Regardless of their sometimes ambiguous concepts of God, the Roman Stoic philosophers did acknowledge Him, but on the basis of reason alone, because they had not met Christ. Nonetheless, they did deduce from God's existence our need to live lives of virtue, honor, tranquility, and self-control--and they developed effective techniques to help us achieve this. Musonius Rufus the teacher, Epictetus the slave, Seneca the adviser to emperors, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor himself, produced a practical technology we can use to integrate Christian ethics into our own daily practice. As Kevin Vost so wonderfully illustrates in his new book, The Porch and the Cross, the Stoics can help us learn--and remember--what is up to us, and what is up to God alone.

If you want to make progress in the spiritual life, you must know your enemy. Best-selling author Kevin Vost shines a light on the seven deadly sins, showing how they take root in our souls and keep us from being raised to heaven.

 

In these pages, Dr. Vost unpacks the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas history's greatest theologian in an engaging and accessible way. He unveils the hidden connections between common sins and shows how each gives birth to daughters other thoughts and deeds that help it reach its sinful goals.

 

We all struggle with the seven deadly sins to varying degrees. Read this book, and you'll walk away armed with an arsenal of practical weapons to combat these sins and to clear the path for greater virtue, deeper happiness, and more profound union with God.

Yes, I know that memorizing the Faith is no substitute for living a holy life, but even devout people can’t live by truths and precepts they don’t remember. That’s why, over 700 years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas perfected an easy method for his students to memorize most any information, but especially the truths taught by Christ and His Church.

As the years passed, our need for this ancient art of memorization grew, yet somehow our culture largely forgot it . . . which is why today, when you and I try to remember a list of things, we have to repeat their names over and over. Or, to remember to call the dentist, we tie a string on our finger. And we clutch at any means whatsoever to recall our passwords for ATMs, credit cards, and voicemail, our login names for Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon, and the host of other names and numbers that clog our minds and clutter our days.

Now, thanks to the delightful pages of Memorize the Faith!, you can easily keep all these in mind — and learn the Faith! — by tapping into the power of the classical memory system that helped St. Thomas become the Church’s preeminent theologian, and made it easier for him to become one of its greatest saints.

Here, Catholic scholar Kevin Vost makes available again Aquinas’s easy-to-learn method — the method Dr. Vost himself has used for decades to recall names, dates, phone numbers, the first dozen digits of pi (3.141592653589) and even whether, when his wife called him at work today, she asked him to bring home ice cream and toffee . . . or was it truffles and coffee?

Indeed, Dr. Vost will teach you to remember virtually anything, but he devotes most of his book to showing you how to improve your memory of Catholic truths so you can live the Faith better.

By the time you finish this book, you will have memorized dozens of key teachings of the Church, along with hundreds of precepts, traditions, theological terms, Scripture verses, and other elements of the Faith that every good Catholic needs to know by heart.

Memory is the foundation of wisdom. It makes holiness easier. To grow wiser in the Faith...and holier...turn to Memorize the Faith! today.

They are called Hounds of the Lord, and Stoics on spiritual steroids. For 800 years they have barked out Christ's gospel message, saving countless souls and showing us how to think, do, and love for the glory of God.

 

Inspired by the stories of their saints, we join the Dominicans in celebrating the Jubilee of their first 800 years. In these pages, we draw inspiration and spiritual strength from the lives, lessons, and legacies of their intellectual giants and enrapt mystics, the men and women who scrubbed floors, and those who cared for the dying.

 

You'll discover countless fascinating and pious stories, prophetic dreams and visions, apparitions of Christ and Our Lady, appearances of the devil in disguise, miraculous healings, episodes of bi-location, stigmata, incorruption after death, and more.

 

From St. Thomas Aquinas to St. Martin de Porres, in story after story you'll see how God favored these holy men and women in so many surprising and supernatural ways. Even 800 years later, these Hounds of the Lord are still out there today, roaming the world, seeking out souls to retrieve for Christ.

 

Open this book, and you'll be given a taste of that glorious and joyful spirit that animates the Dominican Order a spirit they have so long and so willingly shared with the rest of the world. Let their example serve as inspiration, and let loose the hounds of the Lord within you.

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.

