Book #25. Saints Behaving Badly, by Thomas J. Craughwell. Hardcover.
The cover promises to tell the stories of “cutthroats,
crooks, trollops, con men and devil worshippers who became saints.”
I knew the stories of many of these saints, including
Augustine, Patrick, and Ignatius. But there were many more obscure saints and
stories that I did not know. The story of St. Moses the Ethiopian, a
violent gang leader in the 300s who later embraced the life of fasting and
prayer after seeking shelter with a community of monks, was unknown to me. Also
the biography of St. Alipius, a student of the Augustine (another infamous and notorious
sinner turned saint), was "obsessed with blood sports" and all types
of gambling.
Balancing the humor inherent in some of these stories with
the proper tone of reverence is not easy. But Craughwell does manage to
accomplish this, with each of these small (4 to 10 pages) vignettes
demonstrating his basic point that a saint is made and not born, and that
nobody is beyond the reach of the grace of God.
Craughwell set out to present a readable, entertaining, and
inspiring book of saint stories. And with those as his marching orders, I’d say
he succeeded.
Source: public library
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