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Epic Saints: Wild, Wonderful, and Weird Stories of God's Heroes
Discover the Epic Humanity of the Saints
The saints are not myths or legends, they were people just like us who lived lives of epic virtue.
If the saints have never made you laugh or drop your jaw, they will in this book. Bestselling author Shaun McAfee (Reform Yourself!, Filling Our Father’s House) and guest writers illustrate how the saints were not just stone-faced old men. Some of them had quirky habits, outrageous personalities, and did breathtaking deeds...but they all had epic faith.
Their lives were filled with events that push our understanding of charity with intrepid virtue, but at certain points, they lacked common sense and were uproariously funny, too.
Discover the time:
· A young man known for his spiritual perfection almost blew himself to bits with a cannon.
· The saint of the Cristero War became a master of disguises to save Christians and hilariously taunt his persecutors.
· Twin saints conjured dragons and tempests just to preserve vocations of novices.
· The founder of the Oratorians joked about his own death, just moments before he died.
· A famous cardinal rejected guaranteed conclave votes to make him pope.
· A magnificent preacher was— understandably—accused of being insane.
You’ll be filled with faith and laughter as you discover that God truly sends the lowly to do his will on earth, but that over time and with God’s graces, the lowly are lifted the highest—even if they are a little wild, weird, and epically wonderful.
The saints are not myths or legends, they were people just like us who lived lives of epic virtue.
If the saints have never made you laugh or drop your jaw, they will in this book. Bestselling author Shaun McAfee (Reform Yourself!, Filling Our Father’s House) and guest writers illustrate how the saints were not just stone-faced old men. Some of them had quirky habits, outrageous personalities, and did breathtaking deeds...but they all had epic faith.
Their lives were filled with events that push our understanding of charity with intrepid virtue, but at certain points, they lacked common sense and were uproariously funny, too.
Discover the time:
· A young man known for his spiritual perfection almost blew himself to bits with a cannon.
· The saint of the Cristero War became a master of disguises to save Christians and hilariously taunt his persecutors.
· Twin saints conjured dragons and tempests just to preserve vocations of novices.
· The founder of the Oratorians joked about his own death, just moments before he died.
· A famous cardinal rejected guaranteed conclave votes to make him pope.
· A magnificent preacher was— understandably—accused of being insane.
You’ll be filled with faith and laughter as you discover that God truly sends the lowly to do his will on earth, but that over time and with God’s graces, the lowly are lifted the highest—even if they are a little wild, weird, and epically wonderful.
- GenresCatholic
210 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 13, 2020
12 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 13, 2020
A truly epic read. a fantastic collection of stories about saints, and history of saint making. Full review below.
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I love books like this one. I love reading about saints and am currently reading books from 4 different series about saints. But what a book like this does is introduce me to a few new saints, it gives me some more information and examples from saints that I am more familiar with. This was an EPIC READ that I could hardly put down. It is mostly eBook about specific saints and But there is also a lot of great information about the process of saint making, and the canon and calendar of saints. But the volume is not just the work of Shaun McAfee there are several contributors. Those contributors are:
Alex R. Hey
Sarah Spittler
Jessica Mcafee
Theresa Zoe Williams
Brooke Gregory
Deacon Marty Mcindoe
Shaun Mcafee
Laura Hensley
Mike Panlilio
Maggie Van Sciver
The essays interspersed through the biographies are:
Have Saints Always Been Canonized The Same Way?
What Is The General Roman Calendar?
Can These Stories Be Allegorical?
Are We Really Expected To Believe These Stories?
Why Are Some Saints Not On The Calendar?
What Is The Process For Canonization?
What Should We Do With Saint Narratives That Contain Errors Or Inconsistencies?
Why Are Some Canonized Quickly While Others Have Been In The Process For Centuries?
Can I Become A Saint?
And on top of that are profiles of 74 saints. Shaun and the other contributors do an amazing job or highlighting so many saints in such a short space. There are almost a dozen saints I need to go find further readings on. And my son is already looking forward to my rereading this book with him.
In this volume there are a few tales about dragons. Saints pulling practical jokes and pranks. A bilocating death and many, many more. Stories of saints, of Martyrs and holy men and women.
Though I will be honest with you, the pieces in this volume are so well written you might have a hard time picking a favorite. And you will definitely want to read more on at least some of the saints. An excellent read, that I highly recommend.
Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by Shaun McAfee.
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2020 Catholic Reading Plan!
.
.
