Warriors of God: The Great Religious Orders and Their Founders, by church historian Walter Nigg, is a detailed and lively account of eleven of the great Christian monastic and religious orders and the fascinatingly diverse figures who launched them. The author begins with St. Anthony and the desert fathers, and continues with St. Pachomius and the development of cenobitic monasticism, St. Basil, St. Augustine and the common life of the clergy, St. Benedict and the Rule, St. Bruno and the Carthusians, St. Bernard and the Cistercians, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Teresa and Carmel, and St. Ignatius. In these accounts, Nigg maintains a fine sense of balance, highlighting not only the virtues and spiritual feats of these great saints, but also the potential pitfalls of monasticism and asceticism.
Ultimately, Nigg views the stories of these saints as an antidote to the horrors of the 20th century. He calls for a rejuvenation of the Church and her mission, which can only be achieved by following the example of the early fathers: "The fundamental and timeless virtues of the primitive Church find their purest expression in the founders of the great orders, and those monasteries whose primitive zeal has ebbed will be reinvigorated only hearkening to their founders." In this book readers will find "friends of God" with whom they can beneficially become friends themselves. These are our fathers and mothers in the faith, whose stories can -- and should -- in-form and enrich our own lives, if we let them.
