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    My Cousin the Saint: A Story of Love, Miracles, and an Italian Family Reunited
    Unavailable
    My Cousin the Saint: A Story of Love, Miracles, and an Italian Family Reunited
    Unavailable
    My Cousin the Saint: A Story of Love, Miracles, and an Italian Family Reunited
    Ebook486 pages5 hours

    My Cousin the Saint: A Story of Love, Miracles, and an Italian Family Reunited

    By Justin Catanoso

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    An inspiring story of faith and family across two continents

    Like millions of other Italians in the early twentieth century, Justin Catanoso's grandfather immigrated to America to escape poverty and hardship. Nearly a hundred years later, Justin, born and raised in New Jersey, knows little of his family beyond the Garden State.

    That changes in 2001 when he discovers that his grandfather's cousin, Padre Gaetano Catanoso, is a Vatican-certified miracle worker. After a life of serving the poor and founding an order of nuns, Gaetano had been approved by Pope John Paul II to become a saint, the first priest from Calabria ever to be canonized. A typically lapsed American Catholic, Justin embarks on a quest to connect with his extended family in southern Italy and, ultimately, to awaken his slumbering faith.

    My Cousin the Saint charts the parallel history of two relatives—Justin's grandfather, Carmelo, and his sainted cousin, Gaetano. While Carmelo leaves his homeland to pursue New World prosperity, Gaetano stays behind to relieve Old World misery. Justin reunites the two halves of a sundered family by both exploring the life of the saint in Calabria and uncovering the untold story of his grandfather's family, raised in New Jersey between two world wars.

    Justin confronts his own tenuous spiritual moorings in the process. After meeting with Vatican officials in Rome, he is astonished by the complexity of saint-making. After hearing one miracle story after another, he struggles with the line between the mystical and the divine. After seeing his brother fall ill with terminal cancer, he questions the value of prayer. And after reveling in the charm and generosity of his newfound Italian relatives, he comes to learn what it means to have a saint in the family.

    A compelling narrative written with grace and honesty, My Cousin the Saint is a testament to the challenge of being Catholic in twenty-first-century America. More than a biography, more than an immigrant memoir, more than a chronicle of renewed faith, it is a love letter to a family now reunited across oceans and years.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 1, 2008
    ISBN9780061732713
    Unavailable
    My Cousin the Saint: A Story of Love, Miracles, and an Italian Family Reunited

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    Reviews for My Cousin the Saint

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      My Cousin the Saint is a wonderful memoir by Justin Catanoso. While a saint definitely inspired the book, this story is a travelogue, a history about Italian immigration to America, and a warm family story. Justin's writing is honest and poignant and I found myself unable to put it down, I was so deeply involved with his characters. As I do my holiday shopping, I am not only giving this book but encouraging others to do so too.