.
I love books like this one. I love reading about saints and am currently reading books from 4 different series about saints. But what a book like this does is introduce me to a few new saints, it gives me some more information and examples from saints that I am more familiar with. This was an EPIC READ that I could hardly put down. It is mostly eBook about specific saints and But there is also a lot of great information about the process of saint making, and the canon and calendar of saints. But the volume is not just the work of Shaun McAfee there are several contributors. Those contributors are:
Alex R. Hey
Sarah Spittler
Jessica Mcafee
Theresa Zoe Williams
Brooke Gregory
Deacon Marty Mcindoe
Shaun Mcafee
Laura Hensley
Mike Panlilio
Maggie Van Sciver
The essays interspersed through the biographies are:
Have Saints Always Been Canonized The Same Way?
What Is The General Roman Calendar?
Can These Stories Be Allegorical?
Are We Really Expected To Believe These Stories?
Why Are Some Saints Not On The Calendar?
What Is The Process For Canonization?
What Should We Do With Saint Narratives That Contain Errors Or Inconsistencies?
Why Are Some Canonized Quickly While Others Have Been In The Process For Centuries?
Can I Become A Saint?
And on top of that are profiles of 74 saints. Shaun and the other contributors do an amazing job or highlighting so many saints in such a short space. There are almost a dozen saints I need to go find further readings on. And my son is already looking forward to my rereading this book with him.
In this volume there are a few tales about dragons. Saints pulling practical jokes and pranks. A bilocating death and many, many more. Stories of saints, of Martyrs and holy men and women.
Though I will be honest with you, the pieces in this volume are so well written you might have a hard time picking a favorite. And you will definitely want to read more on at least some of the saints. An excellent read, that I highly recommend.
Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by Shaun McAfee.
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2020 Catholic Reading Plan!
January 2, 2021
This is one of those ‘collections’ books that I stalled out on at various points because I felt like I was running through it so fast. (yes, I am one of those types of people who makes a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates last until St. Patrick’s Day.)
There are different reasons one can stall out like that; sometimes it’s that there are so few stories in a collection that they need careful doling out – definitely not the case here. Sometimes each story is so singular or dense that you need to break up the ‘flavors’ to savor. That also wasn’t the case. If anything, some of them suffered from just running together in a mix of eccentrics, monks, and guys who fought heresies.
At the end of the day, this was illuminating, but in a little bit of a shallow way. Some of the stories were barely three pages long. I recognize that’s by design, in that the authors wanted to provide a wide range of lesser-known eclectic figures or events. At points though, the emphasis on the ‘weird’ came close to backfiring; feeling like what am I supposed to do with the story? It’s so strange it’s almost offputting, and the tacked on couple lines of homily-wrapup doesn’t give me much to work with to reconcile the strangeness or draw deeper meaning from it.
Overall I am glad I read it, but I think the next book of saints I tackle is going to need to be different structurally than this. I did find a lot of the short little reference articles about the process or understanding saints lives in general to be pretty useful.
There are different reasons one can stall out like that; sometimes it’s that there are so few stories in a collection that they need careful doling out – definitely not the case here. Sometimes each story is so singular or dense that you need to break up the ‘flavors’ to savor. That also wasn’t the case. If anything, some of them suffered from just running together in a mix of eccentrics, monks, and guys who fought heresies.
At the end of the day, this was illuminating, but in a little bit of a shallow way. Some of the stories were barely three pages long. I recognize that’s by design, in that the authors wanted to provide a wide range of lesser-known eclectic figures or events. At points though, the emphasis on the ‘weird’ came close to backfiring; feeling like what am I supposed to do with the story? It’s so strange it’s almost offputting, and the tacked on couple lines of homily-wrapup doesn’t give me much to work with to reconcile the strangeness or draw deeper meaning from it.
Overall I am glad I read it, but I think the next book of saints I tackle is going to need to be different structurally than this. I did find a lot of the short little reference articles about the process or understanding saints lives in general to be pretty useful.
July 3, 2020
I'd give it 3-1/2 stars if I could. This is an easy read with lots of short, interesting vignettes about the saints. They are fun stories about "cool" Catholics, but the stories are short on detail, and I was surprised that there was no bibliography or list of resources for following up to learn more about the saints. Without that, it reads a like history via the internet (Wikipedia). It would be a good read for middle school students or for a non-Catholic who wants to learn a bit about the saints. So...not a bad book, just not one that goes too deep.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews