Books about Celibacy from Amazon.com

Testimony of a Catholic Priest Who Converted to Christianity

As a child, Chiniquy memorized scriptures at his mother's knee and developed a deep love for God. Becoming a priest, he wanted desperately to place full trust in his church, but was hit by waves of doubt as his church claimed adherence to the Gospel, yet violated it at every turn. His jealous superiors falsely accused him, but Abraham Lincoln, a young lawyer from Illinois, defended him and saved his reputation. Chiniquy proves that it was the Jesuits who later killed Lincoln, and explains why..
Price: $12.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In his monumental book Peter Brown addresses the practice of permanent sexual renunciation--continence, celibacy, and life-long virginity--that developed in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries A.D.Brown vividly describes the early Christians and their strange, disturbing preoccupations. He follows in detail the reflection and controversy these notions generated among Christian writers. Among the topics covered are marriage and sexuality in the Roman world, Judaism and the early church, Origen and the tradition of spiritual guidance, sexuality in the desert fathers and Augustine and sexuality. The Body and Society is a significant study on sexuality and the family in the ancient world by a renowned scholar. Besides being of great interest to readers in ancient history and early church history, and to classicists and medievalists, it will engage readers concerned with women's studies and the history of sexuality..
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation collects four lectures given by the Catholic priest Henri Nouwen at the North American College in Rome in the 1970s. The lectures, which explore each of the topics named in the book's subtitle, are direct, pragmatic, and delightful. Nouwen's views on these weighty subjects are suffused with a lightness inspired by the clowns whose street performances captured his imagination during a visit to the Holy City. He describes these clowns as "awkward, out of balance and left-handed," and sees them as reminders of human weakness whose fumbles offer important lessons about the holiness of play. "Whenever the clowns appear we are reminded that what really counts is something other than the spectacular and the sensational," Nouwen writes. "Clowns remind us of what happens between the scenes. The clowns show us by their 'useless' behavior not simply that many of our preoccupations, worries, tensions, and anxieties need a smile, but that we too have white on our faces and that we too are called to clown a little." --Michael Joseph Gross.
Price: $5.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For fans of HBO's Sex and the City-or anyone who's been on a bad blind date-comes this hysterical look at life in the single lane. She refers to it as 'the streak': 1001 days without sex-79 days shorter than the Kennedy administration-which promp-ted Suzanne Schlosberg's friends to dub her the Cal Ripken of celibacy. Given the common belief among single women that all the good men are either married or gay, Suzanne's predicament is hardly extraordinary, but what she does to end the streak makes for a hilarious tale. Suzanne hits bottom when her younger sister gets engaged, leaving her less than a year to find a date for the wedding. She shifts into overdrive, experimenting with Internet dating, speed dating, and other bizarre 21st century matchmaking rituals. But after enduring every indignity of singlehood-attending the endless parade of other people's weddings, paying for birth control that goes to no use, and fielding questions from unrelenting family members about potential prospects-she ultimately learns to ask herself: Does she really need a man to find happiness?.
Price: $3.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Award-winning author and theologian Carole Hallundbaek unearths the intimate, real-life relationships between some of Christianity's most beloved male and female saints and distills "a vibrant, beautiful, and utterly useful guide for our own relationships today." Journey from medieval Italy to modern day Trump Tower and explore with new relevance the relationships between Francis and Clare of Assisi, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Catherine of Siena and Pope Gregory XI, and Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. Discover, as they did, essential spiritual keys to better relationships - in love and marriage, at work, with neighbors, in community, and with God. Illustrated, with the poetry of young Karol Wojtyla before he became Pope John Paul II..
Price: $8.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Does religious life still make sense today?

Author of New Wineskins, Sandra Schneiders began a brilliant yet controversial examination of modern religious life in her acclaimed book Finding the Treasure. That first title located religious life within the multiple realities of today's postmodern world and post-Vatican II Church. This new volume examines today's post-conciliar, post-modern religious life "from the inside," looking at the make-up of religious life's specific identity and how it functions today. She does this through the three lenses of commitment, consecrated celibacy, and community.

Through the lens of commitment, Schneiders surveys the process of entering the religious life, from the first experience of a call to a final promise of perpetual profession. She also explores the theological concept of divine call, as well as the psychological and spiritual process of human discernment. And she shows how realistic commitment is possible even in today's world of kaleidoscopic change and instability. Schneiders then examines consecrated celibacy from theological, biblical, and feminist standpoints. Last, she explores the theological and prophetic nature of community life as a Gospel imperative both shared by Christians and unique to religious. And she raises sociological and spiritual questions about the forms and lifestyles of community life.

Perhaps even more than the first volume, Selling All extends beyond its primary audience of women religious to include male religious, religious of other denominations, spiritual directors, retreat directors, and all lay Christians on a serious spiritual quest. The book is also invaluable for use by general chapters, in formation programs, and by study groups..
Price: $13.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]