On March 7, 203, in the amphitheater of Carthage, Vibia Perpetua was among five Christians executed for refusing to worship the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his son.
Perpetua was unique: an aristocratic married woman, mother of an infant son, and the earliest known female prose writer whose work survives. In this compelling study, Sarah Ruden presents a fresh translation of Perpetua's prison diary and explores her life within the turbulent late Roman Empire. Grounded in Perpetua's own words, Ruden reveals a vivid and complex personality, candid, bold, and deeply human.
Moving beyond traditional portrayals of passive sainthood, Sarah Ruden depicts Perpetua as a woman balancing public courage with the private emotions of a mother, daughter, sister, and friend facing death with striking honesty and determination.
Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence
Author/Artist:
POPE LEO XIV
ISBN-10:
1923033271
ISBN-13:
9781923033276
Publisher:
St Pauls Publications
Binding:
PAPERBACK
Price:
AU$14.95
Description:
The Vatican released Magnifica Humanitas, Latin for "Magnificent Humanity", on 25 May 2026, making it the first papal encyclical devoted primarily to artificial intelligence. Pope Leo XIV, signed the 42,300-word document at St Peter's Basilica on 15 May 2026, exactly 135 years after his namesake Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, the foundational 1891 encyclical on labour rights during the Industrial Revolution.
On 25 May at the Vatican, theologian Anna Rowlands presented key themes from Pope Leo XIV?s encyclical Magnifica humanitas, focused on protecting human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence. Rowlands described the document as an urgent moral intervention, arguing that society can no longer delay confronting the social, political, and economic consequences of AI. She stressed that decisions about technology must not be left solely to corporations or profit-driven systems, but should include the voices of workers, migrants, families, and communities most affected by digital change.
Rowlands warned against "posthuman" visions that treat people as replaceable parts within algorithmic systems, emphasizing instead the value of human limitation, solidarity, and participation. She said the encyclical challenges the world to recover a shared moral imagination rooted in justice, love, and the common good. Ultimately, she presented Magnifica humanitas as both a critique of technological domination and an invitation to build a more humane and compassionate society together.
For two millennia, the pope has stood as the recognised leader of the Roman Catholic Church, succeeding St Peter and guiding millions of Catholics around the world. Organised chronologically, this illustrated book explores the lives and legacies of the Church?s most influential popes, from St Peter to Pope Clement VII, whose reign faced intense political, military, and religious turmoil, and Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope.
Readers travel through moments in Christian history, including the splendour of Byzantium, the Crusades, the Avignon Papacy, and the rise of the modern Church.
Bound in traditional handmade style and featuring 150 artworks and illustrations, this volume offers a fascinating insight into the history of the Catholic church from the first millennium to the present day.
Everyday Mystics: Spirituality for People Who Don?t Read Spirituality
Author/Artist:
JUDITH SCULLY
ISBN-10:
1922589772
ISBN-13:
9781922589774
Publisher:
Coventry Press
Binding:
PAPERBACK
Price:
AU$27.95
Description:
Judith Scully writes from a belief that the mysterious life-spark each of us brings into the world is a God spark, and it never goes out. Religion can smother this spark with words, rituals and prohibitions, leaving many adrift from the historic and familial foundations of their faith.
Rooted in language that would feel at home around a kitchen table, Judith structures her book to bring life and understanding to words commonly used about spirituality. Her purpose is so that people of every denomination, or none, are enabled and encouraged to identify and appreciate the mystic in their everyday.
Judith reminds the reader that the dreamer in us is also the mystic in us, as it struggles to be recognised in twenty-first century everydayness.
Pools of Grace: The Gift and Call of Contemplative Worship
Author/Artist:
SARAH BACHELARD
ISBN-13:
9798385230570
Publisher:
Wipf & Stock
Binding:
PAPERBACK
Price:
AU$31.95
Description:
In recent decades, contemplative prayer has experienced a renewed interest within the Western church, yet its influence has rarely extended beyond small meditation groups into the heart of congregational worship. This book explores what it means for contemplative practice to shape not only liturgy, but the entire life of a worshipping community.
Derived from the lived experience of Benedictus Contemplative Church in Australia, it offers a vision of common worship grounded in silence, attentiveness, and spiritual depth. Through practical reflection and theological insight, it invites church leaders and communities to imagine worship that is spacious, reflective, and transformative. At its heart, the book reveals how contemplative worship can reconnect people with what is most essential for their lives, their communities, and the wider world.
This collection of reflections on hope brings together the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women whose stories rise from Country, community, faith, and lived experience.
Hope is not romanticised but is remembered through survival and revealed through truth-telling. It is reclaimed through cultural identity and spiritual resilience.
Written during the Jubilee Year of Hope (2025), this collection honours the wisdom of women who have long held their families, communities, and churches in times of both struggle and renewal. Each reflection offers a window into a deeply personal, yet profoundly communal understanding of hope.
This is a book for anyone seeking a truer, richer understanding of hope, one shaped by the enduring strength, dignity, and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing
Author/Artist:
JAMES K. A. SMITH
ISBN-10:
0300279760
ISBN-13:
9780300279764
Publisher:
Yale U Press
Binding:
HARDBACK
Price:
AU$41.95
Description:
James K. A. Smith explores how radical uncertainty can be liberating, opening us to another way of being. The pain of his own profound uncertainty led Smith to a surprising source for consolation: the mystical experiences of Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing. These mystics testify to a deeper truth beneath all that distracts and all that foments anxiety and fear. It is love.
Drawing on ancient traditions of contemplation as well as on contemporary novels, poetry, film, and paintings, Smith speaks to the fundamental yearnings that persist today, including the philosophical quest for knowledge and certainty. He shows how the gifts of the Christian contemplative tradition and the riches of creative works embody a liberating spirituality that recovers the fullness of being human.
As Smith traces his twenty-first-century journey with the mystics, he reveals that wisdom is learning how to live with uncertainty. In bringing a philosopher's eye and ear to the mystics, Smith brings a mystical heart back to philosophy.
Bishop Erik Varden, a Trappist monk and Bishop of Trondheim, reflects on whether modern society has truly moved beyond Christianity or if a renewed spiritual awakening is beginning. He addresses major contemporary issues facing the Catholic Church, including evangelization, liturgy, synodality, blessings, the sexual abuse crisis, and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
Bishop Varden offers essays rooted in faith, holiness, and the transforming message of Christ. Rather than promoting na?ve optimism or despair, he presents a balanced and realistic vision of hope, showing how suffering, injustice, and disappointment can still hold meaning and purpose.
With clarity and compassion, Bishop Varden encourages readers to look beyond the confusion of the modern world toward the enduring light of faith. Hope is not wishful thinking, but a living and powerful reality.
page :
1
Please
note: All
prices listed on this site are in Australian Dollars (AU$)
and are GST inclusive.
Prices
may change without notice. Postage & packing extra.
