Warriors of God

I'm sure our fine library had to send someone

deep into the stacks to find this book for me--

but what a treasure!

After reading an essay (also by Walter Nigg) about St. Francis of Assisi,

I began reading THIS book.

I wish I owned it!  

I would be underlining and making other comments and marks

in its margins.

Quotes such as these challenge me from the chapter about the first "warrior"--St. Anthony.

"A pandering to the crowd spells mortal danger to Christianity;

Anthony pointed to the remedy.  I a Christianity of the crowd there ceases to be

any genuine relationship between God and the soul,

which, if it is to be real, must be personal."

And..

"The flight of the hermits in the age of Constantine was a movement

from the outward to the inward, a preserving of the content of religion

from the canker of superficiality, 

a withdrawal from futility into the center of being." 

What book(s) do YOU wish you owned?

And why?