Beyond the political rhetoric-the slogans and the sound bites-many Christians struggle to understand how to be faithful to both their religious values and their patriotism. They question how to balance a desire for peace with political reality. In NOVENA IN TIME OF WAR, writer and Gulf war veteran Jim Melchiorre offers readers a prayerful approach to this dialogue, one that addresses hard issues about violence and fear while making conceptual issues urgently concrete through stories of real soldiers and families on both sides of the war in Iraq.