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Rating: 
Summary: encouraging book for hard times
Review: I came upon Ghezzi's book during a very difficult time in my life. I picked it up because I thought it would be interesting (which it was) but it was more than that. It was encouraging, consoling, amusing, fortifying and helped give me insight to deal with my own situation. Ghezzi combines stories about the struggles and miracles of the saints with excerpts from their writings (and occasional quotes from others...I liked the remark of retreat master Martin Smith: "Do you really believe that God hides his will from us and expects us to search for it as though we are on a treasure hunt?"). I came away from Mystics and Miracles impressed not so much with the miracles as with the mystics themselves...their wholehearted reliance on God and his care for them. Ghezzi manaages to create a sense of solidarity on the part of the mystics with us ordinary humans. I had the sense, after reading it, that these men and women were my partners on the path of life and if they could make it through hard times, so could I.
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Summary: A wondrously spiritual, uplifting, inspiring volume
Review: Mystics & Miracles: True Stories Of Lives Touched By God by Bert Ghezzi Bert Ghezzi provides a scholarly focus upon the lives of twenty-four people of diverse personalities and backgrounds who have each known a special closeness to God through a greater wisdom in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. Individual chapters recount the great miracles of male and female saints of history, from the healing touch of St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639) to the divine voices that made St. Joan of Arc (1412-31) change history. Mystics & Miracles is a wondrously spiritual, uplifting, inspiring volume, and enthusiastically recommended reading for students of Christianity and Christian history.
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Summary: Supernatural Sanctity on the Streets
Review: What's the difference between a magician and a mystic? The magician tricks you into seeing visible things that aren't really there, and the mystic opens your eyes to invisible things that really are. What's that got to do with Bert Ghezzi's new book? Its mystics use all sorts of inexplicable marvels - visions, healings, prophecies, you name it - to help you see your way to the ultimate unseen reality: God. The miracles are mind-blowing, no question about that. We're talking otherworldly, occasionally bizarre incidents - phenomena that would seem like so much sleight of hand if not for the sanctity of the souls around whom the jaw-dropping oddities regularly occurred. St. Dominic raises the dead. Padre Pio receives the wounds of Christ and is physically present in two places at once. St. Theresa Margaret's body refuses to decay, to this day, since her death in 1770. And so on. But consider yourself forewarned: If it's a sideshow you're after, you'll waste your time and money on this title. For Ghezzi's only so interested in the signs and wonders that followed his subjects wherever they went. What he's really after is the unfailingly generous way they answered God's call to holiness - and what their example can teach us about answering that call ourselves. Ghezzi excels at combining concise, fast-paced biographical sketches with carefully selected, illustrative anecdotes that show the mystics' faith in action. Yet it's his personal, sometimes bracingly candid, reflections on the impact the mystics have made on his own life that, for me, set this volume apart from others of its kind.
I also like the way Ghezzi helps make sense of the mystical phenomena he cites by separating it into six categories - miracles of love; miraculous prayer; dreams, visions, and other wonders; miracles of conversion; miracles to awaken us; and miracles that changed the course of history. About the only thing I would have liked to see more of, particularly when reading about some of the more eye-popping occurrences, is direct referencing to sources and eyewitness accounts. Alas, that's probably the journalist in me. Or maybe it's my inner Doubting Thomas. Either way, I don't think I'm the only reader who will be tempted to ask, when reading about, for example, Jesus appearing to St. Gertrude and transporting her from her cell to a separate part of her convent: "Come on - did this really happen?" And maybe my skepticism is a sign of how much I need a book like this. Not so much as a reference work, but as a guide to prayer and contemplation. Ghezzi was way ahead of me on that thought. "Most of us will never experience mystical phenomena," he writes. "No raptures, ecstasies or other preternatural events will overtake us. I don't know about you, but I'm grateful for that, because mystical consolations come at a great personal cost that I am not sure I'm ready to pay. However, we can permit God to lift us up, embrace us, press us to his cheek, feed us, teach us to walk in his way, lead us with human ties of love, and listen to our prayers. Wouldn't you consider that to be miraculous? I would." No argument here. And here's hoping my enjoyment of Ghezzi's book is not the fascination of a bystander drawn to the believe-it-or-not hour, but rather a manifestation of rightly ordered mysticism, or some small semblance of it, at work in my own life. David Pearson is features editor of the National Catholic Register [URL].
Rating:
Summary: encouraging book for hard times
Review: What�s the difference between a magician and a mystic? The magician tricks you into seeing visible things that aren�t really there, and the mystic opens your eyes to invisible things that really are. What�s that got to do with Bert Ghezzi�s new book? Its mystics use all sorts of inexplicable marvels � visions, healings, prophecies, you name it � to help you see your way to the ultimate unseen reality: God. The miracles are mind-blowing, no question about that. We�re talking otherworldly, occasionally bizarre incidents � phenomena that would seem like so much sleight of hand if not for the sanctity of the souls around whom the jaw-dropping oddities regularly occurred. St. Dominic raises the dead. Padre Pio receives the wounds of Christ and is physically present in two places at once. St. Theresa Margaret�s body refuses to decay, to this day, since her death in 1770. And so on. But consider yourself forewarned: If it�s a sideshow you�re after, you�ll waste your time and money on this title. For Ghezzi�s only so interested in the signs and wonders that followed his subjects wherever they went. What he�s really after is the unfailingly generous way they answered God�s call to holiness � and what their example can teach us about answering that call ourselves. Ghezzi excels at combining concise, fast-paced biographical sketches with carefully selected, illustrative anecdotes that show the mystics� faith in action. Yet it�s his personal, sometimes bracingly candid, reflections on the impact the mystics have made on his own life that, for me, set this volume apart from others of its kind. I also like the way Ghezzi helps make sense of the mystical phenomena he cites by separating it into six categories � miracles of love; miraculous prayer; dreams, visions, and other wonders; miracles of conversion; miracles to awaken us; and miracles that changed the course of history. About the only thing I would have liked to see more of, particularly when reading about some of the more eye-popping occurrences, is direct referencing to sources and eyewitness accounts. Alas, that�s probably the journalist in me. Or maybe it�s my inner Doubting Thomas. Either way, I don�t think I�m the only reader who will be tempted to ask, when reading about, for example, Jesus appearing to St. Gertrude and transporting her from her cell to a separate part of her convent: �Come on � did this really happen?� And maybe my skepticism is a sign of how much I need a book like this. Not so much as a reference work, but as a guide to prayer and contemplation. Ghezzi was way ahead of me on that thought. ... No argument here. And here�s hoping my enjoyment of Ghezzi�s book is not the fascination of a bystander drawn to the believe-it-or-not hour, but rather a manifestation of rightly ordered mysticism, or some small semblance of it, at work in my own life. ...
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