 

 

Beginning with the Gospel parable of the talents – which were buried in the ground by some, and multiplied by others – Kevin Vost here unearths a treasure for those who are struggling to live a life of Christian virtue: the ten particular talents that God has given each of us as our own . . . to bury . . . or to multiply for our own good and the good of the Kingdom.

 

Guided especially by St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Church’s greatest teachers, as well as by Fathers of the Church and the example of many saints, Vost explains how you can discover, understand, and perfect each of your own ten talents.

 

In the process, you will develop your noble ability to reason, strengthen your faculties of mind, perfect your physical capacities for beauty of form and grace, nurture your ability to act angelically, and prepare yourself to live that life which is proper to a being made in the image of God.

 

Do you know what your ten talents are? Do you know what God wants you to do with your life? As He gave ten talents to each of the souls in the parable, so He has given ten particular talents to you. Don’t ignore them any longer, or leave them buried.

 

Let Kevin Vost help you unearth them, and show you how to multiply them a hundredfold.

Even while he was still alive, Dominican friar Albert of Cologne was widely called Magnus the Great. His contemporaries said St. Albert simply knew all there was to know; he was a scientist, theologian, and philosopher; a teacher, preacher, and negotiator; a shrewd shepherd and an unflinching defender of the Faith. The time has come to re-discover St. Albert's greatness, and to profit from his prodigious wisdom and virtue as did his famous student, St. Thomas Aquinas.

 

Author Kevin Vost presents St. Albert's brilliant scholarly career at the height of the Church's intellectual renewal in the thirteenth century. St. Albert was tireless (and courageous) in his leadership and works of reform as a Dominican provincial and diocesan bishop. Desperate popes pressed him into diplomatic missions, hoping that Magnus might succeed in making peace where lesser men had failed.

 

These pages not only tell St. Albert's story they share his lessons. Each chapter uses Albertine teachings, and the witness of the saint's life, to instruct, edify, and inspire us to greater holiness and more ardent love. Read St. Albert and see why the greatest man of his age has great things to offer our age as well.

Are you a thinker, a doer, or a lover?

 

In Three Irish Saints: A Guide to Finding Your Spiritual Style, Dr. Kevin Vost mines ancient and modern sources to reveal what Saints Kevin of Glendalough, Patrick of Ireland, and Brigid of Kildare can teach us about the joys of contemplation, evangelization, and charitable living. Thinking, doing, and loving!

 

Included is a a simple self-test to find out which spiritual master you are most like.

 

Would you rather: plop down in your easy chair and enjoy a good book? Celebrate life and the company of others? Engage in long conversations with your close friends?

 

Vost examines the lives of these three great saints, unearthing the gifts and virtues that made one a thinker, one a doer, and one a lover.

 

So which one are you?

 

Read the book. Take the test. And find out.

In his bestseller Memorize the Faith!, Kevin Vost rediscovered a memory method invented by the ancient Greeks and perfected by medieval scholars, and showed twenty-first-century Catholics how to use it to recall everything from the Ten Commandments to the Seven Deadly Sins. Now, in Memorize the Reasons!, Dr. Vost shows you how to remember information you need to explain and defend the Catholic Faith. Often when we re challenged by non-Catholics who always seem to be able to quote chapter and verse we stumble, and later think regretfully of what we might have said. The powerful mnemonic techniques found in Memorize the Reasons! will make sure it never happens again. In simple steps that even children can master, Dr. Vost teaches you how to build memory cathedrals inside your mind, and to fill them with vibrant images that will instantly recall reasons for the papacy and Church authority, for Catholic beliefs about the Blessed Virgin Mary, for Sacred Tradition (and against sola scriptura), and more!

Best-selling Catholic author and speaker Kevin Vost (Fit for Eternal Life and Memorize the Faith) takes the daily devotional to the next level: the fitness level!

 

Together with popular author and fitness devotee Shane Kapler (The God Who Is Love) and fitness expert and best-selling author Peggy Bowes (The Rosary Workout), Vost explores the ways in which a daily devotional can feed both the soul and the body.

