Bob is just too nice for this world. Innocent, naive, gullible, seemingly born under a bad sign or a misalignment of the stars, but good hearted and always with a smile and a helping hand. It's a wonder someone like Bob can even survive in such a harsh world, jostled about by circumstance and those with bad intent. Or does he? Whether he can overcome a mind boggling series of misfortunes and bad luck is anybody's guess. He most certainly will take his lumps, more so than most, and all unde...

At the peak of his career, Dan Hurley, powerful Chicago politician, master of clout, discovers a conscience, wises up, and comes to regret his life's work running and profiting from a political machine he has come to despise. But he has a plan. Far from the city, on a hill in the country where coyotes howl, he hatches a rebellion to throw a wrench into the machine and salvage his reputation, his son's respect, and what is left of his life. But is it too late? As Dan Hurley discovers, there...

As the longest Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119 comprises 176 verses. Its message sings the praise of Israel’s Law and describes how the faithful should respond to the gift of God’s self-revelation. In The Longest Psalm, Michael Casey offers a meditative reading of each verse of the psalm, intended to be read one at a time, to facilitate a personal prayer and reflection. Psalm 119 brings together elements found throughout the Psalter and the reflections focus on universal themes as w...

Describes desirable reasons and practical techniques for transforming prayer from merely a daily "activity" into a total way of life.Paperback

Bonnie Gold, twenty-eight, Native American, Jewish, Irish, recent Phd in hand, has fallen through the cracks, adrift, and lost without direction or purpose, until she's drawn into her mother's uphill battle for governor of the State of Wisconsin. Bonnie's life improbably begins to come together as her parents' relationship comes apart under the stress of the all consuming political campaign fraught with dirty tricks and dark money. Shattered windows, shots in the night, and violence endemi...

There is more in Benedict’s Rule than meets the eye. Based on the rules of life of John Cassian and Saint Basil, Benedict invites us to go further back to the scriptural basis of all Christian and monastic living and pursue our spiritual journey by the guidance of the Gospel.This book of reflections on the tools for good living is intended to be read very slowly, one section at a time. In addition to communicating reflections on each verse of chapter 4, Casey invites readers to:

Balaam’s Donkey is a series of daily reflections based on the homilies preached by Cistercian monk Michael Casey over his fifty years of priesthood. What remained of the original homilies was a large box full of index cards with a few talking points on each. From there, Casey has re-created the homilies and recast them into short reflections, arranged randomly for every day of the year. The range of topics discussed is broad and the approach taken differs with each reflection, mos...

After sixty years of living in a Cistercian community, Michael Casey combines his down-to-earth observations about the joys and challenges of living in community with an appreciation of the deeper meanings of cenobitic life, taking into account the changes in both theory and practice that have occurred in his lifetime. He invites his readers, especially monks and nuns, to reflect on their own experiences of community as a means of seeing a path forward into the future.Many of the k...

Describes the techniques and practicalities for transforming prayer from an "activity" to a way of life.

In the Prologue of his Rule, St. Benedict maps out the road that leads to heaven; he lays the foundation for life in a community that seeks God. The themes that are present throughout the Rule - obedience, humility, prayer, fear of the Lord, eternal life - are grounded in the Prologue.By reflecting on the Prologue one verse at a time, Michael Casey, OCSO, delves into the richness of meaning that can be found in Benedict's words. These reflections, first given as talks and made avai...

This book shows us how humility brings a basic happiness that is able to cope with difficulties and sorrows. Casey translates the ancient wisdom of Saint Benedict into the modern arena of capitalistic competition. He also demonstrates how people must stop regarding others as rivals and be content with what we have because it is a waste of time to envy those who possess qualities different than our own. Humble individuals are con-tent with both the gifts and limitations inherent in who they...

How has American literature after postmodernism responded to the digital age? Drawing on insights from contemporary media theory, this is the first book to explore the explosion of new media technologies as an animating context for contemporary American literature. Casey Michael Henry examines the intertwining histories of new media forms since the 1970s and literary postmodernism and its aftermath, from William Gaddis's J R and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho through...