What are we doing when we confirm teenagers? Why is the religious education of teenagers so perplexing? Why is confirmation often a moment of "graduation" out of parish life? Confirmation: How a Sacrament of God's Grace Became All about Ustells the story of how confirmation, more than any other sacrament, has interacted with secular culture to give rise to these kinds of pastoral challenges. At the same time, confirmation has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a sacramental stamp of approval for various Catholic renewal movements. The cultural shifts of the last century have led to various theological themes for confirmation, creating a crisis of meaning today. Is confirmation a personal choice for faith, or is it the deepening of an ongoing relationship with the Divine? Timothy Gabrielli gives us a fresh approach for addressing these pressing questions.

Written for the candidates in junior high and high school (or older), this YOUCAT Confirmation book provides in-depth preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. Designed in the same popular format as the best-selling YOUCAT, this book has interesting, lively text on many spiritual topics and themes to help the student be well prepared to receive the Sacrament. It also includes many good questions throughout the book that youth ask about the faith, God, Jesus, the Church, etc., and the answers are cross referenced with either the Bible or with YOUCAT. Among the topics covered are: Why the World is Broken, Jesus-More than a Mere Man, In Search of the Holy Spirit, Prayer-Staying in Touch with God, The Church, Eucharist, Confession, the Rite of Confirmation, and more. Like Youcat, the creative design includes many fun illustrations, color pictures, quotes from saints, popes and scripture, and the favorite Òmoving stick figuresÓ at the bottom of each page. Ê

Newly elected U.S. president Bob Long is weighing reports of nuclear weapons in Iran when he learns Justice Peter Corbin Franklin, 86-year-old liberal conscience of the Supreme Court, has suffered a massive stroke. With pressing same-sex marriage and abortion laws as well as a huge antitrust case on the court's docket, the door is open for Long to appoint a conservative replacement, repaying the twenty-one million evangelicals who voted for him. But it won't be that easy. Long suffers a series of political missteps while his court nominee, Marco Diaz, endures vicious character accusations in the media for his religious beliefs and rumors of a tragic past. Meanwhile, terrorists in Iran have hijacked more nuclear materials and are threatening to bomb a major city if the U.S. or Israel attacks. Chaos reigns in the nation's capitol.

A novel of high-stakes political intrigue on the shadowy side of Washington, The Confirmation sheds light on the men who run the Central Intelligence Agency, on investigative journalists, and on government officials fighting for control of the nation's secrets. The confirmation of the seemingly spotless nominee Frank Cabot as Director of Central Intelligence is jeopardized when Brad Cameron, a young CIA officer looking for evidence of American prisoners left behind after the Vietnam war, uncovers a suppressed report -- a claim by a convicted American spy that Cabot cooperated with the Russians in a shameful cover-up twenty years earlier. As Cabot attempts to clear his name, reporter George Tater digs relentlessly for the story that will revive his career and Cameron doggedly pursues the truth about what happened. The result is a full-scale Washington media circus, as a host of interested parties -- the president, the press, the senators who must vote yea or nay on Cabot's nomination, and Cabot's friends and enemies -- all try to conceal, expose, or spin what he did and why. Closely paralleling these events is a different kind of conspiracy. A clandestine militia of angry Vietnam vets, convinced that officials in high places have deliberately abandoned American POWs, plot a confrontation -- both clever and rash -- calculated to violently disrupt Cabot's confirmation hearings. Thomas Powers, the author of books on intelligence and covert history, writes knowingly about how the CIA and its officials operate in the world of Beltway politics. At the heart of this riveting novel is a well-kept secret that, as it emerges, reveals how difficult it is to tell the heroes from thevillains, the truth from the lies, the honorable from the self-serving. As Brad Cameron learns, in official Washington doing the right thing may prove to be more dangerous than anything he has done before.

Come take a faith walk with me. This book is meant to be simple, but profound. My prayer is that someone reading this book will better understand their own journey. It's an adventure, a trip that is designed especially for you by the very one who created the universe. Miracles and dreams are still happening today. Walk it out by Faith, which is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof, complete confidence, or given with strong assurance: Binding. Life with Christ is just that!! Binding-- a contract for life. Hold on, sometimes the ride is up the mountain and down the other side. Sometimes it is like sailing on the calm open sea, or like taking a bumpy ride in an old wagon. We all spend eternity somewhere; why not make the right choice. Remember we get to make the choice; God has left that up to us. Joyce Michal has devoted her past 16 years to other people's needs. Her entrepreneur spirit has directed her how to do all things through Christ who strengthens her. She wasn't an avid reader, but now finds herself writing a book in order to tell people about a dream God gave her nineteen years ago that drove her to success. God is still in the miracle business. Can one do that without a good education? Evidentially so, she has managed to do it with the help of her personal savior (Jesus). We can do all things.