This is a personal and insightful portrait of Pope Pius XII, the memories of Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert, who served as his housekeeper for forty years. Her book, most of it written just a few months after the Pope’s death, shares insights into the person, the life, and the thinking of Pius XII, from his time as Nuncio in Munich until his death. Much of Sister’s motivation in writing this work was to correct the many distortions of fact and interpretation regarding this great pope.

This book was a best seller in the original German, as well as in the Italian and French translations. This is the first edition in English.

These reminiscences were written down at the instructions of Sister’s Superior General, but were not made known to the public until 1982, when it was published in German at the express wishes of Pope John Paul II to publish the work without any changes. So the work remained a lively, flowing account of memories and anecdotes in a simple, spontaneous style. It is a powerful and insightful account of Pius’s daily life, his treatment of those around him, and his concern for the upholding of the traditional teaching of the Church in the face of his awesome burden to lead the Church during World War II.

In The Miracle of Immortality, Gerhard Cardinal Müller tackles some of the great mysteries of human life and hope. The former prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is not content merely to present Catholic doc­trine on the afterlife and the last things, although his reflections are always rooted in the teachings and traditions of the Church. Rather, he invites readers to walk with him by the restless sea of human learning, a sea formed by man’s unquenchable thirst for something or someone greater than man himself, by his desire to know the beginning and the end. One who accepts the invitation finds himself in conversation with a mentor whose mind is suffused with scripture and very much sharpened by it. Cherished assumptions are queried or quietly corrected. Slowly but surely he is confronted with the miracle of immortality, without which true happiness is impossible. Cardinal Müller demonstrates in this book that it is entirely possible, and eminently rational, to believe in the miracle of immortality; indeed, that it is ultimately not rational not to believe. The Miracle of Immortality is a work of penetrating theological insight set, chiaroscuro-like, against the darkness of modern and postmodern skepticism. It is at once poetical in spirit and profoundly catechetical in substance, for Müller understands that Christian eschatology cannot be elucidated properly without proclaiming the whole counsel of God. The miracle in question is a miracle for the whole person, accomplished by way of what Paul calls adoption; that is, filiation to the eternal Father through the incarnate Son, effected by the limitless power of the Holy Spirit. It is a miracle that perfects the divine work of creation.