Nevertheless, despite the blandness of this obeisance to scientific explanations, the work as a whole is as captivating as it is rigorous.Īn edifying and meticulous exploration of two saints. Francis’ temptations by demons were likely the result of severe undernourishment: “Throughout his religious life, Francis would blame tribulations and temptations on the Devil and other evil denizens of Hell who knew how to taunt and vex him when he was most vulnerable, but his own mistreatment of himself and the ravages of semi-starvation were certainly responsible for much suffering.” This is more speculation than empirical science and doesn’t help illuminate the nature of the spiritual or existential crisis St. But the author’s tendency to interpret the miraculous elements of her subjects’ lives in narrowly scientific terms seems not only gratuitous, but also distorting. Furthermore, the book is lucidly written, a scrupulously thorough account enlivened by what Brady calls “novelistic details,” the minutiae, however imagined, that immerse readers in the drama. In addition, the author brings to vivid life the religious and political tumult of the time-which included the Crusades-and astutely articulates the various lines of theological division. Clare at loggerheads with Pope Gregory IX. Francis could be “pitiless” enforcing-and a stricture that put St. They were joined by their relentless religious ardor and an insistence on a life of poverty, a condition St. In a show of remarkably painstaking research, Brady chronicles the turbulent journeys of the two saints. Her parents fecklessly tried to compel her to marry, but she resisted, sold off her inheritance, and used the money to rebuild the Church of Saint Damian, a project to which St. From an early age, she was incorruptibly devoted to God and steadfastly prayed and fasted as expressions of her spiritual fervor. Clare was born in Assisi in the closing years of the 12th century to a noble family distantly related on the maternal side to Constance, the wife of Henry VI, the Holy Roman emperor. A historical work examines the intersecting lives of two Roman Catholic saints: St.
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