num_pages: 179
description: This wry memoir tackles twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly including fasting fixed-hour prayer the Jesus Prayer gratitude Sabbath-keeping and generosity. Although Riess begins with great plans for success (Really how hard could that be? she asks blithely at the start of her saint-making year) she finds to her growing humiliation that she is failingnot just at some of the practices but at every single one. What emerges is a funny yet vulnerable story of the quest for spiritual perfection and the reality of spiritual failure which turns out to be a valuable practice in and of itself. 
language: English
title: Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor
publisher: Paraclete Press