St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi: With Introductions by Ralph McInerny and Joseph Pearce

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 275 pages
• Published by: Ignatius Press October 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0898709458
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0898709452
• Book Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 14.4 ounces

Reader Reviews
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis make for quite a contrast--St. Thomas was one of the greatest brains of the Catholic Church, and St. Francis had one of the greatest hearts. Chesterton has a knack for putting ideas and people into the largest possible context with the least amount of details. These biographies, though short on specifics, put across the essence of each man's character and his impact on the world. Chesterton's writing style in both is more poetic than his essays and even some of his fiction. "And for him [St. Thomas] the point is always that Man is not a balloon going up into the sky, nor a mole burrowing merely in the earth; but rather a thing like a tree, whose roots are fed from the earth, while its highest branches seem to rise almost to the stars." "He [St. Francis] devoured fasting as a man devours food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of pleasure." Chesterton piles on insights like these on page after page. Chesterton paints a very personal picture--after reading these biographies, I felt as if I really knew who these men were, how they spoke, how they thought, how they might have talked to me. One caution--these works may not be the best place to start. In my case, I didn't know much about St. Francis to begin with. Since Chesterton doesn't provide many historical details, some of his references (e.g., to his miracles and famous sayings), were hard to follow.