BOOK REVIEW
Book on saints offers something for everyone

Reviewed by Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
May 3, 2007

For many Catholics, the last book on the saints they owned was a dog-eared children’s book they brought with them to Mass as youngsters.

Maybe a few own Butler’s “Lives of the Saints,” a massive four-volume work containing hagiographies on thousands of canonized Christians.

At any rate, the gap between a picture book on St. Francis and a thousand page tome is just asking to be filled.

Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua have done a good job covering that middle area with their new book “Saints: Ancient and Modern.”

The book is by no means exhaustive, as the authors explain in the introduction. Their goal was “to go into detail about a varied handful [of saints] that have an ongoing influence in modern life.”

They divided the book in half, the first part covering “ancient” saints who lived in the first 1,000 years of Christianity. The second half is for “modern” saints, beginning with St. Francis of Assisi in 1182 and ending with Padre Pio in 1969.

Each entry in the book begins with a catalog about the saint in the life of the Church along with a beautiful piece of art representing the saint.

For St. Ursula we get a Renaissance painting whose vibrant colors leap off the glossy page.

We learn that St. Ursula’s feast day is Oct. 21. She is the patroness of the British Virgin Islands, Cologne, Germany and the University of Paris. Also: archers, drapers, educators, girls and orphans.

She is invoked for the education of girls and women, a happy marriage and a holy death. She is invoked against shipwrecks on rivers.

Her symbols are: arrows, a cloak, a crown, a pilgrim’s staff with a white flag and red cross and a ship.

And that’s all just on St. Ursula’s first page.

Turning the page, we find stories from different sources about St. Ursula’s life, which were drawn from legends. The authors also do a bit of digging to uncover what may be the most accurate account of her life.

One report of Ursula’s martyrdom depicts her as the Christian daughter of a British king who arranged her marriage to a pagan prince.

After being prompted by an angel, Ursula requested that she travel for a few years, “visiting the holy shrines of the Christians.”

She was accompanied by a host of virgins, who had to learn to sail the ships that would take them from Cologne and eventually to Rome, where the pope received them.

Upon their return to Germany, Cologne had been overrun by the Huns. They murdered most of Ursula’s companions, but spared her for her beauty. When she refused marriage to the conquerors’ leader, he shot her through the heart with an arrow.

A millennia later, in the 16th century, St. Ursula appeared to an Italian woman named Angela Merici and inspired her to found a religious order dedicated to the education of young women.

Thus began the order of Ursuline nuns who have educated women all over the globe for centuries.

After the biography, the authors describe how each particular saint is usually portrayed in art.

“Since Ursula was a British princess,” they write, “she is depicted with a crown, and the flag she carries is the banner of St. George, the Christian flag of England.”

To close out St. Ursula’s chapter, they leave us with a prayer to her.

The other saint entries — there are 22 in total — follow this same general organization. And what works so well for St. Ursula’s pages works equally well for St. Anne’s or St. Benedict’s.

Each entry gives a wealth of information, notable for its breadth of interest. At the same time, the authors manage not to overwhelm the reader.

In this way, they are able to reach a wide-range of audiences. The beautiful art with explanations of each saint’s iconography will interest art enthusiasts.

The brief biographies and lists of what each saint is patron of will inform those Catholics who wish to learn a little bit more about their confirmation name, or who to pray to for a specific ailment.

The prayers ending each section spiritually ground the book, making it more than a historical study.

In fact, by offering so much to so many different groups of people, the authors have created something truly catholic, or universal.

That’s appropriate, because what’s more Catholic than an interest in and devotion to the saints?

Andrew Junker is a staff writer for The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to ajunker@catholicsun.org.