Holiness is Always in Season

By Pope Benedict XVI

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I guess it's no secret that I liked this book.  I love solid teaching about the faith and those who followed it, and you don't get much more solid than the Pope himself.  Telling you everything this book gets right would take all day, though, so instead of explaining everything I liked about it, I'm going to tell you what this book is, and what it is not.

This book is not a thorough history of hagiography, nor a sufficient biography for any of the saints mentioned herein.  It is a series of quotes from our current pope (Pope Benedict XVI at the time I write this,) about various saints and special feast days over the course of the year.

It gives a brief synopsis of the lives of many of the saints mentioned herein, outlines some of what they did, and points out various virtues, lines of reasoning, and approaches to the faith, which every Catholic should be struggling to emulate to this day.  By no means is this list of saints exhaustive, and a fair amount of additional research into the lives of those mentioned here would benefit an interested reader, even after putting this book down.  However, this isn't an encyclopedia of the saints; an endeavor that would take much more time, I'm sure, than the Holy Father has.

The practice of using the lives of the saints to instruct us all in how to grow in holiness is a very helpful one, and this book takes that tack to success.  In these times, many of us are forgetting how to look up to heroes; to watch in amazement as someone achieves true excellence, and to wish we could do it too.  I think too many fall into despair and fear that no matter what, they can never do what's needed, but these people; the saints are the real heroes.  They strove for true excellence, and eventually acquired it, and if we need people to follow the example of, or if we're afraid that our talents, strengths or personality will keep us from crossing that finish line, we just have to look at this great cloud of witnesses, and remember that it's not strengths, or talents, or personality-type that wins the ultimate victory; just plain and simple holiness.  This is what I take away from this book.

The translation is fair; somewhat casual-sounding and easy to read, compared to some of the pope's other writings.  That does make it a great deal more accessible.  I only hope no important meanings were lost in the translation process.

It was an excellent read, and if you ever need an introduction to saints or to saintliness, this is one of the best starting points you could hope for, short of reaching Heaven itself.