My Authored Books
As you will see below, the books I have authored move between academic theology and the life of faith. I am interested in helping to present the beauty and fullness of God’s life poured out for us, while helping people to enter more fully into that life. As a teacher, I want to help you learn. As a minister, I want to help you grow. And as a parent and fellow disciple, I want to accompany you toward the glory of our life together in Christ.
Strive for Christian Maturity
Maybe you are a committed young adult Catholic, or maybe you're not Catholic at all. Perhaps you were baptized and even completed your initiation into the Catholic Church through First Communion and Confirmation, and yet you don't think of yourself as "Catholic" first. Wherever you are in life, you're probably seeking a life with deeper meaning and substance.
Tackling a host of cultural and developmental topics, including prayer, friendships, dating, discernment, and more, this book empowers young people (and not-so-young people) with real guidance on the way to a full life of significance and consequence.
Exercise Christ’s Communion for the Living and the Dead
How are we to live as though our faithful departed are in communion with us now?
This book is a call to embrace the mission of the Church: to practice communion in Christ between the living and the dead. Through illuminating stories, biblical meditations, and theological explanations, you will rediscover how Christ makes us one across death and what that should mean for us today.
Two-Part Edition (for leaders)
God calls each of us to a life of goodness. Our yearnings to become more like God require lifelong practices of conversion. The Sacrament of Confirmation is a pivotal moment anchoring a Catholic’s commitment to God.
In this book I demonstrate how preparation for Confirmation can be a life-giving experience for candidates and those who accompany them. Candidates, sponsors, and parents will together foster a holistic formation of mind, heart, hands, and habits needed for transformation into a source of goodness in the world.
One-Part Edition (for anyone)
Catholicism is about the whole but we often pass it on as a bunch of pieces. What is missing in much of religious instruction, faith formation, and sacramental preparation is the coherence factor. We get bogged down in the tedium of “topics,” while the coherence factor has to do with the beauty of the whole. I am interested in the genius of Catholicism as a whole, without sacrificing attention to particular things within that whole.
This book is perfect for parents or sponsors whose children are engaged in sacramental formation, young adults looking for a compelling account of the faith, and adults hoping for substantive and illuminating account of the Catholic whole.
Learn to Pray through Christ
In this book you will move from learning how Christ prays, to how Christ teaches his disciples to pray, to the challenge and gift of actually praying. All along, you will discover Christ and rediscover yourself in him.
Deepen Your Devotion
Saint Joseph alone was called to be a father to the Son of God, and his fidelity and courage show each of us how to respond to our vocation as a disciple of Jesus and friend of God. In his wisdom, the Lord empowers Joseph to open his fatherly care to all Christians, to show us how to hear the word of God and act on it, and to shine in every age as a model of faith.
Each of the reflections in this devotional focuses on one of the twenty-two names, titles, or honors in the Litany of Saint Joseph As we pray to Saint Joseph, offering our petitions to his care, and contemplating his life and his witness, we are drawn into communion with God who yearns to dwell with each of us, and dwelt in this world in the household of his Saint Joseph.
Seek God Who Seeks You
"Where are you?" God called out to the first couple in the Garden of Eden. He never stops asking us the same question.
The divine search for us continues in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. When Jesus himself asks questions in the New Testament, he asks not because he needs an answer, but to draw us out of the shadows and into his presence. And he asks a lot of questions: "Do you want to be healed?" "Who do the crowds say that I am?" "Why do you call me good?" "Whom do you seek?"
Take up the challenge of reflecting deeply on 20 of the questions Jesus asks throughout the Gospels. His questions will change you.
Cultivate True Freedom
This is about putting first things first when it comes to educating and forming young people. Developing the Marian pattern of discernment from the Annunciation narrative, I analyze the modern situations young people find themselves in relative to pace of life, the lack of memory, the impediments to mercy, and the obstacles to fulfilling commitments. In such an environment, what would it take to form young people for the bravery and freedom Mary exercised in responding to the Word of God? That is what this book leads you to discover.
While parents, teachers, and ministers are the primary audience, young adults have also benefitted greatly from this work, including in the theology course “Discernment: Theology & Practice” at the University of Notre Dame.
Learn more here, and access discussion guides for parishes and schools.
Craft Stories of Grace
Unlike many evangelical Christians, Catholics often find it difficult to tell their faith stories. I have taught thousands of teens and young adults to relate their moments of grace in a way that is compelling, convincing, and free of clichés and vague generalizations. This book helps you form others to craft and share stories of grace.
This book is ideal for ministers and teachers, whom this book will empower to directly impact the cultures of their parishes and schools. Not familiar with “stories of grace”? Check out the Stories of Grace podcast.
Contemplate the Theology of the Communion of Saints
The saints are good company. They are the heroes of the faith who blazed new and creative paths to holiness; they are the witnesses whose testimonies echo throughout the ages in the memory of the Church. Most Christians, and particularly Catholics, are likely to have their own favorite saints, those who inspire and “speak” to believers as they pray and struggle through the challenges of their own lives. Leonard DeLorenzo’s book addresses the idea of the communion of saints, rather than individual saints, with the conviction that what makes the saints holy and what forms them into a communion is one and the same.
This work of academic theology will lead you into the heart of the mystery of God and point you toward the full hope of our heavenly communion. The spiritual and pastoral implications of this rediscovery are profound.
My Edited Books
I have had the good fortunate of collaborating with brilliant and creative colleagues on several books that I have edited or co-edited. All of these edited books seek to unite the intellectual life with the life of faith; theology with spirituality; study with practice.
Take a Spiritual Journey with C.S. Lewis
In a world that becomes stale without wonder, how do you reimagine the drama and joy of Christianity? For C. S. Lewis, the answer was to invite us into a different world that would help us see this one with fresh eyes. That world was Narnia, and by writing that world existence, Lewis created a land where courage would be tested and character forged, opening up the possibility for a moral and spiritual journey.
What you will find in this volume will help you contemplate Lewis’ masterpiece. That means you will be prompted to reflect, to reconsider, and to prepare to wonder at and appreciate what The Chronicles of Narnia allow us to enjoy. Ιndeed, our aim is to better prepare you to enjoy the chronicles on a return visit––especially as an adult––while also guiding you to better reflect on and deepen your appreciation of what you may have previously enjoyed. We look at the light with you, though each of us who contributed to this work has stood in the light and enjoyed the warmth of the Narnian sun.
Make a Literary Pilgrimage
Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person is a pilgrimage to rediscover the spiritual and humanizing benefit of the Commedia. Treating each cantica of the poem, this volume offers profound meditations on the intertwined themes of memory, prayer, sainthood, the irony of sin, theological and literary aesthetics, and desire, all while consistently reflecting upon the key themes of mercy and beauty in the revelation of the human person within the drama of divine love.
This work was conceived as a guide for a Lenten pilgrimage through Dante’s masterpiece, but it is a stimulating study for any time of year or season of life.
Rekindle Catholic Leadership
In North America over the last three decades, no one has thought as long and hard about the nature of the Catholic university, has been so passionate in its avowal, so visionary in its conception, and so persistent in reminding all who would listen that the university is a specifically Catholic achievement and the Catholic university an enduring legacy, as John Cavadini.
The breadth and wisdom of Cavadini’s distinctive leadership is a model for guiding the Catholic university along its unique mission, both within higher education and for the life of the Church. This vision is captured in Cavadini’s person and, by extension, in the initiatives, projects, and institutional activities that he has designed and executed.