Holy Fools and the Presence of God

Seeking the Sacred in the Midst of the Mundane

Ernst Novak

Around the year 1630, Nicholas Herman was a teenage peasant of Lorraine without talent, prospects, or resources. So he did what most young impoverished men of the era did—he joined the army. The continent was at that time embroiled in the Thirty Years War, the most devastating conflict ever fought over religion in European history. One bitter…