Holy Men and Women of the Order of Malta: The Canonized and Beatified from the Twelfth to the Twenty-First Century

This book brings to the fore the religious nature of the order, so long overshadowed by its glorious military tradition and, more recently, its global charitable activities. It focuses not on the monk-warrior but on the twenty-plus members of the order who have been canonized and beatified for their extraordinary lives of love, prayer, and dedication. The book offers the reader a series of brief biographies on some of the most diverse groups of saints to come from one religious order, from peasants to popes and everything in between. In applying historical analysis to the lives of these holy men and women, the author demonstrates that one need not hide behind hagiographic generalities or far-fetched stories to find examples of true virtue in the lives of these Hospitallers.