Saint Everywhere: Travels in Search of the Lady Saints

by Mary Lea Carroll, Joe Rohde (Illustrator)

Traveling with―and learning from―the women saints

While visiting Siena, Italy, Mary Lea Carroll grew fascinated with the remarkable story of St. Catherine of Siena and made a resolution: Whenever she was lucky enough to travel, if a shrine dedicated to a female saint was nearby, she'd visit it and learn about her. What started as a hobby grew into a journey she never expected, one rich with challenges and cappuccinos, doubts and inspiration, glasses of wine with strangers and moments of transcendence. Over eight quests, Carroll takes readers along with her as she seeks to learn something from a few great women of history, while looking for ways to be a better citizen of the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Catholic, Christian, Spirituality, Travel, Memoir, History

160 pages, Hardcover

Published May 7, 2019

About the author

Mary Lea Carroll is a writer and storyteller. Before raising children, she worked in travel, in the theater, and in Hollywood. While raising her children, she taught children’s creative writing and helped her husband in his motion-picture advertising business. A contributor to the book Hometown Pasadena and a graduate of San Francisco State, she is a lifelong resident of Pasadena, California.

Reviews

[Caroline P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved Mary Lea Carroll‘s delightful “St. Everywhere.” The author’s inquisitive nature leads her on a journey to always keep learning, even when on vacation, and the results are both deeply personal and genuinely fascinating. Carroll manages to bring to life these women from past eras and place their deeds in the context of our modern world. A sweet, easy to read book that will warm your soul and inspire you, even if you’re not Catholic!

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This small book was quite a nice surprise. Written like a travelogue, detailing the author's experiences while searching for connections to some of the female Saints, this was entertaining and informative. Carroll's travels encouraged her to spend more time on her spiritual wellbeing and she comes across honest and quite funny. While reading, I enjoyed looking up each location, so I actually learned quite a bit.
"You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love."-St. Catherine of Siena

[Mel Malmberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that is both travelogue and meditation, funny and profound. Mary Lea Carroll is an excellent, trenchant companion as she uncovers and rediscovers some of the most interesting of the female saints and their traditions. She's intrepid and wide open to serendipity, but no lightweight, or pushover. Her sensibilities are caught by the sublime and the ridiculous, and she tosses off one-liners as easily as prayers. She's equal parts spiritual seeker, deep questioner and outside observer -- much like the lady saints she pursues in the US, Mexico and Europe.

If you are looking for a companion who will open your eyes, cause you to question and make you laugh -- and think -- this short, sweet, episodic and surprisingly deep book is for you.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming journey with a woman discovering friends with the lady saints (and one statue…who actually was tied in with one of her lady saint friends). The writing was honest and transparent in the best ways, and it made me consider my own journey through the Catholic ghetto. As the author examines her own faith, I found myself recalling the hot and heated excitement of my early Catholic conversion, of my excitement, of how it has grown and changed and possibly cooled (possibly not). Really enjoyable and loved the underlying storyline.

[Philip Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author gives the reader a glimpse into a spiritual journey that is surprisingly satisfying and uplifting.
When reading a book like this I find that the author will often try too hard and sound like an evangelist which pushes me away from the experience that the author needs to bring me into in order to understand. The other extreme is also common where the author makes the mistake of down-playing the depth of a spiritual experience to make it sound commonplace and again fails to bring to the page any meaningful handles for the reader to latch onto to understand the text.

Mary Lea Carroll hits the mark by pulling the reading into the story slowing and deliberately with honesty and candor. She helps the reader to understand the journey and the associated spirituality that she describes.

The book is delightful, funny, entertaining, and uplifting.

[Ann Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So enjoyable and often inspiring! Felt like a vacation and a pilgrimage during this time of quarantine when such things aren’t possible.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inspiring, spiritual read. Mary Lea takes you on a beautiful, personal journey of travel and discovery through the work of these remarkable women saints and helps us discover the good within each and every one of us!

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story! This book ties together three things I love: memoir, learning, and spirituality. Mary Lea Carroll does an excellent job at constructing setting. The descriptions of Los Angeles and Pasadena were so vivid and explained my home turf so well. And the descriptions of her travels felt like I was there with her. I learned a lot about various saints and I was moved by her experiences with them.

I am proud to call Mary Lea Carroll one of my earliest writing teachers. Good work!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh, I had been looking forward to this book when I came across it, because I love learning about different saints. So to find a book dedicated solely to female saints around the world piqued my interest. I'll give it credit where it's due, some parts were interesting. But I'll also highlight where I kind of lost it; the author/narrator. She came off as low-key haughty white lady (the way she describes POC made me squirm a tiny bit and I am by no means politically correct...). She also seemed to focus sometimes on stuff that I considered less-than-relevant. Just stick to the saints (and some chapters weren't even on lady saints, so I mean, come on) and the lessons you learned about faith while traveling around to visit their shrines and relics. And then, right at the end, she uses the title, "Saint Everywhere" and all I could think was "wtf that makes no sense!". Maybe it's just me being picky, but I just felt let down by the fact that I read that and realized that the title obviously meant something a little different to the author than it did to me, leading me to believe that the whole book was meant to be something other than what I expected.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these eight chapters, Mary Lea Carroll describes a little bit about her life and her travels. It is during these vacations or little trips that she began to visit shrines of female saints. It started with a trip to Italy with her family and her father-in-law’s WWII veteran group. In the the midst of that very moving visit to the sites of the war, Mary Lea found the shrine of St Catherine of Siena. She read and researched and came to know St Catherine as the religious woman she was in the 14th century to the modern patron saint of Italy that she is today. This led Mary Lea on a lifetime adventure of spiritual discovery and personal enrichment. In the beginning of the book I found her assessment to be “tongue-in-cheek”, almost disrespectful in her descriptions of the religious sites. As the book and her travels continue, both near (New York) and far (Medjugorje), I found that Mary Lea expressed almost a child-like wonder of the lives of these religious women. It is a remarkable journey one that strengthened her own religious faith while introducing many to the lives of these female Catholic saints.

[Shellie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sweet book. A great introduction to several female Saints and the devotion to the Infant Jesus of Prague. It has encouraged me to seek out pilgrimages to other places as will. A little news update since the publication of this book (May of 2019) Pope Francis has given the green light for priests to lead pilgrimages to Medjugorje, (which Mary Lea talks about in the book,) but expressed no opinion on the authenticity of the “noted happenings.” It was said that the Church moves slowly and cautiously on these matters. There have only been about 12 apparitions throughout history that have been approved by the Church. For Medjugorje, which is an ongoing apparition, to receive this level of support and approval by the Church, is truly rare.

If you want to read more about apparitions, there is a great little book called Meeting with Mary: Visions of the blessed Mother that I highly recommend.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been very drawn to books about strong woman and this definitely fit the bill! I am a Lutheran, not a Catholic, but that didn't make any difference - these were strong woman that made an impact on their world through God. Some quotes from the book that stuck with me:
'God has no hands on earth but yours, No feet on earth but yours, No eyes of compassion but yours' St. Teresa of Avila, patron saint of Spain
'Be gentle with others and stern with yourself.' St. Teresa of Avila
'...fragile vessels afloat in the world...' St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, patron saint of all immigrants

'Because I have always been a world traveler, being right where I was born is a lucky comfort.' Author Mary Lea Carroll

[Laureen Nowakowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book. Recommended to me in 3 different places within a few days. The author tells you about 8 different lady saints/shrines she visited across the world. Each one was a great story about the saint and also the people and things the author encountered. In Glendale, CA she visited a Catholic Church where one of the visionaries from Medjugorje came to speak. He said the blessed mother wants everyone to work on their soul the same way they work on everything else. When she was leaving the church the author smelled roses and someone told her that meant the Blessed Virgin was present. I copied down the 12th century prayer, Memorare, that was so important to St. Elizabeth Seton. A quick and very pleasurable read.

[Denisele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this book on Hoopla. I think it was just the right length for this type of memoir topic. Quick and too the point. A nice balance of humor and info. The author made herself very relatable while calling all readers/listeners to more holiness. I enjoy reading the experiences of others and appreciated the short backgrounds she gave on the selected saints. If you have already studied the saints in more detail, this book may be too basic for you, but I think it's a great intro book for those looking into how to embrace the saints better. Would definitely recommend this book to family or friends who are "casual Catholics" in hopes that they would find something to inspire their curiosity and faith journey.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just spent my overcast, rainy (cool?- do cool days exist here in the South during the summer?!?)day reading "just one more chapter" of this slim treasure. Written in a conversational tone, Saints Everywhere took me on travels with the author, as she searched out shrines of women saints around the world. I'm not Catholic, but I appreciate anything that lifts up women in this world. I do find the stories of these women more than just fodder for an uplifting women's narrative; I believe there are things that happen in the world that we can't explain. There are people who reveal these things to us, though I think we might all be able to see if we just spent time looking. Mary Lea Carroll let me "see" through her own time looking. I'll be getting the second soon.

[Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this was like sitting down and talking to an old friend for an evening. Deeply comforting and entertaining. This book was exactly what I needed when I read it and I am so grateful! I also learned a lot from this book about the various saints and I loved that!
I am extraordinarily lucky to be able to count Mary Lea as a pseudo aunt and her personality drips from the pages. I can so clearly see the scenes she describes and I can here Bill make his comments throughout the book.
I am confident that everyone who reads this book will find comfort and inspiration even if they do not know Mary Lea as well as I do.

[Celeste Andrelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a Catholic memoir, this book has a decidedly conversational tone that draws you in from the start. This book is not a stuffy research book or a fluffy how to build up your spiritual relationship with the Almighty. Instead this book is an approachable and quirky text about how saints can be inspire you to improve your modern current life in small ways. Sometimes the author let's too much worry in her inner dialogue ever the book off the proverbial tracks but overall it is a great read and worth the time to enjoy this short memoir.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear Reader forgive me, for it has been 50 years since my last confession. I start out this way to explain that the levitating lady saints and the traveling hands and the non-decaying body parts in this novel were familiar territory for me because of my Catholic upbringing. I'd also like to start out by saying that Carroll uses a quote from Kurt Vonnegut as an epigraph. I found that especially fitting, not because this book is funny or satirical, but because every time I read Vonnegut I feel that he's sitting across from me, occasionally leaning forward to tap my knee and say, "Listen." Carroll's writing is equally colloquial, for Carroll invokes her family, her encounters with strangers, and her own doubts and her own excitement. Carroll also offers a good many historical tidbits, and she also corrals the lady saints into something other than levitating--and that something is charitable action going hand in hand with feminism. A pleasant, easygoing read that I recommend.

[Susannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book as the author is pretty much a neighbor in Pasadena, so for me it was like striking up chit chat with a local about her travels abroad. Engaging writing style and very relatable. For example she mentions Porto’s of Glendale and compares to coffee in Europe. I even recommended book to my doctor at my last visit. Really quick and fun, and more of a personal sharing of travel journal than an in-depth exploration.

[Emily Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read! This is a book to purchase and re-read. I particularly loved the discussions of St. Theresa of Avila and Mary’s apparitions at Medjugorje (did I spell that right??) I kept it by by nightstand, read on my shuttle ride, and on my lunch breaks. A must read if you hope to encounter some Lady Saints!

[Marie Mcmanus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have read about saints. Many of the books about saints are simply a recitation of facts about the saint. Mary Lea brings them to life. She intersperses thoughts in her own mind and anecdotes about her life.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for book club and was resistant because I'm not Catholic. But it was better than expected, due to the conversational nature of the writing and the author's honesty about her experiences. I learned some interesting things too, like "relics" in Catholicism.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief travel and spiritual memoir, told from the perspective of a woman whose identity is presented as primarily a suburban wife and mother. I liked learning about the various "lady saints" and how the author's fascination with them evolves into a pilgrimage of sorts.

[Susan Stangebye · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable, easy, quick read about the author's experience learning more about a women saints. I really could appreciate, especially being Catholic. This was written with her experiences during this, not just about the saints themselves, I appreciated that.

Source: satellite sisters podcast

[Laureen Hyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met the author at the ALA conference in Washington DC last year. I wish I had read the book before I met her. This book was a compilation of some of her travels to find the saints. So interesting! Not only her travels but the stories of the saints. So glad I read this book!

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful book. It is full of information about the saints but it is also about how the saints affect the author. These mostly were saints I was very familiar with but the author gave a fresh look at them.

[Shola Giwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading because I want to savor the book.
Absolutely love it thus far. Read an adventure / chapter each day. Very inspirational. On my Christmas gift list for all my friends.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a surprise! It is not religious, but it is one woman's funny, profound, entertaining and inspiring travels and journey through life. It's quick and uplifting.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful & enjoyable. Was a bit put off by the author's white privilege, but appreciate that she used it for good and not evil. Go, lady saints!

[Bmaceo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, inspiring read by a local author. Great for anyone who loves to travel or admires women who overcame the odds to do transformational things in the world.