Posted: 2/15/2007 7:49:07 PM EDT
| Are there any good books out there that list and describe each and every Saint recognized by the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, something that would explain each ones life and death and reason for sainthood? Im a big early church history guy and Im eating up these books as much as time allows, looking for some good titles on saints. |
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You'll have to limit your list of saints to those before about 1000AD. The Orthodox Churches won't recognize any Catholic saint since then since they seem to consider us Catholics to be heretics. As for a book focusing on the saints of just the first millenium, I have never seen one. St. John Chrysostom is my favorite saint, of the East and the West. |
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Tan Books www.tanbooks.com Offers a wide selection of information about the lives of the Saints. The best selection I have read is out of print. It was pre Vatican II but held a good bit of the documentation that supports the cause for beatification and the most descriptor of their lives. Unfortunately there isn't a bunch on the early saints. Fascinating reads are The Confessions of Augustine. Padre Pio, St. Teresa the Little Flower and St Bridgette of Sweden. The educated saints left journals, letters and other documents. |
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My personal favorite saint is St Francis of Assisi. Good book on him called "The Reluctant Saint" He was a wealthy playboy in Italy and used to pray "Lord, make me a good pious man, but not just yet."  He did change and went on to live in poverty and found the Fransicans. I also like his whole deal with the animals, I am a big animal guy(but not PETA) My other favorite saint is St Maximillian Kolbe, who died in place of a Jewish man at Auschwitz, he exercised a moral courage that is inspiring to me. But get the book "The Reluctant Saint" good reading... |
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You probably already know about this website, but in case you don't: http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/indexsnt.htm Catholic-Forum's Patron Saint Index. It's incredibly huge, and most of the saint articles link to more information. I get lost on that website sometimes and completely lose track of time. Kind of like what I'm doing now instead of writing a paper. |