Pocket Guide to Sainthood

By Jason Boyett
Jossey-Bass, $12.95, 219 pages

Pocket Guide to Sainthood is an irreverent, humorous look at the lives of officially recognized saints. Boyett delivers an endless stream of funny quips as he tells the highlights of each saint’s life. Did you know that Saint Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of airline pilots and mentally handicapped people? Aside from the chuckles, the book educates the reader about Catholic traditions and the process of canonization. Boyett implies that after death, a saint’s accomplishments were often embellished by their followers for personal gain. This Protestant reviewer found the stories about bizarre miracles, levitation, and bilocation (being in two places at once) to be disconcerting. The reader will learn that some saints wore animal hair shirts, went barefoot, put ashes in their food, slept on a hard floor, locked themselves in a room for years, and engaged in self-flagellation. Fortunately, others led simple inspiring lives. Saint Francis of Assisi was compassionate to the poor, rejected a wealthy inheritance, and was kind to animals. The Gregorian chant is named after Saint Gregory because of his contributions to liturgical worship. Many saints suffered horrific martyrdom, and some of Boyett’s attempts to humor-up those violent events fell flat. This book is not for the extremely devout with a strong reverence for the faith. The soul of the book is the statement that sainthood had as much to do with how people acted after you died as it did with how you acted before you died. An entertaining and informative read.

Reviewed by Grady Jones