean getting out of this skin, but being transfigured
and glorified in it." Here is a practice that invites you
to come home to your body as a temple of the indwelling presence
of God. With Yoga Prayer you have a doorway to use the precious
gift of your body to revitalize your prayer in a whole new way. For a published review of this DVD, click here. Four
Steps to Spiritual Freedom
"The most important
question in the spiritual life", said Thomas Merton, "is not:
'Are you happy?' but 'Are you free?'" Describing spiritual
freedom as the ability to think and act without external or internal compulsions,
the author makes clear through a variety of intimate stories and illustrations
from his own and others' lives what each step looks like when it is lived
in concrete terms. (2003 - www.paulistpress.com
Phone: 800-218-1903)
None of us can escape the sobering reminders of our finitude like aging, illness, loss, death. The question is, how do we deal with those reminders? With fear and trepidation? Or with a desire to learn the lessons they have to teach and to continue growing through our encounter with them? Engaging with the themes in this book, whether with reference to ourselves or loved ones, is an invitation to more conscious, fuller, and deeper living.
Remember to Live! is grounded in the reality of people"s lives and has been enriched by the reflections, testimony, and experience of family, friends, and participants in retreats that the author has led over the past fifteen years. It is a resource that people will go back to time and again as one or the other of these realities associated with the second half of life touches them personally.
At the end of each chapter are reflection questions, exercises, poems, and prayers to help readers do their inner work.
ISBN 978-1-61643-134-1 1 Price: $19.95
Living the Eucharist contains materials for small groups, families, teens, individual devotional reading, bulletin inserts, and a manual to help a leadership team implement this parish-based ministry. It provides real assistance in helping Catholics today understand themselves more fully as ambassadors of Christ"s love, sharers of his grace, and agents of his kingdom.
The work of a writing team composed of Rita Ferrone, Frank Mercadante, Catherine Maresca, Thomas Ryan CSP, Frank DeSiano, CSP, and Kenneth Boyack CSP, Living the Eucharist seeks to:
Fr. Ryan provides four different forms of interreligious prayer: "just being there," multireligious prayer, integrative religious prayer, and leadership of prayer at a multifaith gathering; examples of each form are given. The text details practical considerations relating to planning, and an appendix presents a compilation of prayer resources from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Baha'i, and American Indians that might be used in varying kinds of interreligious services.
ISBN: 978-0-8091-4513-3
PRICE: $12.95
Addressed particularly but not only to those in the second half of life, Soul Fire shows you how to cultivate your creative spirit as a way to encourage personal growth, enrich your spiritual life and deepen your communion with God. It explores the nature of creativity, offers paths and practices for developing your creative potential, and celebrates the gifts that come to you when you tap into it.
Each chapter provides questions for reflection to help you identify your creative energy, overcome your insecurities, and connect with your chosen method for expression. Practical exercises at the end of each chapter help you awaken your creative spirit within.
Learn how to:
ISBN: 978-1-5947-3243-0
PRICE: $16.99
ISBN: 0-8091-4295-3
PRICE: $16.95
A companion for the reader's journey as well as a practical guidebook,
The Sacred Art of Fasting shares helpful insights that will inspire
readers to begin or deepen their own fasting practice through a comprehensive
look at fasting as practiced in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Latter-day Saints. There are also inspiring reflections
from people who practice fasting, and advice on how to incorporate
fasting into the spiritual life.
A winner in Spirituality and Health magazine's 2005 Best Spiritual Books Awards
in the Spiritual Practice category.
This beautiful sampling of Hopkins"s poetry, with an expository preface by Thomas Ryan, offers a glimpse into his unique spiritual vision that continues to inspire readers throughout the world. The poems unite his two devotions, presenting mystical images of Christ in the natural world, which serve as a window through which you might also begin to see the Divine Presence in the world around you.
(2004 www.skylightpaths.com Phone: 800-962-4544)
ISBN 1-59473-010-5 Price: $16.99
Available in ebook format.
On this DVD there is a 3 minute introduction, 32 minutes of yoga
prayers, a 50 minute instructional section teaching you the postures
employed in the yoga prayers, and a 5 minute reflection on why
it should make good sense to Christians to engage their bodies
more fully in their spiritual lives in general and their prayer
in particular.
Join Fr. Ryan as he guides you through prayerful posture sequences,
each invoking a different attitude of the heart and mind in prayer,
manifested through the body. Two gentle warm-up yoga prayers to
inspiring music bring you to a place of inner quiet, followed
by five more moving posture flow prayers that engage the whole
person in graceful acts of worshipful praise, thanksgiving, and
supplication.
Produced by Paulist Productions, Inc. 2004
Distributed by Sounds True,
Inc. Phone: 800 333-9185
This book works in a fresh way with the four major themes of the Spiritual
Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, casting them as four steps to spiritual
freedom:
For anyone on a spiritual path in the midst of daily life and work, Four
Steps to Spiritual Freedom offers carefully and loving delineated guideposts
along the way.
To read a published review of this book, click here.
Prayer
of Heart and Body
Meditation and Yoga as Christian Spiritual Practice
Prayer of Heart and
Body is a down-to-earth, how-to guidebook for the beginning meditator
as well as a reliable compass check for the experienced.
In Part I, on "Prayer of the Heart" or meditation, the author
identifies what is distinctive about the way a Christian meditates, drawing
on the rich resources of both Western and Eastern prayer traditions to
make a compelling case for contemplative prayer as a universal birthright
for all Christians.
