Aunt Carmen's book of practical saints
(Book - Regular Print)

"Aunt Carmen is impatient with cerebral notions of faith, but she knows her saints - their stories, their sorrows, and their joys. Through her they emerge: El Santo Nino, the mischievous Holy Child; the doting father, San Jose; and the bold Santa Maria Magdalena, whom Carmen imagines walking into church "in heels and short skirts." And in Carmen's prayers to them, she finds the words to tell her own story."--BOOK JACKET. "We know that Aunt Carmen, now eighty, has been cleaning the church for years and delights in the priest's fear of her ("I know about scaring men"). We learn of her marriage to a "sober teacher," her joy at the birth of her grandchildren, and her worry for her friend Alma who is abused by her husband. From her first prayer, invoking Carmen's childhood wishes for a good husband, to the last, asking the Good Shepherdess to lead her to beauty and joy, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints offers a tender portrait of a woman at once proud of her hard-won independence and profoundly humbled by faith."--BOOK JACKET.