Special Saints for Special People: Stories of Saints with Disabilities

Special Saints for Special People contains nine short biographies of saints who lived with disabilities much or all of their lives and how they were able to obtain holiness and make contributions to the Catholic Church. This book does not focus on illness, suffering, or saints who received miraculous cures. Instead it highlights the gifts and abilities that these saints had and used for the good of others.

For example, did you know that Saint René Goupil, a trained surgeon and Jesuit missionary, was also completely deaf? Or that Saint Paulina, co-founder of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, lived her entire life with diabetes? Or that Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American woman canonized a saint, was visually impaired and badly scarred after battling smallpox?

Special Saints for Special People reminds us of the famous quote: What you are is God s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.