This new concise Butler's provides an essay on one saint for each day of the month, using the twelve-volume full edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints as a source. Selections are made from both categories of Saint" and *Blessed - - canonized and beatified, allowing for the increasing proportion of women and of new- and third-world holy people. Completely rewritten in a popular style, this volume also has more *spiritual - appeal than the full edition. A prayer and intercessory reflection is included after each entry, which lend themselves to family or small-group meditation as well as to individual devotion. The volume also suggests baptismal/confirmation names for the day's commemorations or for inclusion in prayers. Paul Burns is the general editor of the Butler's Lives of the Saints series published by Liturgical Press. This new concise Butler?s provides an essay on one saint for each day of the month, using the twelve-volume full edition of Butler?s Lives of the Saints as a source. Selections are made from both categories of ?Saint? and ?Blessed??canonized and beatified, allowing for the increasing proportion of women and of new- and third-world holy people. Completely rewritten in a popular style, this volume also has more ?spiritual? appeal than the full edition. A prayer and intercessory reflection is included after each entry, which lend themselves to family or small-group meditation as well as to individual devotion. The volume also suggests baptismal/confirmation names for the day?s commemorations or for inclusion in prayers.?They surround us; walking alongside us. They have gone before us; calling us forward. A great cloud of witnesses: the saints, and those called ?blessed.? Pondering the new concise edition of Butler?s Lives of the Saints day by day, week by week, season by season, we participate more fully in the grand communion of these friends of God and prophets and, together with them, share in the divine life?even now.? Michael Downey, Editor The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality