Voices of the Saints: A Year of Readings.

Bert Ghezzi, Voices of the Saints: A Year of Readings, New York, Toronto, Doubleday, 2000. xix, 791 pages, $44.95 (Cdn.)

When we pray the Apostles' Creed, we profess our belief in the communion of saints. As Christians, we are enabled by God's grace to live a life of personal sanctity. Each one of us is called to share in God's holiness, here on earth as we do our daily tasks, and in life everlasting as promised by Our Lord in His resurrection. Sainthood is open to all who honestly desire it.

In the New Testament, living members of the Church were called saints, holy ones, because they were the first generation of believers, many of whom had been disciples of Jesus. Today, following centuries of Church tradition and practice, we call saints those deceased members of the Church who now have a share in the fullness of the Kingdom. Among them are saints who have been officially recognized by the Church as having lived exemplary lives of holiness. Miracles are attributed them. Popular cults have grown up around them. They have feast days and are asked in prayer to intercede on behalf of the living. Many were martyred for the faith. There are approximately 10,000 saints recognized by the Church. Under John Paul II, this number has been growing.

Another long-standing Catholic tradition has been the recording of the lives of the saints, so that their Christian witness and sacrifice may be imitated by the faithful. Voices of the Saints, by Bert Ghezzi, sits comfortably within this venerable tradition. Each entry is thoroughly researched, well written, and very readable. The whole book has a ring of authenticity to it. We can rely on it for its accuracy and its Catholicity. Voices of the Saints is made up of brief but informative biographies of 365 saints, one for each day of the year. The book opens with Alfred of Rievaulx (1110-1167) and closes with Willibrod (658-739). In between is a fair selection of the well known and the obscure, the ancient and the modern, from all parts of the world. Arranged alphabetically by first name, each entry is one and a half pages in length and finishes with basic information about the saint: the feast day, the date of beatification or canonization -- if known -- the groups for which that particular saint is the patro n and, interestingly, "Go to" and "Go back to" instructions for readers who wish to navigate through this collection of saints in historical order.

Appended to the book are the saints' names in broad thematic categories -- almsgiving, child saints, Doctors of the Church, facing death, married saints, to name only a few -- for those who want to take a more devotional approach. As well, the names appear in a proper calendar of saints according to the Roman Rite.

The bibliography is different and rather intriguing. It too is arranged in alphabetical order according to the names of the saints. Following each name is the most important primary source consulted by the author in writing up the saint. A useful glossary of terms completes the text.

What separates Voices of the Saints from other similar compilations is that the saints are allowed to speak to us in their own prayers and writings. This ma all the more real for the reader and gives more substance to the idea of the communion of saints, a dialogue between those who are already in the Kingdom d e wishing to join them there. And if a saint left nothing behind for us to read, the author has supplemented his sketch with quotes from Scripture and history and occasion with his own reflections. There are times, though, when Ghezzi's reflections slip into editorial commentary of a type that inadvertently diminishes the stature of the saint Ghezzi's comments on Blessed Katherine Tekawitha's fasts and scourgings is one example in which the voice of the writer drowns out the voice of the saint.

If there is a structural flaw to Voices of the Saints, it is one common to any undertaking of this sort. The Church is very top-heavy in European-born saints who also happened to be either bishops, priests, or religious. Ghezzi could not do much about this. His choices were limited. Consequently, among his own selection of saint are very few non-Europeans. They are exceptions, of course. In addition to individual saints, such as Josaphat of Ukraine Ghezzi gives us introductory portraits of the 103 Korean Martyrs (1839-1866); Paul Miki and Twenty-Five Companions (Japan, 1597), and Charles Lwanga and companions (Uganda, 1886). Also, there are precious few minted people who have been elevated to sainthood. St. Thomas More, who died on the scaffold a married man, would be one example, but he remains a rarity. Only very recently has the Church considered married couples as candidates for canonization. Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, and Georges and Pauline Vanier from our own country are but two that come to mind as couples presently being considered.

As excellent as this book is, Ghezzi does commit a blunder by including Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Matt Talbot, Solanus Casey, and John Henry Newman in his list of saints. Although eminently worthy of our prayerful attention, none of them has yet to be beatified or canonized. They should have been placed in the category of honourable mentions.

Criticisms aside, Voices of the Saints is a wonderful work of Catholic scholarship and piety.

Michael Power is a writer and historian who lives and works in Welland, Ontario.