My Badass Book of Saints Courageous Women Who Showed Me How to Live 

The energy jumps off the pages. Totally engaging! It's about women who lead and make a difference in ways that are strong, funny, accomplished.

Johnson, host of the popular podcast Catholic Weekend and blogger at CatholicMom.com, offers readers an exploration of inspiring women past and present who challenged the status quo, served Christ wholeheartedly, and continue to inspire women today. She blends her own story with those of courageous women who became saints, who will likely become saints, and who arguably ought to be saints. She explores such virtues as courage through the lives of WWII spy Nancy Wake and St. Joan of Arc; perseverance through author Flannery O’Connor and St. Margaret of Antioch; peace via Immaculee Ilibagiza and St. Rita of Cascia; and virtue through the most virtuous of all, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Every story challenges, informs, and encourages as Johnson interweaves discussions about how we can live and thrive similarly to these women today. Chapters end with questions and an action step; the book ends with a six-week guide for further study. Catholics—and women everywhere—will find something to love.

This is a book that’s not afraid to talk of the beautiful mess where faith meets real life and where saints and mortals coexist, one cheering the other on to glory.

Each of us have an opportunity to be a beacon of hope to those around us. Thank you, Maria, for writing and sharing this remarkable collection of courage and inspiration.

Maria Morera Johnson’s My Badass Book of Saints delivers a heavyweight message of holiness with the lightest of touches and somehow manages a knockout punch. Her entertaining list of modern women of faith and their saintly counterparts exhorts women toward sainthood and says, ‘Yes, this can be you, too, if you want it.’ It’s the wanting, after all—the pursuit of sainthood despite obstacles malicious or well-meant—that brings out the badass fearless trust that hones a saint.

In pages riddled with humor and gripping stories, I was shocked to realize that I shared qualities with great women I always thought were out of my league. In the lives of these ordinary—sometimes feisty—women, I found my story, and as many of them are now saints, I found an incredible conviction to live my ordinary life loving God and allowing him to do extraordinary things through me . . . with a little help from my new friends!

Maria Johnson is a badass. As she shares herself in these pages, her stories—and those of these courageous women—inspire us to believe that our own sometimes seemingly ordinary lives and what we do with them can be enough. For ourselves and for God.

In a world where heroism has become synonymous with superheroes, Maria Morera Johnson argues for a scandalous interpretation. Real heroism, the kind that adds up to ‘true greatness,’ she says, is about our day by day offering of all that is ‘boring and hard and unpalatable’ in the quotidian moments of our life. To give us courage to become extra-ordinary in this ordinary journey, Johnson provides us as models a notable communion of women—some recognized officially as saints by the Church and others simply holy women—all of whom made a deliberate choice to stand on the strength of their convictions. As a Cuban immigrant and refugee, Johnson knows intimately the cost of this faith quest. With reflective and insightful understanding, she weaves together her own life story and that of women who have enabled her to stand strong and faithful in her Catholic faith. They impacted her life. They will impact yours, too!

Maria Johnson is brave, boisterous, loving, and real. Having worked firsthand with her on several writing projects, we can honestly say we’ve been excitedly awaiting this inaugural and masterful book for over a decade.

We often look at the great saints of the Church and know few details about them apart from the way they met their end. To know the passionate commitment to faith that strengthened them to make those final sacrifices? More of that, please.