Saints for Sinners: Nine Desolate Souls Made Strong by God Paperback - 2007

From the jacket flap

Christ came not to call saints but to make them often out of weak, stupid, and sinful men. That's why the saints are not only models of holiness for us to imitate; they're reminders that God's grace can outshine every human flaw.

As Alban Goodier's classic Saints for Sinners shows us, even the greatest saints had to battle the same stubborn vices, temptations of the flesh, and bouts of spiritual dryness that afflict you and me today. In these pages, with a style that perfectly blends hagiographical detail, spiritual meditation, and a skilled storyteller's touch, Archbishop Goodier brings us the tales of:

-The mercenary fighting man and itinerant gambler who left behind his rough soldier's habits and founded a religious order to care for the sick

-The backward, sickly teenager, disowned by his family and dogged by the Inquisition, who became a miraculous healer and paragon of humble simplicity

-The willful Tuscan beauty with a bad reputation who forsook vanity and lust to answer God's call to live in poverty and penitence

-The brilliant, brooding Spanish nobleman who gave up everything to be a missionary only to see most of his efforts fail

-The royal chaplain and daring Counter-Reformer who escaped the gallows but had to endure a lifelong interior martyrdom of doubt and discouragement

-The hedonistic heretic and womanizer who traded worldly pleasure for divine happiness, and became one of the Church's greatest theologians

-And other inspiring tales of imperfect souls "made perfect in infirmity"

Read these stories and find in them delight and encouragement, as well as hope. You'll come to see that there is no one so sinful, weak, or desolate that God has not already raised another like him to the heights of glory.