Cultivating Virtue: Self-Mastery with the Saints

by Tan Books

On every page Cultivating Virtue imparts the true spirit of the Catholic Faith. This book takes 12 Christian virtues—one for each month, with a reading for each day of the year—and shows you how to master each one. Featuring episodes and sayings from the lives of the Saints, it covers Perfection, Humility, Mortification, Patience, Meekness, Confidence, Charity, among others.

Master the virtues and set out on your road to becoming a saint by learning directly from the great saints, such as St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Vincent de Paul, St. John of the Cross, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, St. John Chrysostom, and many others.

Cultivating Virtue possesses the unique quality of touching the soul with just a few paragraphs and putting a person in tune with God’s view of our affairs. The reader can pick it up for a few moments and gain incomparable inspiration. For this is one of the most moving and powerful Catholic books ever written and one that will enflame the reader with the love of God and desire for true Christian perfection.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Christianity, Faith, Nonfiction

469 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 9, 2016

Reviews

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is like visiting an old friend. I think I'll start it anew tomorrow!

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father Ripperger like no other person in recent memory has helped me so much with my ever-ongoing Christian formation, self improvement and mastery of the virtues. That said, when he starts listing off how many virtues there are and the Thomistic definitions of each, my stunted intellect gets a bit challenged and I get lost. But, fortunately, this Advent, in an effort to stop sinning mortally, I tried out some advice Fr. gave and got a massive payoff of spiritual fruit.

His advice:
Ask The Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of the Our Lady of Sorrows (or Sorrowful Mother) and your guardian angel to reveal to you your defects.

The Sorrowful Mother and my angel came through big time and I have gotten great clarity about my manifold defects. My faults started coming and in wizened words of the sages, Smash Mouth, they “[...start comin' and they don't stop comin’[…]”.

This book is gold. And finding it was a real blessing.

I'm not crazy about the format: sort of a quote for every day of the year kind of thing with some little anecdotes following them. But I got use to it.

St. Frances de Sales definitely got the most page time (I really should have just read his Introduction to the Devout Life already,) followed closely by St. Vincent de Paul, who I've heard of but knew nothing about.

Solid .

Sorrowful Mother, pray for us!

Doctor of the Church, His Excellency, Bishop, St. Frances de Sales, pray for us!

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling this "read" is a bit of a misnomer as this truly is a 365-day book that should be read continuously, and permanently. As I've often mentioned in other reviews of great spiritual books, it's something I wished I discovered a long time ago. With a special focus on the wisdom of St. Frances De Sales, St. Vincent De Paul, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John Bellarmine and more, it's a fantastic treatise on virtues, with each calendar month corresponding to a specific virtue. This book is about examination, instruction, and reform of the soul. It makes an excellent companion to "A Year with the Church Fathers," and similar works. This book itself is a reprint of an 1891 classic "A Year with the Saint: A Virtue for Every Month of the Year" originally published in Italian. More than worth picking up and reading.

[periodic reset of civilizations · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE MORTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT 'IS WELL UNDERSTOOD', Unfortunately the Mortification of the body 'IS NOT'.


THE PURPOSE OF MORTIFICATION IS to Master this body.
If you Mortify this body, you are always 'IN THE ATTENTION TO DETAILS'.

THIS AUTHOR 'has not understood this parameter'.
IT'S A PITY, REALLY A PITY because 'THIS COLLECTION' of saints and 'OTHER HOLY PEOPLE' makes 'this book VERY IMPORTANT'.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book every morning as part of my morning prayer, and have been doing so since 9/2019.