The Real Faces of Saints...

In the library I looked at the marvelous book The Faces of the Saints [The Face of the Saints by Wilhelm Schamoni]— pictures as near as possible genuine portraits—contemporary—of saints. Mosaics of the Fathers were some of the most beautiful. Saint Catherine of Siena, too, and another I have forgotten. More modern ones — some of the death masks frighten me. Saint Vincent de Paul looks very real — very much of a Gascon peasant, and tough as he can be, terrific energy in his face, fiery black eyes, and a mouth like a bear trap.
The one that most astonished me was Saint Francis de Sales — ponderous and unlike anything I would have imagined. One that most impressed me — Saint Benedict Joseph Labre.
One that scared me least — John Bosco. Also Saint Catherine of Genoa looked nice and normal for a mystic, and Louise de Marillac was a French housewife in her picture. Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi looked a little like my mother. Saint Aloysius Gonzaga was almost too beautiful.
Saint Teresa was funny — a plump little Spanish lady, like an innkeeper’s wife in that picture, with all due respect, but I love her. Saint John of the Cross I knew; looks surprisingly un-ascetic. The saint’s face that to me is most completely the face of a saint is the child’s face of Saint Francis of Assisi with big astonished eyes looking out from that over-ample hood — the thirteenth-century portrait.
Some saints I had never heard of I wanted to love as soon as I saw their pictures, like St. Catherine of Ricci. All of them had faces that had suffered: some more, some less, some very intensely.

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The Real Faces of Saints

What did the saints really look like?

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