Books on the Saints

St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), saint and martyr, might well be called the Saint of Synthesis. His thought, no less than his geographical wanderings, place him between Rome and Byzantium, between the theologies of East and West, and between the early Middle Ages and the ancient Church, whose representatives and traditions (which during his day had suffered much at the hands of imperial and ecclesial censure) he salvaged and brought back to the attention of his contemporaries. In this,...

“I have come to bring fire to the earth,” said Jesus Christ, and his words have come true in the lives of Catholic saints through the ages—men, women, and children on fire with love of Jesus, and with the desire to spread his word. The intention of this book of inspirational stories from the lives of saints is to fill the reader with this same fire. Whereas saints were once the popular heroes of our culture, populating our art and folklore, lending their names to our towns and streets and ins...

In No Strange Land illuminates the richness of mysticism--in the life of Philip Neri--as an "experience of the activity of God." The life of the Apostle of Rome demonstrates that it is primarily people, not arguments, that reveal the mysteries of God. Philip's experience of God, his mysticism, was given him for the sake of others. Furthermore, that experience itself was embodied; that is to say awakened, nourished, and brought to fruition within the religious tradition into which he was born,...

The Song of Bernadette is a remarkable literary masterpiece by Austrian-Jewish author Franz Werfel, offering a powerful testament to the transcending power of faith. It follows the true story of Bernadette Soubirous and her miraculous visions at Lourdes in 1858, depicting how the simple peasant girl’s faith changed a town - and indeed history - forever. Inspired by his experience hiding from the Nazis in Lourdes much later, Werfel crafted this passionate masterwork to show the deep spiritual ...

Augustine's Confessions Unpacked Popular author and philosopher Peter Kreeft delves into one of the most beloved Christian classics of all time--Augustine's Confessions. He collects key passages and offers incisive commentary, making Confessions accessible to any reader who is both intellectually curious and spiritually hungry. The Confessions is a dramatic personal narrative of a soul choosing between eternal life and death, an exploration of the timeless questions great minds have been aski...

Love, Peace and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart is an insightful book inspired by the very words of Our Lord to Saint Gertrude as recorded in her famous Revelations. Based on Gertrude’s teachings, this book outlines ways to quickly receive great graces and attain divine love; methods that are simple and accessible for everyone. Learning how to offer up your own prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus can bring about powerful transformation. This empowering guide helps readers understand the ex...

The war is on. The Devil plots to defeat you. Meet some battle-tested warriors who fight at your side. Satan is real. He's a formidable foe who wants to snatch us away from God, and the thought of doing battle with him can seem daunting. Even so, the saints who have gone before us have engaged the Devil, armed with the power of Christ ... and emerged victorious! These fellow warriors in heaven now fight on our behalf. In Saints Who Battled Satan, Paul Thigpen, author of Manual for Spiritual W...

The Passion of Christ Through the Eyes of Mary by St. Anselm offers an in-depth look at the events preceding and following Christ's passion and death. This book brings together St. Anselm, the Magnificent Doctor, and writings attributed to St. Bernard, the Mellifluous Doctor to provide a uniquely detailed presentation of these life-changing events for readers.Readers will be exposed to Our Lady's private revelations from her conversations with her spiritual sons that have enriched many prayer...

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES'S APPROACH TO HOLINESS Live Today Well is an essential guide for Christians looking for spiritual guidance to apply the teachings of St. Francis de Sales in their everyday lives. The book offers insights and practical advice on living a life of sanctity and holiness, even while managing commitments and tasks. Through this book, readers will be able to find balance between prayer and action with respect to their daily tasks.In Live Today Well, Fr. Thomas Dailey (an Oblate ...

The contribution of women in the history of the Church is often overlooked. In modern times it is customary to look for all the wrong things, who is powerful, who became the first woman to work in this place, or who started a movement. The women who are the subject of this book, however, were greater than any of these mundane accomplishments; they were Heroines of Christ. Married and religious, Roman martyrs and Cristeros, the 15 women whose biographies are found in this book exemplified true...

Saint Jerome was a born writer, individual, fresh, sparkling with verve and (at times) vitriol; a great scholar, accomplished in languages, exegesis, and history; and, above all, an ingenious translator, whose Vulgate is the Church's official Latin Bible. Despite the longstanding fame of his literary and spiritual legacies, however, the saint's historical life has not always received equal care. In this equally instructive and entertaining study, Paul Monceaux balances the biographical accoun...

