2019 Best Book Awards, Finalist: Religion—Christianity Far too many Catholics think of the saints as old, cold, and irrelevant to everyday life. Catechist and spiritual director Bob Burnham, however, experiences the saints as something quite different: beautiful examples of people who, though flawed like us, opened themselves to God’s grace and can teach us to do the same.  In Little Lessons from the Saints , Burnham skips the typical biographies of saints and offers instead brief but powerful spiritual lessons from 52 different saints, each followed by a short meditation. Chapters are grouped under five main themes: Surrender, Freedom, Pilgrimage, Hospitality, and Loving Knowledge.  Burnham succeeds in offering simple ways to apply each saint’s particular charism to our own lives. Inspiring and practical, Little Lessons from the Saints helps us realize that we, too, are called to be saints. BOB BURNHAM is a Secular Franciscan and a spiritual director. He works as a freelance editor and writes about the spirituality of commuting on his blog www.mtransit.org. Saints on the Brain While he was recovering from a battle wound, Ignatius of Loyola asked for some books to read. He was probably hoping for tales of romance and knightly valor. Instead, he received The Life of Christ by Rudolph of Saxony and Flowers of the Saints . As he read—and reread—these books, he asked himself, “What if I should do what St. Francis did?” Over time, he began to forget about his dreams of military adventure and courtly love and sought to imitate the lives of the saints. You could say he had saints on the brain. I, too, have saints on the brain. They are my teachers—they show me how to live as a disciple of Christ. Like St. Ignatius, the lives of the saints inspire me to ask the question, “What if I should do as they did?” We are called to imitate the saints because we are called to be saints. But here’s the secret: we are already saints, albeit imperfect ones, for Christ lives in us, and we live in Christ. The saints teach us how to see that truth more clearly. Pope Francis reminds us that “always, in every place, one can become a saint—that is, one can open oneself to this grace, which works inside us and leads us to holiness.” The lessons and meditations in this book are meant to help us open ourselves to such grace so that we can be living saints. When we recognize our own sanctity—when we realize that we can be saints today, in the ordinariness of our lives—we can live out the promise of the gospel and realize that the kingdom of heaven is a present, if incomplete, reality. Inspired by such hope, we can effect change for the better. Lessons, Not Lives I do not pretend to offer another collection of saintly biographies. I am not a scholar, a historian, or a theologian. I am just a regular guy who takes seriously the counsel of St. Teresa of Ávila: “We need to study, to meditate upon, and to imitate those who, mortals like ourselves, performed such heroic deeds for God.” Every year in my faith formation classes, I ask my students to research a saint. I offer them print and online resources and invite them to share the results of their research. What follows is usually an uninspired report that includes some facts about the saint, such as when and where he or she was born, when the saint’s feast day is, and maybe a few interesting anecdotes from that saint’s life. “So what?” I end up asking. “In all that you read about this saint, what about them inspires you? What do they tell you about following Jesus Christ?” These are the critical questions that we often forget to answer when we read about the saints. We admire them from afar, like the statues that decorate our gardens and churches. We venerate them; we might pray to them to find a lost item; we might ask them to pray for our loved ones who need healing or protection. But how often do we think of them as active, living teachers? How often do we ask the question that St. Ignatius asked all those years ago: “What if I should do as the saints did?” In the pages that follow, I offer one small lesson from the lives of fifty-two different saints, along with a brief meditation based on that lesson. As you spend time with a saint, you will learn how to apply that saint’s particular charism to your life so you can do what they did, but in your own unique way