In 2001, the caretaker of an Indiana convent stopped into a chapel and asked God to help heal his eye, which was responding poorly to a previous surgery. He wasn't a Catholic - not even really religious - but he figured it couldn't hurt to ask. The next morning he woke up and found his eye had improved greatly, without any medical intervention. While you or I might call that a miracle, the nuns at the convent used that term much more seriously, as they thought that this would be the thing that would finally get their founder's case for sainthood approved.
This book tells the story of the founder, Mother Theodore, and the process by which the Catholic church names saints. Both are interesting tales in their own right; Mother Theodore established her convent in Indiana at a time where people in general were thin on the ground, never mind Catholics, while the process of naming a saint is replete with the political and legal hurdles one might expect and the personal struggles - within the mind of the handyman, the nuns of the convent, and so on up the line - one might not expect.
As much as the average person tends to think that the church and science are always at odds, this book does suggest that the role of science, at least in the case of investigating potential saints, is pretty large. Much of the investigation into the miracle involves talking with doctors and reviewing the case files to see just how likely it is that the healing resulted from medicine.
If this sort of thing interests you, this is a book you'll want to read. The story is engaging, well-written and balanced. Briggs doesn't normally write about religion, and I think that helps him avoid forcing the story into a pro- or anti-sainthood slant. He just reports the story, gives us the facts and the feelings of those involved, and allows us to make a decision on sainthood in the modern age.
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