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The rustling, the half-human shrieks and the quickened heartbeats of Daniel, Magdalena and Elijah were the only things echoing in the woods that night. The same question pounded fiercely in each of their minds: how did they wind up there, alone? There's no food, no water, no cell phone to call for help. It would be crazy to think that their families decided to desert them. Two eyes spy on them from behind the trees, and every day, when they wake up, they find a note telling them what to do; they, who never obeyed a rule, who were used to living over the edge. But what if giving in and obeying a stranger was the only way to save themselves from the hell they've been thrown into?

I remember some years ago, after September 11th, in that difficult moment in our country's history, one of the phrases you heard discussed in politics was 'changing the equation.' I don't know if you remember that? 'We've got to do something to change the equation.' We didn't like the equation; we didn't like the solution that the equation had come up with, so we wanted to change the equation.Today that equation has one great and good solution, which is life in Jesus Christ our savior and communion with our heavenly Father. He really and truly changes the equation for us. He changes the equation of the human heart.

Miguel Mañara, written 1912, is undoubtedly Milosz's best known work. It is the story of the original Don Juan, who ended his days in a monastery following a disordered life.

We live in a time of uncertainty. We like to think that we live in a peaceful, ordered society, but again and again we have discovered that the darkness of blind violence can envelop us at any time, like in Newtown or in Bos- ton. We take comfort in our general prosperity, but we have an uneasy feeling that the current economic crisis, with its high unemployment rate, is different from others in the past, and that things may get worse rather than better. We cherish our freedom, but we worry about the manipulation of democracy by powerful, apparently invincible forces. Such uncertainty seems to cast a cynical doubt on the ideals that define a human culture: the exaltation of the person, the pursuit of happiness, the commitment to build, and the pride of belonging to a people. How can we fight back? "When...the grip of a hostile society tightens around us to the point of threatening the vivacity of our expression, and when a cultural and social hegemony tends to penetrate the heart, stirring up our already natural un- certainties, then the time of the person has come." (Msgr. Luigi Giussani)

Undervalued, vilified, unsupported, stressed, underpaid, yet still undeterred. Unsung heroes, generously giving of themselves, against all odds, fighting a silent, difficult battle with immense sacrifice, tenacity, and perseverance. This battle - the battle of educating the men and women of tomorrow - takes place daily in our schools. Now more than ever, teaching has become a true calling or vocation - a call to remedy the bleak future that many foresee. The economic crisis and the tumultuous international climate have propelled teachers into the forefront, making them indispensable in the struggle to save our children and our nation. In their hands rests the American dream, economic progress, social stability, and world peace.

A blueprint for reform in the Catholic Church. The author draws on twenty-five years at the head of a young missionary order which he founded, and proposes a road forward out of the quagmire the Catholic Church and its priests find themselves in today. "Will there still be priests in the Church's future? Has not the time come for us to humbly inquire into the direction change should take?" So writes Mons. Massimo Camisasca. He dedicates nearly half of his book to silence, prayer, liturgy, and the Mass, and then moves on to discuss several commonly underdeveloped themes (study, fatherhood, common life, and friendship). He closes with three chapters on hot-button issues (virginity, women, mission) which he treats on the basis of the preceding reflections. With a preface by Mons. Bruguès, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education.

HAB is happy to re-propose after many years Paul Claudel's play The Tidings Brought to Mary, a play in a translation by Louise Morgan Sill. A significant introduction by Luigi Giussani, founder of the Catholic lay ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation, helps the reader to be drawn more deeply into the drama of the play and to find described there the drama which faces each of us. Pope Benedict XVI once made the point that world history is a struggle between two kinds of love: "self-love to the point of hatred for God, and love of God to the point of self-renunciation. This second love brings the redemption of the world and the self." This is the claim, the proposal of the play The Tidings Brought to Mary. After nearly a hundred years, as we watch this Infinite Love generate the play's heroic characters, we find ourselves begging in turn: "Please let me meet You. Please let your love take hold of my life. Please let me be embraced by a love that shows me where my place is-that draws everything in my life to Yourself. Please let me obey that love."