Books

NEW RELEASE

The Monastic Cloister of My Heart: Poetic Reflections and Prayers from the Edge of Life

“In Gerry Straub’s prose poems, we are gifted with a lifetime of change and transformation to help us all on our own journeys. The Monastic Cloister of My Heart will delight you with love—unconditional love, nonviolent love, and preexistent love. . . .”

—Fr. Paul Milanowski

After spending fifteen years making documentary films on global poverty in eleven of the poorest nations, Gerry Straub chose to live with the poor in Haiti, founding the Santa Chiara Children’s Center in 2015. He lives in a slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which became increasingly dangerous due to gang violence, resulting in 15,000 deaths in 2023–2024. Despite his harsh living conditions, between 2022 and 2024, Straub managed to write three books, including Reading Thomas Merton and Longing for God in Haiti.

In October 2024, Gerry was forced into exile. Unexpectedly, he had time to write more deeply from his heart. In the early months of his exile, Gerry finished and published an epic spiritual memoir, The Cross of Love, The Pain of Poverty, which chronicled his combined quarter-century of documenting global poverty and living with the poor in Port-au-Prince.

As the months of solitude rolled by, Straub began writing short poetic, spiritual reflections he shared in his Haiti Journal sent to donors. In the prelude, he writes:

I was surprised how well they were received. They were simple, clear, and sparse. They invited the reader to read more slowly. As the collection of reflections grew, I began seeing a book of them emerge. I liked seeing all the white space on each page, which was more conducive to prompting meditative space for the reader.

And so, The Monastic Cloister of My Heart slowly emerged. Straub hopes the book fosters stillness and silence and awakens the reader’s contemplative heart, leading to more peace within our fast-paced, fragmented, and often divisive modern culture.

NEW RELEASE

The Cross of Love, The Pain of Poverty: The Unscripted Journey of a Hollywood Producer to the Worst Slums on Earth and an Orphanage in Haiti

Perhaps it was inevitable that Gerry would one day leave it all behind, move to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, take in a few orphaned children, and start a large children’s orphanage, all with no money. His book is an account of “harsh and dreadful” “love in action,” the kind that Jesus advocated, the kind that Saint Francis practiced—the kind that we too might pursue, if we dare.

If you read between the lines, if you listen carefully, if you let go of your presumptions and your fears and widen your heart as you read this memoir, you will catch glimpses, even in the midst of pain, grief, and poverty, of the Kingdom of God—signs of hope, even beauty and joy. If you accompany Gerry in his pilgrimage around the world into the poorest places on the planet and go with him to Haiti and meet the children of Santa Chiara, you will see that, besides carrying the cross of love, they are getting ready for resurrection.

Gerry Straub’s mythic pilgrimage, as described in these pages, is one we can all make, one that Jesus and Saint Francis invite us all to undertake in our own particular circumstances. If you dare drop everything, take up the cross of love, and follow the risen, nonviolent Jesus, like Saint Francis and Gerry, into the world of the poor in selfless service, steadfast compassion, and universal love, you will taste the resurrection. You, too, will hear the good news: death does not get the last word. Life and love will one day overcome. That’s the promise of the Gospel and this book.

NOW AVAILABLE

Reading Thomas Merton and Longing for God in Haiti

Like Saint Francis of Assisi, although to a secondary extent, Merton has mentored Gerry’s spiritual exercises of remembering, of being awed by, and of obeying the commands of God’s love, received throughout his community’s days at the Santa Chiara Children’s Center. His prose is undergirded with the poetry of his longing for God’s presence in and for Haiti hour by hour. Gerry’s prose and life resonate with Merton’s texts. This book befriends Merton’s own searching for God. Straub and Merton sing together, adding their voices to the chorus of God’s beloved community in Haiti.

-From the Introduction by Jonathan Montaldo

His new book, Reading Thomas Merton and Longing for God in Haiti: Learning Wisdom in the School of My Life, shares what he has learned spiritually over the last eight years of growing Santa Chiara’s Children Center into a refuge of love and safety for children born into in a land of poverty and violence.

NOW AVAILABLE

The Sunrise of the Soul, a book from Gerard Thomas Straub

The Sunrise of the Soul is the fruit of the last 24 years of Gerry Straub’s unexpected new life and journey of transformation that took him from the glamour of Hollywood to the horror of the worst slums on earth. From being a network television producer to making documentary films on global poverty. Gerry now lives in a crowded slum in Haiti where he operates a home of hope and healing called the Santa Chiara Children’s Center for 69 abandoned kids, 24 of whom are still in diapers. His photographs and journals of his young kids and coworkers living at the center are icons for those all over the world who are famished for love and our concern.

Living in a home with sixty-nine kids in Haiti means stillness and silence are virtually nonexistent. After four years of intense work in Haiti, Gerry now commits himself to the rejuvenating power of authentic solitude in order to turn his attention to his own inner spiritual poverty. In the silent predawn darkness of each Haitian morning he waits, reflects and prays for two hours. This book emerged slowly from those many lonely hours of silence.

NOW AVAILABLE

The Sun & Moon Over Assisi, a book from Gerard Thomas Straub

“I found the story of Francis life to be extremely interesting. He inflamed my imagination. Writing about him, in truth, was a way for me to get to know him better. I didn’t realize it, but it was also a way for me to get to know God better…. Francis became my guide, showing me the way.” (from a Pilgrimage Diary)

The Sun and Moon Over Assisi reveals how the lives of the two medieval saints from Assisi–Francis and Clare–helped to transform the life of a thoroughly modern cynic from Los Angeles, California. The major events of the lives of the two saints are unfolded here in a series of vivid and engaging stories.

Alongside the history of Francis and Clare, another story unfolds: the story of the spiritual transformation of the author, Hollywood filmmaker and television producer Gerard Straub, illustrating how Francis and Clare still speak to the present-day, secularized person. The author takes the reader with him, in a series of pilgrimage diaries and reflections, to the beautiful Italian sites important to the two saints. With Straub, we traverse the charming Umbrian hill towns, including Assisi, tour its churches and examine the art of Giotto found there. The Sun and Moon Over Assisi tells of an interior pilgrimage that will inspire the modern reader.