Did you know there’s quite a lot of amazing Catholic books, tools and more that are waiting for you to order them at either no cost or for a very small shipping fee or donation? These are amazing tools that just might be what you need to light the spark in your faith if it’s started to dim or to make it burn even brighter.

I’ve stumbled across many of these over the last few years and here are some of my absolute favorites. Go order them for yourselves right now!

1) Rediscovering Catholicism – Matthew Kelly and his DynamicCatholic.com organization offer tons of free books and resources on their website. But my favorite is his original book on Catholicism, Rediscovering Catholicism. This is what helped me early on understand Catholicism and its relevance in light of our society today. EVERYONE should read this book. It will bring your faith to life for you! Order here + $5.95 shipping & handling.

2) The Rosary and Divine Chaplet on CD – The easiest way to start praying the rosary is to order this CD and stick it in your car. Pray whenever you have quiet drive time. If you don’t yet know how to pray the rosary, this is the easiest way to learn. They pray it for you and you can either just listen to them or repeat back as you begin to learn the prayers. Order it here for just a $1 donation. Here are more ideas for fitting the rosary into your busy day.

3) Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary materials – Read my blog on Total Consecration (a process I highly recommend) and if you decide you feel called to make this commitment to Mary, order free materials to help you through process from MyConsecration.org. This practice, made popular by St. Louis de Monfort and Pope John Paul II, can be completed in several ways. If you’re interested in the more classic, prayer-filled preparation from St. Louis de Monfort, order those materials free here. If you’re interested in a more modern interpretation and requires less time, order 33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr. Michael Gaitley for free.

4) Flame of Love – Similar to St. Faustina’s visions of Jesus and subsequent diary, Flame of Love written by Elizabeth Kindelmann shares messages she says she received between 1961 and 1982 from both Jesus and Marty. They are similar to those of St. Faustina and other approved Marian messages  around the world. Order your free copy of her book. At the National Congress of The Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary movement in Budapest, Hungary, June 6, 2009, Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop President of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary and President, Council of Episcopal Conferences in Europe, gave the text his Imprimatur.

5) Mass Journal – Another great free tool offered by DynamicCatholic.com is a mass journal. Bring this notebook with you to mass and write down any messages from God or thoughts that occur to you during mass, so you don’t forget. Order here + $5.95 shipping & handling.

6) The Conversion of Scott Hahn CD – I recently heard a fellow parishoner, who was a lifelong Protestant, mention this CD as key to her understanding and ultimate conversion to Catholicism. Hahn is a wonderful writer who helps explain the Catholic faith in his many books. He is a former Protestant minister turned Catholic convert. Order for just a $1 donation.

7) St. Therese Novena Prayer Card – Many Catholics have a devotion to the “Little Flower,” St. Therese of Lisieux (my confirmation saint, whom I adore). It is said if you pray her novena for a specific intention, she will send you a sign in the form of a rose. I’ve received my rose (read about my signs from St. Therese)! See if you get yours. Simply order this free St. Therese Novena Prayer Card from the Society of the Little Flower. You can also order prayer cards, even ones touched to a relic, for $.55 or less.

8) Prayer Process Cards – This is a wonderful exercise suggested by Matthew Kelly that you strive to complete daily. It encourages you to prayerfully consider your day from what messages God was speaking to you to what you could have done better to thanking God and praying for others. These cards are a simple reminder of the process to keep by your bedside, on your side table, in your prayer area or wherever. They send 20 at a time with $5.95 shipping & handling, so share with your friends!

Having arrived at the ripe old age of 40 :), I’m taking a serious look at my life and how I might make the best of my earthly life in my remaining years. God has led me to several interesting books, all of which encourage you to focus your time on what is most effective and eliminate all the rest.

This is the 80/20 rule, which says that 20% of causes result in 80% of your results. It has been proven time and again and was originally proposed by the economist Vilfredo Pareto. It applies in all areas of your life and effectively says 20% of the things you are doing are causing 80% of your results, so eliminate the other 80% of causes/tasks/customers, etc. This results is huge time savings that you can then put toward accomplishing other goals be it: traveling the world, volunteering, homeschooling your kids, reading more books, praying, spending time in adoration, starting a nonprofit, write on your blog more (me!)…you get the idea.

In the book “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More With Less,” by Richard Koch, he says many people have attempted to explain why this theory holds true. It was once thought that God and everything in the universe was very logical and linear: a+b=c, but this doesn’t jive with why the 80/20 principle works. At the end of the 20th century, scientists proposed “chaos theory.” Things are not so nice and tidy and easily traced to a singular cause in the universe it turns out, but somehow there is still an organizing “force”. He says:

“Yet chaos theory, despite its name, does not say that everything is a hopeless and incomprehensible mess. Rather, there is a self-organizing logic lurking behind the disorder, a predictable nonlinearity–something which economist Paul Krugman has called ‘spooky,’ ‘eerie’ and ‘terrifyingly exact.’ The logic is more difficult to describe than to detect and is not totally dissimilar to the recurrence of a theme in a piece of music. Certain characteristic patterns recur, but with infinite and unpredictable variety.”

I found that to be a fascinating paragraph, because doesn’t that just sum up God, the Almighty Father, perfectly? Of course, he can at once be singularly chaotic but utterly perfect. Everything may seem chaotic in the universe, yet it all works together perfectly just the way it should. The “force” behind it all? Sounds like God to me :).