Discover The Miraculous Medal, an inspiring children’s book that tells the miraculous story of Sister Catherine Laboure and her encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Suspenseful and moving, this book recounts the moments when Our Lady appeared before Sister Catherine to ask for a special medallion to be forged in honor of her apparitions—later known as the Miraculous Medal. Kids will love this spellbinding tale of faith and devotion that teaches how heavenly intervention can bring about mir...

Winner of a 2025 CMA Book Award from the Catholic Media Association: Religious Book Series (Honorable Mention). Born to Do This is a thirty-day personal retreat inspired by the courage and faith of St. Joan of Arc. Six centuries after her birth and one hundred years after her canonization, the Maid of Orléans continues to captivate believers as a model of conviction, obedience, and unwavering trust in God. In this devotional, readers will encounter St. Joan through her own words and the stori...

"The Road to Bethlehem" offers a daily prayerful pilgrimage from Advent through the birth of our Lord to the Epiphany, guided by St. Alphonsus Liguori. Drawing from Sacred Scripture and his saintly counsel, it presents a reflection that places readers at the feet of the infant Lord, focusing on the incarnation and nativity of Christ with a blend of joy for His birth and sorrow for the salvation He will bring. This work, taken from the original book "The Incarnation, Birth, and Infancy or the ...

Padre Pio was born in Italy in 1887 and became a priest and confessor. (“Padre” means “Father” in Italian.) He heard millions of confessions during his lifetime and was known for his gifts of healing and insight into people’s hearts. Padre Pio filled souls with peace and helped many grow closer to God. By encouraging prayer and frequent confession, he led countless people back to faith and the Church. He is the patron saint of confessors, celebrated on September 23. Saints are real-life heroe...

Among the early followers of St. Francis of Assisi were saints and masters of the spiritual life who shared both a natural and supernatural kinship with their founder. Through their lives and writings they deepened and articulated the spirituality St. Francis embodied—rooted in simplicity, love, and total conformity to Christ. Their witness brought clarity to the distinctive traits of Franciscan life and became a wellspring for generations of Christians seeking to follow the Seraphic Father. ...

Winner of a 2025 Excellence in Publishing Award from the Association of Catholic Publishers: Spirituality (Third Place [tie]). Let the Holy Spirit lead you to the Living Water that renews and strengthens faith. When asked about his spiritual gifts of healing, bilocation, prophecy, and the stigmata, Padre Pio once replied, “You know, they are a mystery to me, too.” In that humility lies a key truth: the Holy Spirit works mysteriously in every Christian’s life, bestowing gifts we may not fully ...

This Vision book for youth 9 - 15 years old tells the exciting, dramatic story of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the order he founded, the Society of Jesus. As a young man, Ignatius had dreams of an adventurous life as a soldier. His dreams, however, did not come true the way he had hoped. Seriously wounded in battle, the soldier Ignatius had a profound conversion to Christ during his period of healing and recovery. He abandoned a promising career in the military and dedicated the rest of his lif...

Based upon Richard Johnson's work, which first appeared in print in the 1590s and was widely read for over three centuries after its publication, The Seven Champions of Christendom whisks the reader away to a bygone age of mythic heroes and warrior saints engaged in earthly battle against evil. The Seven are St. George of England, St. Denis of France, St. James of Spain, St. Anthony of Italy, St. Andrew of Scotland, St. Patrick of Ireland, and St. David of Wales. Subsequently rewritten in mod...

Mary Fabyan Windeatt presents the powerful story of the famous life and miracles of St. Benedict for the Vision Book series of saints for youth. Known as the Father of Western Monasticism, St. Benedict played a major role in the Christinization and civilization of post-Roman Europe in the sixth century.Having lived in an era of great immorality and vice, Benedict founded an order for monks whose strong life of prayer and work helped convert the godless society around them. It tells how his Be...

Learn from one of the Church's great mystics, Saint Frances of Rome. In this book, she narrates her visions to her spiritual director, Canon Giovanni Matteoni. He records her visions of the geography of hell and the state of limbo. She describes the punishments for various sins such as perverts, usurers, blasphemers, traitors, murderers, apostates, schismatics, incestuous people, witches and more. She also talks about the particular torments due to the seven deadly sins and the punishments fo...

