Saints for Sinners: Nine Desolate Souls Made Strong by God

By Alban Goodier

Book Overview

These pages remind us that God's grace can conquer every human flaw . . .

Christ came not to call saints but to make them -- often out of weak, stupid, and sinful men. That's why the saints are not only models of holiness for us to imitate; they're reminders that God's grace can outshine every human flaw.

As Alban Goodier's classic Saints for Sinners shows us, even the greatest saints had to battle the same stubborn vices, temptations of the flesh, and bouts of spiritual dryness that afflict you and me today. In these pages, with a style that perfectly blends hagiographical detail, spiritual meditation, and a skilled storyteller's touch, Archbishop Goodier brings us the tales of:

The mercenary fighting man and itinerant gambler who left behind his rough soldier's habits and founded a religious order to care for the sickThe backward, sickly teenager, disowned by his family and dogged by the Inquisition, who became a miraculous healer and paragon of humble simplicityThe willful Tuscan beauty with a bad reputation who forsook vanity and lust to answer God's call to live in poverty and penitenceThe brilliant, brooding Spanish nobleman who gave up everything to be a missionary -- only to see most of his efforts failThe royal chaplain and daring Counter-Reformer who escaped the gallows but had to endure a lifelong interior martyrdom of doubt and discouragementThe hedonistic heretic and womanizer who traded worldly pleasure for divine happiness, and became one of the Church's greatest theologiansAnd other inspiring tales of imperfect souls "made perfect in infirmity"

Read these stories and find in them delight and encouragement, as well as hope. You'll come to see that there is no one so sinful, weak, or desolate that God has not already raised another like him to the heights of glory.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933184280
• ISBN13: 9781933184289
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

There's hope for us all!

I bought this book because it contained the stories of some of the saints that I have grown to love, especially St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Flying Friar. Here was a man whom nobody wanted; not even his parents. But God wanted him and showered him with graces all his lonely life. I think that it is the love of God that drew me to this book; God's love for the seemingly unlovable, and their love for Him. Stories of such transformations that they could only be of God. It is a book to feed the soul.

Come as you are

This is a great read. Fun to read. We all have a chance. Here come all the Catholics!