Bookchat; Saints, Alive! -UPDATED

Have had a flurry of emails lately (really, an actual flurry) asking for recommended books on Saints, and the requests cover a broad range. I realized today that there are confirmations coming up in some parishes, so perhaps that is why.

One person is seeking a book that discusses the sort of “personal” relationships Catholics can establish with some saints, like my son Buster’s devotion to St. Michael the Archangel, or all of the holy men and women I nag a lot, or those who nag me back.

If that sounds like something you’re looking for, you cannot do better than My Life With the Saints, by Fr. James Martin, S.J., who is an old friend of this blog’s (he even popped in for a chatfest one afternoon!). In this book Fr. Jim writes compellingly on those saints he particularly admires, why he admires them and what they have meant to him, personally in his life. It’s one of the great Catholic spiritual/biographiesl; in my opinion it’s up there with Merton’s <a type="amzn" asin="0156010860"The Seven Story Mountain. It is readable, accessible and truly inspiring. Since Jim has given me permission to reprint Chapter 7 of his book, go check it out for yourself. You’ll be hooked.

If you’re looking for something a little more general, with brief biographies, and unsentimental illustrations, to make a suitable gift for a Communion or Confirmation, I’m liking the looks of Saints; A Year in Faith and Art by the Art Historian Rosa Giorgi, (part of a series which includes a companion book on Angels). Saints; A Year in Faith and Art is very well-reviewed on Amazon, and it would seem just the ticket. I am one of those who likes to sometimes leave off with praying words to simply contemplate icons and sacred art, (and Holy Cards) and this seems like it would be a winner, for that. Another book by Giorgi, Saints in Art, also looks and sounds tasty!

Speaking of contemplating Icons: this book is a good start, but it is awesome to sit with Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai, which presents the gorgeous and ancient Byzantine Icons from The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai. You can spend hours with this book, just contemplating the Holy Icons and then reading all the details, the history, the minutiae on conditions, etc. These books are “little retreats” for when you can’t get away for a weekend, but need a quiet, thoughtful hour.

For heavier Saintly reading, I like Bert Ghezzi’s The Voices of the Saints: A Year of Readings. This is a meticulously researched and cross-referenced book of saints for grown-ups. No pictures, no frills – you get the information you are seeking, and a taste of their own writings, but the book is arranged with themes and calendar prompts. If you’re if you’re dealing with issues of, say, obedience, you look under “obedience” (if you’re feeling cranky look under “porcupine saints”) and you’re be referred to a helpful Christian whose one struggles or wisdom will help you out. This book gives you a real sense of the “communion” of saints.

I could do this all day, but I won’t. I’ll leave you with one selection that some call “subversive” but I like a lot, Robert Ellsberg’s All Saints; Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time. Not everyone in the book is a canonized Catholic saint, that’s true. Some of them are not even Christian. Ellsberg is looking at holy men and women without boundaries and finding those admirable qualities within them that we all might wish to emulate in ways large and small in our own lives. I recommend it because it has been a useful and interesting book to me – in fact, it was All Saints who introduced me to Dr. Takashi Nagai, whom I mention in this post and whose ideas on martyrdom certainly gave me food for thought!

UPDATE: Julie at Happy Catholic, who has never made a bad book recommendation, to my knowledge, posts about a new book on Angels that sounds-yes, I’m going to use the word-awesome! Check it out.

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