If you’re interested in the 80/20 Principle and studying how to eliminate the most ineffective parts of your life to free up 80% of your time, here are the books I highly recommend (all should be available at your library if you don’t want to purchase):

• The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
• The One Thing by Gary Keller
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

I am already incorporating these principles into my life and in just one week, the results were amazing. This is life-changing stuff!

I’m an avid reader. So much so, I’ve engaged in a program to help me find even more time to read as many books as I possibly can. Catholic books are definitely at the top of my list and I’ve read little else over the past two years. As a Catholic blogger, lots of books cross my desk, but I was anxiously awaiting Teresa Tomeo’s latest, “Walk Softly and Carry a Great Bag: On-the-Go Devotionals.”

I found Teresa soon after I converted to Catholicism on her national daily radio show Catholic Connection on EWTN Catholic Radio. She grabbed me instantly. I loved listening to the news from a Catholic perspective and learning about new books and resources via the guests on her show. Better yet, I loved that I felt like I was chatting with a girlfriend while learning all this!

If you love Teresa Tomeo, you’ll love “Walk Softly and Carry a Great Bag.” If you don’t know Teresa Tomeo, you should, and you, too, will love “Walk Softly.” Teresa is known for her characteristic wit, frankness and gift of gab. In this book, designed for women, she manages to get across important issues with an authenticity that both entertains and deeply grabs you. It’s not surprising to hear her break into tears on a topic that particularly touches her heart. I love her utterly pure honesty and courage in letting her true feelings show.

“Walk Softly” is no boring book on Catholic theology or deep academic look at the meaning of life and God. But, yet in an amazing way, it still reaches quite deep but in a light-hearted, funny manner that no doubt will elicit plenty of chuckles. Teresa is gifted with the ability to tell a story and make a point all in a wonderfully self-deprecating manner.

“Walk Softly” in my bag

“Walk Softly” is designed as a daily devotional that you can read on a whim — while in line at the grocery, waiting to pick up the kids in the car line, before bed, first thing in the morning or whenever you need a pick-me-up. It’s even designed to fit right in your purse!

Each reading is no more than three short pages long and contains a short Bible verse and prayer. Some of my favorites were:

• They Fought the Lord and the Lord Won – How saints were sinners just like we all are.
• When God Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello – God prunes those he loves!
• Eat, Drink and Be Faithful – Enjoying life and having fun in a Godly way.
• His Casa, Your Casa – Plant seeds of love and leave the rest to God.
• Wake Up and Make the Coffee – God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.
• Don’t Rain on My Pitty Party – Quit complaining, and do something!

Say Teresa in the book: “Whatever your particular situation, you’ve come to the right place, because ‘Walk Softly’ is designed to fit into any size purse, as well as any lifestyle, no matter where you are in your faith.”

I highly recommend picking this one up for yourself or as a gift for Mother’s Day, graduation, bridal shower, birthday and more. It’s ideal for any Christian woman looking to boost her faith with a little fun, to boot!

Note: I received this book at no cost in exchange for an honest review.

As a Catholic newbie, getting to know the Bible was high on my priority list, and I do feel like I’m light years ahead of where I started two to three years ago. Simply going to mass weekly (if not daily) and reading the daily readings, as well as subscribing to FlockNote’s free daily Gospel emails has helped me get familiar with some key stories, especially the New Testament.

But all this reading the Bible in bits and pieces, while it has its place and is wonderfully meaningful in itself, makes it difficult to consider the Bible in context and take a look at the bigger picture. What is the overall story of the Bible and how does it play out from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

I picked up a book from Lighthouse Media recently called Bible Basics for Catholics by John Bergsma that gives a wonderful big picture look at what the Bible is trying to convey from start to finish. And this book was incredibly eye-opening for me (and a quick read, I might add!).

While the Catholic Church does a great job with the readings of the day in selecting Old Testament verses that relate to New Testament verses to show you the parallel, this book really brought many of those similarities, comparisons and foreshadowing examples to light in a wonderfully simplistic summary. The author even uses stick figure drawings to help you visualize the progression of the Bible.

So, what’s the Bible all about? Hector Molina says it’s really a love story, a love story between God and his people. Bergsma shows you how this “love story” really plays out as a “covenant story.” The Bible, in one way, is really the story of God making various convenants with his people, who so sadly break them time and time again. Jesus brings us the final, once and for all, covenant, and in fact, He is the convenant itself.

I know you probably knew this convenant idea already, but what this book does it show you how Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets and more all foreshadow Jesus, and it reveals many of the signs, symbols and passages that prefigure Jesus’ coming. The book also provides a historical context, considers the meanings of the original Greek words and truly brings a depth of meaning unlike anything I’ve yet to read.

As one example, did you know that at the traditional Jewish Passover Jews would drink four cups of wine? At the Last Supper, Jesus only drinks three cups of wine, according to the Gospels. But he completes the Passover ceremony on the cross when he tastes of the bitter wine offered to him, making it the new Passover and completing the convenant.

Remember when Jesus said he would not taste the fruit of the vine again until the Kingdom of God comes, yet tastes it on the cross? This always thoroughly confused me. Have you ever considered he drank of the wine then to signal the Kingdom of God had come? This is the kind of cool stuff that you’ll learn.

Here is a link to this book on Lighthouse Catholic Media and on Amazon. Let me know what you think!