Ancient Wisdom, Living Fire: Lessons I Learned from the Fathers of the Church

In Ancient Wisdom, Living Fire, bestselling author and multiplatinum recording artist John Michael Talbot reveals how the Church fathers--great martyrs, saints, theologians, and mystics--helped him to become closer to Jesus.

Talbot weaves his own spiritual journey with thirteen lessons he learned from Church Fathers including Sts. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, explaining how their witness became part of the sure foundation of his own faith and ministry.

The early Church Fathers built on the foundation of Christianity passed down to them by Jesus through the apostles. In this powerful work, John Michael Talbot introduces readers to both well-known and less familiar but highly influential Church Fathers of the first through eighth centuries. These are the great minds and hearts of ancient discipleship that have deeply influenced Talbot's own spiritual, professional, personal, and religious life. Their words and witness have drawn Talbot closer to Jesus, giving him, and all of us, the guidance, assurance, and wisdom we all seek as we walk with the Lord.

In Ancient Wisdom, Living Fire, Talbot highlights thirteen essential lessons that will show us how to grow closer to Jesus, including:

• how to be true children of our fathers in faith
• why prayer is non-negotiable
• how to choose Christ over everything else
• why we look to the Virgin Mary
• how to make room for all in need

You, too, can walk along the path of the ancient fathers with Talbot to become closer to Christ.

John Michael Talbot is a prolific Catholic singer-songwriter, speaker, and bestselling author who founded an integrated monastic community, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

Talbot has recorded more than fifty albums and authored thirty books. He is recognized as one of Catholic music's most popular artists and his work is widely loved by Christians of other denominations. Talbot's compositions are published in hymnals throughout the world. He received a Dove Award for Worship Album of the Year for Light Eternal, with producer Phil Perkins, and is one of nine artists to receive the President's Merit Award (a Grammy) from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1988 he was named the number one Christian artist by Billboard magazine.

Talbot began performing at age seventeen with his brother Terry in their country folk-rock band Mason Proffit. Born into a Methodist family, Talbot explored fundamentalism, Native American religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the Jesus movement. That's when he began using his musical talent to express his faith, eventually becoming a pioneer in the contemporary Christian music scene. He studied all Christian denominations, but found Catholicism spoke to his heart. He was inspired after reading about the life of St. Francis of Assisi and began studying patristics and monasticism at a Franciscan center in Indianapolis, Indiana. He entered the Catholic Church in 1978 and joined the secular Franciscan order. He started a house of prayer called The Little Portion, which he later moved to Arkansas. This developed into the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

Talbot remains the spiritual father and minister general of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, which also includes the St. Clare Monastery in Texas and those who live outside the community. His humanitarian efforts have been recognized by the Mercy Corps with the Mother Teresa Award. He created and was host of All Things Are Possible with God on The Church Channel.

Talbot lives as a family monastic with his wife at The Little Portion Hermitage, which he founded as part of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity in Berryville, Arkansas.

Mike Aquilina is a Catholic author, popular speaker, poet, and songwriter who serves as the executive vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.