Renew The Church! – website and Blog

Everyone needs some time apart!

Time to reflect, to ponder the things of God, to simply be quiet, to listen to the sounds of Creation.

R. Thomas Richard

This is the Blog and website for Renew The Church!  Please explore the site to learn more of our efforts for Church renewal.  The site is newly moved and is “under reconstruction,” so be patient if some pages are missing or incomplete for now.

Note also that Thomas and Deborah are also available for retreats, parish presentations and other works in the apostolate of Adult Formation and Education.

About my books….

I’ve written four books as of now.  Each one of them began with experience of my own interior, spiritual need and the helps I found toward answering that need.  Each need in my own spiritual journey was met by a new and life-changing discovery of authentic treasures of wisdom and experience that are our heritage in traditional Catholic spirituality.  Each book, then, was and is offered in the hope that it can help others as I was helped – helped to enter more and more fully into the communion of life and love in Christ: our common vocation.

1) The Ordinary Path to Holiness – the three stages, or ages, of the interior life are described.  This is the journey of the saints: through stages of death to this passing world, and life in the supernatural relationship with God.  If we are to grow toward Him, this is the path – the ordinary path – that we will travel.  It is good to know!

New: this book is now available (the Third Edition) at Amazon.com, in paperback and in the ebook “Kindle” versions for any Amazon customer – and it has “Expanded Distribution”.  This means that this book (in paperback) is available for resale by other online retailers, local bookstores, and book distributors.  (This doesn’t guarantee that this book will be ordered and available through these outlets – but it is available to them to order and offer to their customers.)

2) The Interior Liturgy of the Our Father – an unfolding of the prayer taught us by Jesus.  This prayer reveals much more than “the perfect prayer,” more than “the model of all prayer.”  This prayer reveals the entire journey of prayer from beginning to end – the guideposts pointing us, petition by petition, toward the summit of our vocation: communion in the Holy Name of God.

3) Encountering Christ in Holy Scripture through Lectio Divina – in Scripture we can meet Christ!  He is truly waiting for us, waiting to be found, heard and met in His Word.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  The ancient method of Lectio Divina is disarmingly simple, yet potent in promise: listen and you will hear; hear and you will believe; believe and you will live.

4) The Mass in movements – Conversion, Consecration, Communion – the work of the Mass and our rightful personal participation in it.  The Mass proceeds through movements – from the call to Conversion in the Liturgy of the Word, to the holy Consecration at the altar, to the supreme Self-gift of Christ to us in Holy Communion.  Following in these movements opens the mystery of this Source and Summit of the Christian life, and it opens our part in it: our worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth; the offering of our lives, a living sacrifice.

All four books are in ebook format for the Nook (Barnes and Noble) and the Kindle (Amazon); the first two books are in paperback (Amazon and Barnes and Noble and perhaps other bookstores have only the first).

I can be contacted through “Fidelis Presentations” at email address:
fidelis@renewthechurch.com