Image Books

G.K. Chesterton lends his witty, astute and sardonic prose to the much loved figure of Saint Francis of Assis. Grounding the man behind the myth he states "however wild and romantic his gyrations might appear to many, [Francis] always hung on to reason by one invisible and indestructible hair....The great saint was sane....He was not a mere eccentric because he was always turning towards the center and heart of the maze; he took the queerest and most zigzag shortcuts through the wood, but he was always going home."Review: "his opinions shine from every page. The reader is rewarded with many fresh perspectives on Francis..." -- Franciscan, May 2002

This inspiring and fascinating memoir, subtitled, “The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist,” The Long Loneliness is the late Dorothy Day’s compelling autobiographical testament to her life of social activism and her spiritual pilgrimage. A founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and longtime associate of Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day was eulogized in the New York Times as, “a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality.” The Long Loneliness recounts her remarkable journey from the Greenwich Village political and literary scene of the 1920s through her conversion to Catholicism and her lifelong struggle to help bring about “the kind of society where it is easier to be good.”

What are the fundamental attributes of the Catholic Church? What is the source from which it has drawn vigor and life through its two thousand years of life on earth? What are the secret sources of its incredible vitality in the world today? The author answers these and many other questions about the nature and structure of the Church. He examines the essential nature of the Catholic Church from the basic premise that it was expressly founded by Christ, traces its historical development and analyzes its actual functioning through the ages.