Best-selling author of ‘Saints for Our Time’ and ‘Saints for the Journey’ Fr John Murray introduces us to a selection of saints for the family, to mark the World Meeting of Families which takes place in Dublin in August. Among those included are traditional Biblical figures like Joseph husband of Mary as well as Elizabeth and Zechariah. There are classical saints too from the Church’s past such as Margaret of Scotland and Bernadette of Lourdes. However the author wanted to show also that many who came from families also experienced difficulties and trauma — people like Laura Vicuna who suffered abuse and Antonia Brenner who had two failed marriages before befriending prisoners in a maximum security complex. There too is Sr Ignatia who helped in the founding of the AA organisation and Bartolo Longo who at one time was a Satanist priest but became in time a great devotee of the rosary. There are also couples included like the parents of St Therese of Lisieux as well as the parents of Pope Saint John Paul and couples like Felip and Maria Barreda who died during the Nicaraguan civil war as well as Jacques and Raissa Maritain who blazed a path for the intellectual life in the 20th century.