Mostly written between 1070 and 1080, before he became Archbishop of Canterbury, the prayers and meditations of Anselm of Aosta created a tradition of intimate, intensely personal devotional works written in subtle and theologically daring prose. While the "Prayer to God" is based on the Lord's Prayer, the "Prayer to Christ" is inspired by ardent private emotion and other prayers invest saints with individual attributes, with John the Baptist as the friend, Peter as the shepherd and Mary Magd...

Thomas More (1478-1535) was an English lawyer, philosopher, humanist, and author, most known for his book Utopia (1516) and for his death after refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. The Sadness of Christ is his last book, wrote by the saint before he was executed in London after being imprisoned for standing firm for his faith. His Devotion to the Lord's Passion was familiar to him therefore he wrote about it in this book giving priceless and valuable refle...

Joseph's Donkey is the heartwarming tale of a noble donkey purchased by St. Joseph shortly before his marriage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The trusted creature helps Joseph in his carpentry business by hauling wood and stones, but he also plays a key role in all the major events recorded in the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels: he carries Mary to Bethlehem, where she gives birth to Jesus; he takes the Holy Family to Egypt to escape the evil king Herod; and he shuttles the family to Jerusalem...

St. Robert Bellarmine's work in defense of the saints, their place in heaven, their canonization and veneration, etc., ranks like all of his works among the classical works of Catholic Theology. In this work, Bellarmine meets the attack of Protestantism against Catholic teaching on the saints, firstly on their own ground with sound Scriptural Exegesis, backed up by the witness of the Greek and Latin Church. The great counter-reformation doctor begins the work with a treatise on whether the so...

Teresa of Ávila, Spain, was born into a wealthy family in 1515. She loved Jesus very much and became a Carmelite nun. When she received the Eucharist, she could feel his great love and grew stronger in her faith and friendship with Jesus. Teresa felt the nuns needed more quiet time and more time for prayer and so she started a new Carmelite convent. The nuns prayed for the Church, for sinners and people who did not love God. She was also known as Teresa of Jesus. She is the patron (October 15...

The spiritual wisdom of Saint Benedict has endured for centuries and quite literally shaped Western culture from its inception. Tenets of the order, like its motto and Saint Benedict's Rule, are just as influential for lay people as they are for the Benedictine monks and nuns. The cross and medal of St. Benedict is also among the gifts bestowed by the Benedictine Order. For centuries, it has been a conduit for God's power against malicious spirits.The history of this cross and medal--how it f...

Italian Carmelite Antonio Maria Sicari''s vibrant biographies of saints--from Augustine to Catherine of Siena to Faustina Kowalska--have been read across Europe for decades. In How Saints Die, Sicari turns to the most difficult challenge in the life of a Christian: the hour of death.What he uncovers in this darkest moment, however, is not desolation, but inexplicable joy. I have recounted the death of many saints, he writes, but all of them have confirmed for me the truth of this ancient Chri...

With such a great cloud of witnesses, we have much to learn from the saints. Allow the saints to be your child's example for meeting Christ in the Eucharist.' In Eucharistic Saints, your children will encounter stories of saints they may already know, like Pope Saint John Paul II and St. Thomas Aquinas, and they will become familiar with saints they may not know yet, like St. Peter Julian Eymard and St. Tarcisius. This book also introduces your children to holy souls who were their own age, l...

This unparalleled introduction to St. John Henry Newman--mind, heart, soul, and personality--brings the great cardinal to life before our eyes, and with him the charged air of nineteenth-century England. Drawing from his letters, writings, and journal entries with precision and poetic flair, the book is one of Ida Friederike Görres' masterworks. While famous for his brilliance, Cardinal Newman did not hide in an ivory tower. His life was one of risk, sacrifice, and immense charity. His sharp ...

"Many of us give up on prayer when we don't get the answer we want WHEN we want it." For nearly two decades, Saint Monica prayed for her wayward son. Years and years of prayers, seemingly unanswered. Countless tears shed with no relief. Yet she would not give up. That very act of persistent prayer blessed the entire Church, for we have all benefitted from the conversion of her son, Augustine, who became one of the most revered saints of all time. Parents of any age or at any stage can cultiva...

St. Francis of Assisi is one of the greatest and most recognizeable saints in the history of the Church. His life was a mirror of the life of Christ. In a decadent age, filled with corruption, Francis became not merely an impetus for reform, but a living image of Christ in his virtue and in his flesh through the stigmata. Candide Chalippe's work is not merely biography, it is a spiritual classic written by an author filled with piety and love for Christ and His Church. This new publication ed...

