Therese, Faustina and Bernadette: Three Saints Who Challenged My Faith, Gave Me Hope, and Taught Me How to Love Paperback – March 10, 2014

In May, a good friend suggested a group of us read this book for our summer reading. It has been enjoyable reading about the lives of these 3 saints-Therese, Faustina, and Bernadette. Learning new details about their lives has often times given me an "aha" moment for my own life. I do have to realize, though, that they were not suburban moms with the daily trials of raising children and husbands. But, nevertheless, I have walked away with new insights of these women's lives and how I can be a better person from their lessons. As for the 4 stars (not 5), I am still not sure about the author. I did appreciate her comment on page 22, "...part of me mourns my lost network of girlfriends." I have felt that loss so greatly that I wish her choice of saints would have spoken to this comment. Also, the author sometimes makes her own stories a bit contrived in order to fit the saint's virtue. But I still recommend this book.

These three saints are favorites of mine, so I was especially interested in reading about them. What I found interesting was that along with their biographies, Ficocelli wove in how they had affected her personal journey of faith as a Catholic convert. She spoke about how St. Therese personified love, St. Faustina, hope, and St. Bernadette, faith. It is a beautiful account of how our heavenly friends inspire us to emulate their virtues and how they intercede for us. At one point, she speaks about how their photographs are pasted to her computer to guide her work as a Catholic author, radio host, and speaker. Ficocelli also talks about the unique gift of our Catholic Christian femininity. This book is a page-turner and I was sorry to have reached the end of it, but I will turn to it again and again.

As an Orthodox Christian, I was not very familiar with these three Catholic saints but was intrigued to learn more when I heard Elizabeth Ficocelli on Catholic radio speaking of this, her latest book. She "hooked" me right from the start as she gave a bit of her own story and then presented, for each saint, a bio and then her personal reflections. This was a wonderful structure for the book. In our times when true spirituality and sanctity do not seem to have the importance that they did, it was inspiring to read not only the stories of these saints but also what they brought spiritually to Elizabeth Ficocelli.

I read this book to learn more about the three saints. I learned so much and I am looking forward to reading more about each saint. This was a great book , I could not stop reading it.

This book was recommended by a friend and I am so glad she did. I enjoy the time learning about these beautiful women and only want to know more. Elizabeth Ficocelli has done a great job making these saintly women feel like friends.

If you want a summary well documented of theses Saints biographies this is an excllent book. Also the personal comments of the author are very helpful to understand the lives of Therese, Faustina and Bernadette. Actually I bought the book for Saint Bernadette but I finished reading all the book.

I enjoyed the parts in this book about the Saints Therese, Faustina and Bernadette. Was not so engaged with the description of the author's life. Some description of her relationship to the Saints would have been okay; I felt too much information was shared. It just wasn't the part I was interested in. Worth it for the Saints, however. Not particularly well written, but not atrocious by a long shot.

Very good. Was hoping for a little more...however as an intro and to pique my interest to delve further with other resources, it did the job.

Very pleased with purchase