There have been books either on Centering Prayer or Christian Meditation,
yet this one treats them both as closely related expressions of a long
tradition of a deep, interior prayer traceable to Christianity's first
centuries.
Part II, on "Prayer of the Body," sets forth several ways that
yoga can help a Christian pray. As a Christian counselor and guide, Ryan
reflects on the experience of yoga practice in the light of sound theological
understanding. As a certified yoga instructor, he offers comprehensive
practical recommendations including illustrated warm-ups and postures
for all ages.
Written for contemporary Christians who seek a deeper and more satisfying
prayer life, this is a companion volume to Disciplines for Christian Living.
Now in its 6th printing, Prayer of Heart and Body remains a primary resource
for the many Christians who have discovered meditation and yoga and are
looking for help in rooting them in the soil of their own faith.
"Probably the most complete and accessible Christian introduction now available," Fr. Kevin Flynn, St. Paul's University, Ottawa.
(1995 - www.paulistpress.com
Phone: 800-218-1903)
ISBN: 0-8091-4056-X
PRICE: $15.95
Disciplines
for Christian Living
Interfaith Perspectives
"I feel a desire
to go deeper in my relationship with God. But how can I express this in
my daily life?"
This questions commands a concrete and applied response, the author contends,
and the answers he gives are straightforward spiritual disciplines for
daily life that most people probably have never thought of in that way-taking
time for friendship, living with a sabbath rhythm, exercising regularly,
and practicing presence to what is happening now.
Ryan shares the wisdom and insight he learned from his travels and experience
with othe rworld religions and teaches us how to integrate the emotional,
physical, and intellectual aspects of our lives into our relationship
with God through a reordering of the priorities in daily life.
Written for contemporary Christians who have little free time and many
demands on their attention, Disciplines for Christian Living is an outstanding
"How-To" Guidebook that opens the treasure chest of Christian
spirituality and tells us how to use its contents to love God in a more
meaningful, practical, and personal way.
"I am convinced
that this book will be of great help and support to the many people who
have a deep faith in Jesus but are at a loss when they look for ways to
practice it in their busy and always changing lives." - Henri Nouwen
(1994 - www.paulistpress.com Phone: 800-218-1903 )
ISBN: 0-8091-3380-6 PRICE: $14.95To read a published review of this book, click here.
A Survival Guide for Ecumenically Minded Christians
Survival means more than simply getting by. It means sailing through and triumphing over. After a frank look at the present ecumenical moment, Thomas Ryan presents a series of positive reflections on the kind of unity we are seeking, the richness of an ecumenical approach to church history and Christian spirituality, the importance of ecumenical friendships and the qualities needed for the journey.
(1989. www.alibris.com)
ISBN: 2-89088-389-2
Wellness, Spirituality and Sports
Noting that the Wellness Revolution claimed to be holistic in its approach, but gave scant attention to the dimension of spirit in a person's life, the author provides a spirituality for wellness, reflects on what makes for genuine leisure and play, and applies it to a range of fitness activities popular today with special chapters on running, swimming, skiing, and dancing. This book presents a holistic spirituality that enables active people to prize their sporting experiences as integral to their life of faith.
"Wow! A joyous, loving, exuberant book that produced tears in my eyes, love in my heart, and smiles on my face. Fr. Ryan brings to life that wondrous mixture we feel physically from using our body in sports plus the deep sense of reverence that exercise brings to our soul." - William D. Manahan, M.D., Founder and Director, Wellness Center of Minnesota.
ISBN: 0-8091-2801-2
(1986 - www.alibris.com )
To read a review of this book, click here.
Tales
of Christian Unity
The Adventures of an Ecumenical Pilgrim
In preparation for
his work with the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism, Thomas Ryan spent a year
visiting the leading Christian centers of Europe, England, and the Near
East. His adventures were many. He explored the underground cities of
Cappadocia, traveled in the Sinai desert with scholars and celebrated
the Holy Weeks of both Eastern and Western Christians in Jerusalem. He
stayed in a Coptic desert monastery, attended an audience of the Coptic
Pope Shenouda III in Cairo, and became one of the few Roman Catholics
to sojourn inside the Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece. Several
months of study at the International Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland
were followed by a summer searching for common ground with Anglicans at
the Canterbury ecumenical school.
This book, described by some readers as a theological and historical novel,
is the story of Ryan's journey, but more importantly a record of his discovery
of the richness of the Christian traditions and his emerging understanding
of the realities and hopes of contemporary ecumenical dialogue.
(1983 - www.alibris.com).
ISBN: 0-8091-2502-1
Fasting
Rediscovered
A Guide to Health and Wholeness for Your Body-Spirit
Fasting is worship.
Fasting is ministry. Fasting is an act of religious joy. Fasting is an
act of faith, hope and love. Fasting is prayer and meditation. Fasting
leads to deeper union with God. Fasting is restful. Fasting helps us to
celebrate.
Are these wild claims? Not according to Thomas Ryan, a Paulist priest
who takes us on a journey through the Old and New Testaments into the
centuries of the Church to take a look at fasting as a religious act.
Fasting Rediscovered: A Guide to Health and Wholeness for Your Body-Spirit
is a treasurehouse of information, experience, theology, history and practical
help and hints for anyone who wishes to look at fasting as a religious
act. Fr. Ryan's book is a refreshing new look at fasting for those who
seek wholeness and holiness in the unity of body and spirit within the
religious experience of Christianity.
(1981 - www.alibris.com)
ISBN: 0-8091-2323-1
PRICE: $14.95
To read a review of this book, click here.