A vital part of the treasury of the Divine Mercy message and devotion, this edition of God is Mercy, a short work by St. Faustina's confessor Bl. Michael Sopocko (1888-1975), introduces us to the place of Divine Mercy in salvation history. Enriched by Dr. Robert Stackpole's expert commentary, this special edition of a Divine Mercy classic belongs on every Catholic's shelf.

St. John Henry Newman, regarded as the most important English theologian of the nineteenth century, poignantly reflects on the thoughts that tormented Jesus as a result of His friends' betrayals and the anguish of His Heart in willingly suffering all for love of us. These penetrating meditations will enable you to enter more deeply into our Savior's Passion through multiple vantage points.This work features three of Cardinal Newman's most esteemed classics: Meditations on Lent: Hope in God, R...

How does a city boy who only lived to the age of fifteen "go viral" more than a decade after he died? Discover the story of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church. Born in 1991, the same year as the launch of the World Wide Web, Carlo has been hailed by the pope as an example of love and holiness in our complex digital age. This tech-savvy Italian teen has shown the world that computer coding and video games are no obstacle to sainthood. From a young...

The Acts of St. Sebastian and His CompanionsIn his illustrious life, Saint Sebastian was the senior commanding officer of the elite forces for the greatest military power on the planet--the Roman Empire. By his glorious death, he became a commander in the greatest military power in the universe--the communion of saints of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the Church's history, countless martyrs have offered their lives to Christ rather than deny Him. One of the most revered is Saint Sebas...

Each of us has the potential to become a saint. We're especially reminded of this when we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, usually as a teenager, and choose a saint as our patron and inspiration. Who better than the saints and blesseds to inspire us in the battle of life? In The Saint I Knew! Exciting "Encounters" with Holiness, Kevin Wilson places you, the reader, in a fictional story of a holy man, woman, or child before their recognition by the Roman Catholic Church. Ever wonder what...

Winner of a 2025 Excellence in Publishing Award from the Association of Catholic Publishers: Inspirational (Second Place). Every educator needs encouragement and support when facing the challenges of teaching—whether it’s managing a noisy classroom, handling a tough parent conference, or navigating staff meetings and lesson planning. In A Saint Squad for Teachers, veteran teacher Amy Cattapan introduces forty-five saints ready to accompany and intercede for educators through every season of t...

The life of St. John Vianney (1784-1859) was marked by boundless humility and obedience to God. In 1818, when this simple French priest was assigned to the parish of Ars -- a town of just 250 people -- few would have guessed that it would lead to his international notoriety (even without modern communications!). You will see how this happened -- how Vianney's tireless work in his parish quickly flowered into a radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings.Acclaimed dr...

This book introduces the reader to thirteen Christian spiritual classics that illustrate the ordinary steps we can take toward living the Gospel life more fully.Drawing on the rich teaching of a particular saint or mystic, each chapter helps us grow in a different aspect of holiness, of intimacy with God. Archbishop Hughes offers an itinerary for becoming a good disciple of the Lord, giving the reader access to an impressive spiritual library that can support and strengthen progress in discip...

Meet a Doctor of the Church whose wisdom on health and nutrition will aid you in everything from better digestion and sleep to improved mood, memory, and pain relief. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a mystic and scholar who chronicled more than six hundred pages of visions, wrote cantatas, and even devised her own language. She authored The Book of Divine Works, Causes and Cures, and Scivias and corresponded with the greatest intellectuals, theologians, and royals of her time.As a pioneer...

Protect your family! Entrust your family to St. Joseph. Why? Because God, Himself, did. God entrusted the Holy Family to St. Joseph to keep them safe, and so should you. Drawing on the wealth of the Church's living tradition, Fr. Donald H. Calloway, MIC and co-author Scott L. Smith, Jr., call on all of us to turn to St. Joseph, entrust ourselves, our children and families, our Church, and our world to our spiritual father's loving care. Watch for wonders when the Universal Patron of the Churc...

The Church is a city set on a hill and on that hill there is a lighthouse. The Church directs her light this way and that as occasion warrants. That we might not make a shipwreck of our faith (see 1 Tm 1:19), she illuminates dangerous crags and reefs when all the world would tell us the water is clear. Each age has its heresies, and ours is a hatred of origin, of fatherhood. But if we come from somewhere and someone, we cannot be self-made. As an anchor against the wave of patricide, a light ...