Women Saints

Everyone refers to the St. Cecelia as “the Saint.” If you grew up coming here, you were “a Saint.” If you came from the wrong side of the river, you were “an Ain’t.” Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation here. But she could work here. One fateful summer she did, and married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails.

Mary Magdalene is one of the most influential symbols in the history of Christianity - yet, if you look in the Bible, you'll find only a handful of verses that speak of her. How did she become such a compelling saint in the face of such paltry evidence? In her effort to answer that question, Cynthia Bourgeault examines the Bible, church tradition, art, legend, and newly discovered texts to see what's there.

St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls.

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men - employees at the resort - are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.

France, 1942. At the end of the day, the schoolteacher releases her pupils. She checks they have their identity passes and warns them not to stop until the German guards have let them through the barrier that separates occupied France from Free France. As the little ones fly across the border and into their mothers' arms, she breathes a sigh of relief. No one is safe now. Not even the children.

Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.

Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.

When young Rachel Saint surrendered her life to God, she began an unimaginable journey that would span decades and radically transform a dying culture steeped in revenge. Against all odds, God would lead her to Ecuador's Waorani Indians—known as Aucas, or savages, and infamous for murder. Despite the martyrdom of five missionaries by Waorani spears, Rachel boldly persisted in following God. In one of the greatest testimonies to God's grace and power in our time, this pioneering Bible translator would live for two decades with her own brother's killers.

Being married to a saint isn't what it's cracked up to be. Beth's husband won't be joining the family on vacation at the beach this year. Or even joining them in the house. Instead, Rick has holed up alone in the backyard shed. Nobody knows exactly what he's up to. Maybe he's immersing himself in prayer. Maybe he's lost his mind. Maybe he's even the modern-day prophet or the saint the neighborhood artist imagines him to be. But while "St. Rick" waits for an epiphany, Beth will have to figure out what to do with herself and their teenage sons, possibly for the rest of her life.

Heavily tattooed and foul-mouthed, Nadia Bolz-Weber, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious-leader material - until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor. Using life stories, Nadia uses humorous narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way.

They say that life is a beautiful lie and death a painful truth. They're right. No one has ever made me feel more alive than the guy who serves as a constant reminder that my clock is ticking. He is my forbidden, shiny apple. The striking fallacy to my blunt, raw, truth. He is also my sister's ex-boyfriend. One thing you should know before you judge me: I saw him first. I craved him first. I loved him first. Eleven years later, he waltzed into my life, demanding a second chance. Dean Cole wants to be my bronze horseman. Hopefully, he isn't too late.

St. Therese of Lisieux, largely unknown when she died in a Carmelite convent at the age of 24, became, through her posthumously published autobiography, one of the world's most influential religious figures. No less a luminary than Andre Gide modeled one of his characters after her in his novel Strait is the Gate.

Sayer Cole and Zeb Fuller couldn't be more different. She's country club and fine dining, he's cell block and sawdust. Sayer spends her days in litigation while Zeb spends his working with his hands. She's French silk, he's all denim and flannel. Zeb's wanted the stunning blonde since the moment he laid eyes on her. It doesn't matter how many smooth moves he makes, the reserved lawyer seems determinedly oblivious to his interest - either that or she doesn't return it.

In this audiobook, master storyteller Jim Weiss introduces young listeners to some of the most fascinating people and events of the Middle Ages. Attila the Hun makes an empire shake with fear. Sir William Marshall outfights every opponent - yet shows mercy even to his enemies. Hildegard of Bingen writes beautiful music - and writes advice letters to kings and queens! Muhammad changes the map of the world, and inspires a faith that guides millions of people. Eleanor of Aquitaine fights for power in a world ruled by men. Moses Maimonides heals illnesses of the body and the spirit.

Award-winning author Maria Morera Johnson follows up her best-selling book My Badass Book of Saints with a unique and daring exploration of the cardinal virtues through the saints and heroines of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. Johnson will reignite your passion for your faith as she demonstrates the heroic in the sometimes mundane quest for good and reminds us that Catholicism is filled with adventure.

Sarai was a child of ten years, wise for her age but not yet a woman, when she first met Abram. He appeared before her in her father's house, filthy from the desert, tired and thirsty. But as the dirt of travel was washed from his body, the sight of him filled her heart. And when Abram promises Sarai to return in ten years to take her for his wife, her fate was sealed. Abram kept his promise, and Sarai kept hers. They were wed, and so joined the royal house of Ur with the high priesthood of the Hebrews. So began a lifetime of great joy together,

To say Edith Stein lived a remarkable life would be a dramatic understatement. Born in Breslau (then part of Germany) at the end of the 19th century, Edith was raised as an observant jew, only to turn her back on religion right around the time World War I devastated the continent. In the wake of the war, during which she earned a doctorate and began working as an assistant at the University of Freiburg, she began reading the works of the legendary St. Teresa of Ávila, one of the most influential Catholic saints in history.

Written by a group of friends, Seven Holy Women is a one-of-a-kind journey into the lives of seven women saints. Each section of the book includes a story from one saint’s life told vividly and imaginatively in the second person, additional information about the saint to give her context, a reflection on ways the writer, listener, and saint intersect on their journeys, personal surveys for the listener and a friend to complete, and a journal prompt that encourages the listener to explore and document her encounter with themes from the saint’s life.

A teenage girl named Thecla is sitting at her bedroom window listening to a man share stories nearby. Her mother and fiancé order her to stop. But Thecla, trapped in a world that expects her to marry and have children, refuses. This man, Paul, is talking about a world she wants to believe in: an inner world of freedom to define her own life. And he’s talking about a kind of love she hasn’t known before—a love that asks her to be true to who she is within.

In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus arrives on Nordstrand in Germany, to the delight of the island’s people. But after the show, a Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young children. Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and Tilli, just a girl herself, who will give birth later that day at St. Margaret’s Home for Pregnant Girls. After the tragedy, Lotte’s husband escapes with the Zirkus, while she loses the will to care for their surviving son.