Have you ever thought of yourself as a vessel of love? This image speaks to what I envision for the elderhood years. The vast life experiences of the past provided countless opportunities for our love to grow and mature. The persons we have known, what we have done or had done to us, the beliefs stretching our minds and hearts, what we gained and what we shed, the results of our choices and decisions, our deliberate participation in the evolving history of the world--all this and more we bring with us into the final decades.

During this lifetime, whether we've been aware or not, a Presence of immeasurable love has been flowing through those experiences, quietly filling the vessel of our inner being. Like vats of matured wine, our ripened goodness has readied itself to move outward. The Beguine mystic, Mechthild of Magdeburg, trusted that the great flood of divine love never ceases. ...It flows on and on effortlessly and sweetly and without failing until, finally, our tiny vessel becomes full and spills over. Now is the efficacious time to tend our tiny vessel so this graced goodness strengthens in us and benefits the life of those we encounter.

Living compassionately is rarely convenient and often downright challenging, writes Joyce Rupp, bestselling and award-winning author and retreat leader. The definitive Christian guide to compassion, Boundless Compassion is the culmination of Rupp's research and work as codirector of the Servite Center of Compassionate Presence. Through this six-week personal transformation process for developing and deepening compassion, Rupp nudges, encourages, and inspires you to grow in the kind of love that motivated Jesus' life and mission for his disciples.

With master teacher Joyce Rupp, you will learn to develop compassion as never before. You will discover compassion from science, medicine, theology, spirituality, sociology, and psychology. You will be encouraged to explore personal and professional expressions of compassion, and to re-energize your ability to offer loving kindness to those around you.

Rupp has felt the call to walk with others in their suffering since she was a young member of the Servants of Mary, whose charism is compassion. She eventually cofounded the Boundless Compassion program with Sr. Margaret Stratman, O.S.M.

Based on the format and theme of Rupp's bestselling books like Open the Door and her popular workshops conducted by the Center of Compassionate Presence, Boundless Compassion has the power to transform your life, giving you wisdom, confidence, understanding, and inspiration to be a more caring presence. It will help you build on relational skills, learn self-care, gain wisdom for incorporating loss and suffering into your active life, and find ways to show compassion at work.

By the book's end, you will feel prepared to live with a renewed commitment to a compassionate presence for yourself and those who are in the midst of pain, struggle, and transition.

Everyone has unique goodbyes--times of losing someone or something that has given life meaning and value. With the touch of a poet, Joyce Rupp offers her wisdom on these experiences of leaving behind and moving on, the stories of union and separation that are written in all our hearts. Praying Our Goodbyes, Rupp says, is about the spirituality of change.

It is a book for anyone who has experienced loss, whether a job change, the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, a financial struggle, a mid-life crisis, or an extended illness. It is designed to help readers reflect, ritualize, and re-orient themselves--to help heal the hurts caused by goodbyes and the anxieties encountered when one season of life ends and another begins.

In Jesus, Guide of My Life, bestselling and award-winning author and retreat leader Joyce Rupp takes us by the hand this Lent to explore the words and actions of Jesus in the gospels so that his teachings and living presence can inspire our spiritual transformation.

In this third installment in her trilogy of Lenten daily reflection books, Rupp offers her insight and personal experience of the power of the Gospel to shape our lives. She explains that the wisdom and reassurance of Jesus can pilot us when we are caught in the stormy weather of grief and serve as guardrails when our minds travel on roads made of worry and self-deprecation. Rupp will help us connect with Jesus as not only a teacher, healer, and counselor who sets direction for our lives, but also as the Way (Jn 14:6) in whom we abide in divine love.

For each of the forty days of Lent, Rupp offers a brief reflection that opens new dimensions of a gospel account of Jesus's ministry and applies his guidance to our lives today. She also includes a prayer and daily intention that invites us to spiritual growth and to reach fuller depths in our faith. Questions for personal reflection or group discussion are included.

Winner of a third-place award for contemporary spirituality from the Catholic Media Association. One of the Spirituality & Practice 50 best spiritual books of 2021.

For more than a decade, bestselling author and international retreat leader Joyce Rupp has written a monthly newsletter offering personal reflections and inspiration from her heart to ours. In Return to the Root, Rupp expands on the best of those reflections to invite all of us who feel overwhelmed by busyness, cut off from the Divine, or adrift in the world to reach solid ground.

Through her reflections, as well as new poems and prayers, she guides us to see the essential--what is at the root of our lives and what keeps us rooted--so that we can feel at peace no matter the events of the world around us.

Rupp offers meditative, uplifting reflections--grown out of the seasons, the Church's liturgical life, and the small moments that adorn our days--that escort us through the year. With each reflection, we shift beyond the immediate moment to see the timeless truths within, including choosing to hold on to hope, trusting how God speaks to us and how we experience the Divine, and recognizing that there is always something for which to be grateful.

Whether we need to be reminded of important truths or to experience moments of tranquility in a life of nonstop distractions, Rupp's Return to the Root offers us space to explore the beauty of the world and hold onto those things that sustain our beings and, as the apostle Paul wrote, keep us rooted and grounded in love.

At age 60 Joyce Rupp didn't know what she was getting into when she began a 47-day pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the road made famous by the movie The Way. Joined by her walking friend Tom, a retired pastor, Joyce learned lessons that can help all of us travel on life's up-and-down journey with more grace and lightness. She shares them in this enjoyable recounting of her journey across mountains and valleys, cities and farms.

