John B. Manos

At seven Placid is taken to Subiaco. At twenty-one he is sent to Sicily to build a monastery on his father’s gift. Year five ends in fire.

A merchant’s son of Assisi envies the Man who had nowhere to lay His head, loses the family fortune, and gains a Father in heaven.

Sent to the French court, Gerard is so edified by St. Denis that he goes home, closes his accounts, and comes back as a monk.

Not a hair falls, not a sparrow drops, and still that is not enough: each soul that does not yet see the Father’s face has an angel assigned.

Tall, serene, miracle-working, and tired of nothing, he faces Arians in the South and pagan Franks in the North—and hands the Church a crowned son.

Jerome loves books to a fault, then hears the call, vows celibacy, and disappears into the Syrian desert. Four years later Rome wants a Bible.

Michael’s name is a war cry. He smote Lucifer, guarded Israel, rescued Moses’ body, and still shows up at the deathbed and the last trumpet.

Raised by martyr-grandmother Ludmilla, Wenceslas claims a Christian kingdom from his pagan mother, farms the altar wine himself, and dies at midnight prayer in his brother’s house.

Twin doctors, trained in Syria, heal everyone and charge no one. Loved for their charity, they are too famous to hide when Diocletian’s persecution begins.

A pagan nobleman hires the city’s magician to break a Christian virgin. Prayer outranks the spells. Both suitor and sorcerer convert; both saints keep the same feast.