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In 'Heavenwards', Father Thurston and Mother Mary Loyola offer readers a collection of insightful and inspiring meditations on the nature and purpose of human life. Drawing on scripture and the traditions of the Catholic Church, the authors provide a rich and thought-provoking exploration of the spiritual journey.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Those who frequently avail themselves of these Sacraments will appreciate this devotional aid which presents a fresh perspective. Here Mother Loyola's characteristic child-like devotion is a refreshing breeze in a still room.The examination of conscience found in this manual is particularly helpful in rooting out our hidden faults and passions.

It is said that when Mozart died at the age of 35, he had written over 600 complete pieces of music, and left several more unfinished. And while Mother Mary Loyola had considerably more years than this in which to work, when we take the number of her published works and add it to those which were never published, including a Church History, several papers on education, journal articles, and the mountains of correspondence which she is said to have carried on right up until her last days, it seems as if she must have been continuously writing from the time she began in the late 1880s until her death in 1930. This despite her duties as the Mistress of Novices for the Bar Convent during those same years.Twenty full-length books were published in her name during this span of years, and to the extent of our knowledge, another 14 shorter works were printed by such apostolates as the Catholic Truth Society, the Catholic Evidence Guild, The Convert's Aid Society and others. Many of these publications included no author's name, nor has any record of their authorship survived to this day, and thus there may be numerous works penned by her which we will never know.Thirteen of those fourteen known shorter works are contained in this volume, making this the first and most complete collection of Mother Loyola's briefer writings. As these ephemeral booklets disappear more and more quickly from collections around the world, it is our fond hope that by assembling them here, they may be preserved to future generations.

Mother Mary Loyola's masterful retelling of the story of the Life of Christ is appealing to all ages, and is well-calculated to inspire a deeper love of Our Lord and bring us closer to Him.

The second volume in a two-part series of meditations on the Church Year by Mother Mary Loyola.

Now the beloved allegory for children has been specially adapted for boys!

Now for the first time in nearly a century, this classic set of meditations on the Liturgical Year are back in print! Written while Mother Loyola was bedridden with a hip fracture, these devotions bring us the urgency of living our life With the Church, for we "know not the day nor the hour." The Irish Monthly back in 1924 had this to say about With the Church: "Father Thurston tells us that forty years ago Mother Loyola, when bringing out anonymously her first book on Holy Communion, and being anxious to get ecclesiastical recommendation for it, asked him to write a short preface. The favourable reception accorded by the Catholic public to the numerous books which she has brought out since that time has amply justified Fr. Thurston's judgment in recommending the authoress's work. This latest book of hers consists of a series of reflections on the feasts of the year from Advent to the Ascension. Her thoughts are always well-grounded and ingenious, and their expression is clear and graceful, with a strong personal charm. They are musings jotted down just as they occur to her devotional spirit and not simply as dictated by a resolution to follow a certain line."

From a review of Welcome! in The Month, September 1904: "Welcome is the title of Mother Mary Loyola's new book, and that is also the term with which the many readers of her former works will greet its appearance. It is, as the secondary title declares, an aid towards the art of using well the times before and after Communion, and the title of Welcome is in itself an illustration of the writer's felicitous power-to which Father Thurston calls attention in a short editorial preface-of giving expression to thoughts one has been long feeling but has not been able exactly to define. For what this one word "Welcome" does is to single out and set strikingly before us the underlying disposition which, whether in other respects we be joyous under consolation or dry and distracted under desolation, makes the one essential difference between a fervent and a lukewarm Communion. Working on these lines Mother Mary Loyola arranges her chapters to accord with the different aspects under which the soul may need and desire to welcome its Lord in Holy Communion. Thus we have the Welcome of Mary as the grand example for us to follow, the Welcome of Faith, of a Creature, of a Child, of a Sinner, of a Friend, of a Patient, of Trust, of a Toiler, of Love, of a Cross-bearer, these and others of a similar kind-and finally the Last Welcome. Under each heading we have half a dozen pages of appropriate thoughts for the times before and after Communion, consisting partly of self-communing, partly of prayers; which last, however, are by no means cast in the rigid moulds so familiar to us in our prayer-books-of Acts of Contrition, of Desire, of Love, of Self-oblation-but range freely and naturally among the various affections of the soul."

"It is our lot to journey to heaven backwards, so to speak, with our face to the enemy. It is not an easy journey. There is not a little danger that, while we drive off successfully many violent attacks, we may be brought to earth by obstacles that crop up in our path unseen....Heavenwards brings out for us many of these dangers, diagnoses them, and shows us a way out of the difficulty; it puts into words many a source of disquiet that we feel but cannot quite express....There is about it a certain air of cheerfulness and encouragement that is very helpful. We feel driven to strive after holiness, and to trust what is past to God's Providence." -from a review of Heavenwards in The Tablet, October 1910 "Never was there a period when young Catholics in their journey heavenward could count less upon public opinion and the force of good example to keep them in the right path," says Father Herbert Thurston in his preface to this book. "Thus while Mother Loyola teaches us how to find 'ladders' to scale Heaven, she lets us see that the most arduous part of the task lies in the simple resolution to fix our eyes steadily upon the welcome that awaits us." These 52 meditations--one for each week of the year--are intended to do just that.