“Steeped in Romanity” — Fr. Victor-Alain Berto

Life of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre

Father Antonio Maria Coltraro$19.95

(223 pages) Few true tales seem stranger than that of the holy hobo, Benedict Joseph Labre, who tramped, ragged, flea-bitten, over the Europe of Voltaire and Rousseau. Feeling called from an early age to a life of austerity, he aspired to become a Trappist monk. But God had chosen for him the unique state of consecrated vagrancy, which was to mortify every recess of body and soul. Rejected by monasteries, incapable of any more normal life, he marched from shrine to shrine, living on scraps and spending more than half of most days in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Benedict gave away what he received in alms and refused even as a gift any clothes or food which he thought too good for him. His confessors were unable to find that he had ever committed a wilful sin. He recited the breviary in Latin. He wrought many miracles in life and after death and has become one of our best-loved intercessors. Here is his story.