Author John Powers talks about the inspiration for his beloved novels: The Last Catholic in America, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?, and The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God. These classics of 20th-century American literature, which portray the Catholic experience in the U.S. with humor and tenderness, are part of the Loyola Classic series.  (See the below website for more information, including free discussion guide; Produced by Loyola Press.)

How do you get teenagers to talk about religion? In this video, eleven teens freshmen through seniors in high school share their views on faith and spirituality. Produced for a teen audience with a youthful, contemporary approach that young adults can relate to, the video acts as the starting point for a discussion on how to develop a spiritual identity amid the conflicting and confusing messages of teen culture. Download includes a free Study and Discussion Guide. (Produced by Loyola Press, in association with Loyola Productions, Inc.; Total Run Time: 30:00 min.)

John Dear, SJ, has been arrested more than 75 times. He has spent more than a year of his life in jail. He has been mocked by armed U.S. soldiers standing outside the doors to his New Mexico parish. All this because he so fervently believes in peace.

Dear’s unflappable social activism and his persistence in speaking and acting on behalf of peace stems from his life-changing decision in college to leave behind his frat-boy lifestyle and become instead a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. That decision has, over many years, led him to live out the Beatitudes of the nonviolent Jesus not only through social activism but in every dimension of his life.  Experience the story of John Dear in this engaging video introduction to him and his new book, A Persistent Peace: One Man’s Struggle for a Non-Violent World.  John Dear is a 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. (See the website below for more information about A Persistent Peace;  Run time: 3 min. Produced by Loyola Press).

It is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his

brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The

absoluteness of their response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and

followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).

For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person.

John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son....Behold, your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).

Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.

In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).

On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).

On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).

John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing

the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’ glory.