The twenty-five life lessons include:

• Set Out with Hope and Enthusiasm
• Travel Lightly
• Acknowledge the Kindness of Strangers
• Let Yourself Be Humbled by Weakness
• Savor Solitude
• Return a Positive for a Negative
• Look for Unannounced Angels
• Trust in the Divine Companion

Bestselling author and beloved retreat leader Joyce Rupp has offered companionship and gentle guidance throughout the seasons in such books as May I Have This Dance? and Anchors for the Soul. In Jesus, Friend of My Soul, each two-page daily reflection brings our attention to the Lenten season, providing reflections for growth and inviting us to follow Jesus and become more like him.

As Christians, Joyce Rupp writes, we look to the person of Jesus to learn from him. Because our lives are filled to the brim with activity, it is easy to drift away from trying to live as Jesus did, and we find ourselves in need of time to focus on drawing close to him again and learning from his example. In Jesus, Friend of My Soul, Rupp guides us from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday illustrating both how Jesus called his followers to change and how his actions provide us a blueprint for growth.

Rupp helps us learn from the qualities of Jesus and the actions and teachings that marked his time on earth, including:

• how Jesus extended mercy after Peter's denials
• how Jesus trusted in his Father, even as he experienced other emotions when troubling events occurred
• how Jesus spoke and acted with integrity, which made him a valuable and trustworthy person for others to listen to and follow

Each day's reflection begins with a verse from scripture and a meditation centered on Jesus' life, actions, and teachings that are applied to our lives. We are then offered a prayer and an intention to carry with us throughout the day. Each brief reflection gently leads us to new growth in our lives and invites us to reach new depths in our faith. Questions for individual or group study are included.

Compassion can change a heart, change a life, change a world. But we have to learn how to be compassionate and Joyce Rupp--codirector of the Servite Center of Compassionate Presence--can guide us.

Forty original prayers, blessings, and meditations by Rupp will help us practice themes of compassion: as a way of life, welcoming ourselves, the river of suffering, from hostility to hospitality, a thousand unbreakable links, and compassionate presence.

To be used alone or as a helpful companion to Rupp's Boundless Compassion book and program, this collection of prayers will inspire anyone to change the world.

For more than thirty years, Joyce Rupp has been writing bestselling spiritual books that have accompanied readers through the seasons of life and helped them glimpse the Divine. In Anchors for the Soul, prayers, poems, blessings, and meditations from Rupp's many works are brought together to offer daily wisdom that will guide you and keep you anchored to God throughout the year.

It's easy, as we rush from one important thing to the next, for our days to feel off-balance, overwhelming, or even lacking in purpose. In Anchors for the Soul, bestselling author and retreat leader Joyce Rupp helps you root each day in the Holy One's love and the promise of his faithfulness.

Anchors for the Soul, compiled by Kathy Reardon--a spiritual director, retreat leader, and nurse--contains pieces from such Rupp classics as The Circle of Life and Fragments of Your Ancient Name as well as such perennially popular works as The Cup of Our Life and Praying Our Goodbyes. This daily devotional touches on the themes that have marked Rupp's work as you travel through the seasons of the year. She walks with you as you experience grief, embrace stillness, and see in your daily life the fingerprints of the Divine. She helps you welcome new life, practice selfless acts of kindness, and remember the gift that is the people in your life, all the while showing you glimpses of the heart of God.

Filled with Rupp's characteristic prayers, poems, meditations, and blessings, this treasury provides a daily retreat to center yourself in the warmth of the Divine embrace and begin the day feeling renewed. Each day's reading concludes with a practice to carry with you for the rest of the day that brings you back to your center and reminds you to be light to the world.

With the exquisite prose and poetry that has always graced her writing, Joyce Rupp mines the multiple meanings of important images in the Bible, in order to get us through our own rough moments. Included are: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, Jesus lost in the temple, Mary seeing Jesus carrying the cross, Mary at the foot of the cross, Mary receiving Jesus' dead body, and Jesus being laid in the tomb.

Some of Sr. Joyce Rupp's most perennially popular books have been collections of her original prayers, blessings, poems, and reflections. In Prayer Seeds, the bestselling author and retreat leader offers almost a hundred new selections on a variety of themes such as the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year, compassion, ministry, difficult times, and important events--all suitable for personal or group prayer.

People who attend Rupp's retreats or workshops often approach her to ask for a copy of a prayer that she composed for the event. In 2000, she collected her prayers in the book Out of the Ordinary. In Prayer Seeds, Rupp follows up with about a hundred never-before-published prayers written since the publication of the first collection. The prayers are organized thematically.

Rupp's warmth and closeness to God along with her sensitivity to the joy and sadness of life make her an ideal prayer companion. Her prayers are like seed planted in your soul. Tended and watered by love, they will grow and bear a rich harvest in your life.

Lent can be a time of bearing heavy burdens, of carrying the worries, pains, and sorrows that weigh on our hearts. Joyce Rupp reminds us that even though we may feel alone during these times of personal distress, we have the loving, empathetic, and ever-present companionship of Jesus by our side.

In Jesus, Companion in My Suffering, Rupp--bestselling author of several books on grief, loss, and suffering, including Praying Our Goodbyes and Jesus, Friend of My Soul--will guide you to see Jesus not only as someone who understands deeply what you have experienced but also as a teacher whose wisdom you can apply to your own life. By allowing Jesus to accompany you in times of trial, Rupp says, you'll be encouraged to move toward more compassion for yourself and others.

For each of the forty days of Lent, Rupp offers a brief reflection on a story from the life of Jesus, applying his actions and teachings to our own experiences. She also includes a prayer and daily intention that invites us to spiritual growth and to reach fuller depths in our faith. Questions for personal reflection or group discussion are included.