This book celebrates the lives of men and women whose goodness and devotion to God have inspired the world.
Here, arranged according to their special days throughout the whole year, are saints from different periods of history and from every walk of life — farm labourers, princes, monks, nuns, parents, soldiers, martyrs, housewives and poets. Some, such as David (patron saint of Wales) and Clare (who founded the order of Poor Clares), led lives of great simplicity. Others were devout eccentrics, such as Simeon Stylites who lived on a pillar for thirty-seven years. Some, such as Joan of Arc, Thomas More and Popes Pius V and X, were at the forefront of public affairs.
James Bentley provides lively biographies not only of the most famous saints — Bernadette, Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi among them — but also of those who lived in obscurity, such as Humility, who stayed bricked up in a cell for twelve years. The stories of these inspiring men and women range from a second-century slave girl named Felicity to Elizabeth Seton, the first American to be canonized by the Catholic Church, and to the priest who sacrificed his life for another man in Ravensbruck concentration camp.
On almost every page inspirational sayings illustrate the courage, humour and wisdom of those who put their commitment to goodness and to God before everything else. And the lavish illustrations — with more than three hundred paintings, mostly in full colour — provide a rich, unusual and comprehensive gallery of portraits spanning almost two thousand years of art.