A History of the Church in 100 Objects

Winner of two Catholic Press Association Awards: Design and Production (Second Place) and History (Honorable Mention).

The star of Bethlehem exemplifies the birth of Jesus, the Wittenberg Door is synonymous with the Protestant Reformation, and "the pill" symbolizes the sexual revolution. It's "stuff" that helps tell the story of Christianity.

In this unique, rich, and eye-catching book, popular Catholic author and EWTN host Mike Aquilina tells the Christian story through the examination of 100 objects and places. Some, like Michelangelo's Piet , are priceless works of art. Others, like a union membership pen, don't hold much monetary value. But through each of them, Aquilina offers a memorable and rewarding look at the history of the Church.

When Catholics tell their story, they don't just write it in books. They preserve it in memorials, monuments, artifacts, and museums. They build grand basilicas to house tiny relics.

In this stunning book, Aquilina, together with his writer-daughter Grace, show how the history of the Church didn't take place shrouded in the mists of time. It actually happened and continues to happen through things that we can see and sometimes hold in our hand.

The Christian answer to Neil MacGregor's New York Times bestseller A History of the World in 100 Objects, Aquilina's A History of the Church in 100 Objects introduces you to:

• The Cave of the Nativity (the importance of history, memory, and all things tangible)
• Catacomb niches (the importance of Rome, bones, and relics of the faith)
• Ancient Map of the World (the undoing of myths about medieval science)
• Stained Glass (representative of Gothic cathedrals)
• The Holy Grail (Romance literature and the emergence of writing for the laity)
• Loaves and fish (a link from Jesus to the sacrament of the Eucharist)
• The Wittenberg Door (Martin Luther and the onset of the Reformation)

Each of these and the 93 other items and places in the book tell part of the Christian story. Each is an essential piece of the story of our salvation.

God makes himself known and accessible through material things, always accommodating himself to our condition. It is, after all, the condition he created for us--spiritual and material--and the form he assumed for our salvation.

Author: Mike Aquilina, Grace Aquilina
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
Published: 10/20/2017
Pages: 448
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781594717505


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/11/2017
Foreword 10/26/2017

About the Author

Mike Aquilina is a Catholic author, speaker, poet, and songwriter who serves as the executive vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He is a contributing editor to Angelus News and his podcast, Way of the Fathers, drops twice monthly at CatholicCulture.org.

Aquilina is the author or editor of more than sixty books, including The Fathers of the Church, The Mass of the Early Christians, and Angels of God. Aquilina has cohosted eleven series on EWTN and hosted two documentaries. Aquilina wrote the companion volumes to the NBC miniseries A.D.: The Bible Continues (2015) and the MGM remake of the movie Ben-Hur (2016). His book A History of the Church in 100 Objects earned an honorable mention in the 2018 Catholic Press Association awards. He is the editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History series and wrote The Church and the Roman Empire (301-490).

He has published hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews in periodicals such as First Things, Crisis, National Catholic Register, The Priest, Columbia, and Our Sunday Visitor. He is a frequent guest on TV and radio, including a weekly appearance on the Son Rise Morning Show.

Aquilina previously served as editor of New Covenant magazine and The Pittsburgh Catholic. He has received honors from the Catholic Press Association, including "Best Magazine" for New Covenant during his editorship and best book in the category of biography.

He lives in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area with his wife, Terri. They have six children.

Grace Aquilina is a freelance editor who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


This title is only available via back order