 

Tending the Temple is written with a daily spiritual meditation upon the life of a saint whose influence then becomes the foundation for a unique exercise for that day. The winning team of Vost, Kapler, and Bowes has created a truly distinctive way to begin each day in a faith-filled way and is sure to become a favorite for every person anxious to live out his or her faith both spiritually and physically. The glossary and health terms included as references are invaluable, and show the determination of Vost, Kapler, and Bowes to help the reader combine health of body with health of spirit.

 

As they so passionately-and with wit and candor-remind the reader: It is never too late to care for your body the way God intended!

 

Tending the Temple is a great place to see how body and spirit can work together for the ultimate in fulfillment: living as God planned-whole and holy.

God was dead to Kevin Vost for most of his adult life. Baptized, confirmed, and raised Catholic, at age 17 Vost left it all behind as he immersed himself in atheism for a period that lasted over two decades.

 

Paralleling a successful career as a psychologist and professor, Vost allowed his clinical perspective to drive his faith perspective as well, falling into a common trap for many Catholics.

 

This timely book's unique approach gives credit where credit is due, as Vost describes the good elements in the thinking of several famous atheists. But then, from experience and logic, he shows how each of these thinkers falls short.

 

From there, Vost opens the doors to the philosophers and psychologists whose work, implicitly or explicitly, has paved the way toward belief in God, and even in Jesus Christ.

 

And finally, from the perspective of a clinical psychologist, Vost unveils how theologians, popes, and Catholic philosophers persuaded him to abandon this atheism and embrace faith in Christ and the Church.

 

Each chapter ends with a "Truth Box" that spotlights a chink in atheism's armor, adds a cautionary perspective, or highlights an important argument foundational to faith. With patience and perspective, Vost will lead you on a journey that reveals how reason, science, and faith work together to find the truth.

Is your spirit faithful but your flesh flabby? Has your Temple of the Holy Spirit begun to creak and crumble? Then let Fit for Eternal Life show you how to build it up again.

 

Most any workout book can help you bulk up or slim down, but only here will you find a truly Christian approach to physical fitness. As Catholic psychologist and veteran bodybuilder Kevin Vost (author of Memorize the Faith!) reveals, God's command to be perfect applies not only to our moral life, but also to our bodies. By Him we were wonderfully made as creatures corporal and spiritual. The stronger and more enduring we make our bodies, the better we imitate Christ in whom perfect physical strength, endurance, and beauty were incarnated.

 

Best of all: it doesn't take a lot of time, special knowledge, or fancy equipment to do it. Dr. Vost explains the basic principles of strength and endurance training in a way you can understand (even if you haven't been in a gym for years or ever), and then helps you assemble an effective, personalized workout program that can be performed in as little as twenty minutes per week, leaving you plenty of time (and energy) to be an active Christian parent, spouse, and disciple.

DR. VOST's LATEST BOOK!

Many of us fail to recognize that obtaining the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to getting to heaven. We often block their reception through our own faults. We fail to see how they are passed on or strengthened in the sacraments. And, sadly, we forget to petition God in prayer to bestow these gifts upon us.

In these pages, Dr. Kevin Vost — best-selling author of The One-Minute Aquinas — provides us with a substantive yet readable introduction to the seven gifts and how we can humbly submit our wills to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.

As Dr. Vost explains, these God-given gifts help us to conform our lives to His image, intellect and will. They prevent us from being drawn into frustration – and possibly self-destruction – by following our own sensual appetites. Indeed, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are the only path to being fully happy on earth and in the life to come.

With St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure as his guides, Dr. Vost introduces you to the special charism of the Holy Spirit before explaining each gift one by one. You’ll discover the special meaning behind each of the natural and theological virtues, and you’ll learn the indispensible link between the seven gifts and the Beatitudes. You’ll also learn:

How the seven gifts differ from the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

The three ways to perfect fear of the Lord.

The one sacrament that helps you fortify fortitude – it’s not the one you think.

How the gift of knowledge differs from the gift of understanding.

The seven steps to unwrapping – and sharing – each of the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

The greatest of the seven gifts – and why you must possess it to attain heaven.

Are the seven gifts habits we must develop, or does the Holy Spirit instill the habits in us?

Don’t let another year go by without unwrapping and enjoying the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Read this book, and then accept the seven gifts the Holy Spirit so desperately wants to give you.