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- Verified Buyer
I had this book after purchasing it at Estate Sale! It is informing,inspiring and entertaining. I gave my book to a friend and bought this one from Amazon because I valued it so much. I even wrote to President Obama to read and to see the guide for how people chose their paths to make a better world for all peoples.I liked this book so much. It's really a delightful read. And I began a short correspondence with Ms. McGinley where she and I exchanged notes and letters before she passed away. I think the book (which no doubt involved a lot of research) was also, as one can tell by the quality of the prose. a labor of love.Charming meditation on Catholic and secular saints. This writer, famous in her time, has fallen by the wayside--unfairly so. The prose is lively, and McGinley's retelling of the lives and thought of her heroes is done with wit and enthusiasm. No pious BS here, friends.I love the book, but there were about 20 pages cut out of it.Although this book is out of print, I would highly recommend checking library shelves for it. The author shares delightful stories of the saints, as she knocks off the plaster casts and tells of their humanity.Love her style. Very good.A wonderful new insight into the lives and accomplishments of many of the important (and not so important) saints.Phyllis McGinley was a poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1961. I remember reading criticisms about her because her poetry tended to glorify, or at least put in a good light, the life of a suburban housewife. One can imagine how politically incorrect this kind of literary reflection was after her Pulitzer award. Yet a poet she was, and good one, apparently. And the great writing of a good poet is a gift that this book about saints gives to us. So it is not just the subject matter - the lives of the saints in their unadorned reality, that is, without the whitewashing that is usually provided to young schoolchildren preparing for their sacraments. No, these are the saints in the raw, so to speak, with their flaws as evident as their virtues. Sanctity does not mean, or even imply, perfection. Sanctity is a constant struggle toward holiness, a struggle because there is always falling to temptation and backsliding (as Protestants would say). But it's the struggle that makes the saint. McGinley still does make clear to us what separates the true saints from the rest of us - their literal interpretation of the word s of Jesus, for example. If Our Lord said give everything up and live for the poor, that's what they did - See St. Francis. They respond to the call wholeheartedly, even if with hesitation, although that hesitation usually comes from doubt in the self, not from doubt in the One who is calling. McGinley treats her subjects under different categories - saints according to their land origin, for example. Loyola the consummate Spaniard; Rose of Lima a product of her environment, her harsh and even violet penances perhaps abhorrent to our modern sensibilities but understandable to her contemporaries. Her categories fit neatly and aide in the understanding of each saint's success. She even has one chapter for individuals who, but for their non-Catholicism, may have been saints: Gandhi, for example. All of this captivating and motivating information presented to the reader in beautiful prose, in a form of biographical poetry.
