(RNS) — You’ve probably heard of Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Augustine of Hippo and Joan of Arc. Now, readers are learning about Theo of Golden.

He’s not a real person in the canon of saints, but Allen Levi’s novel, “Theo of Golden,” has made him seem real to countless readers. As of mid-March, the book — which was self-published back in 2023, by a first-time author in his late 60s — had sold over 1 million copies in the United States. It has now spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, including some time at the coveted No. 1 spot.

The novel seemingly came out of nowhere. Late last year, a major New York publisher republished it, and it almost immediately became an unexpected hit. It’s every self-published author’s Cinderella dream.

Such runaway success is all the more unlikely because of the novel’s deeply religious overtones. Characters quote Scripture to each other. A long scene takes place at a church with a pastor sermonizing. The local coffeehouse is called The Chalice, as in the Last Supper’s “this is my blood which is shed for you” kind of chalice. Christianity is a constant undercurrent in the novel.

Slate called its version of Christianity both “old-fashioned” and “liberal-minded,” which I think is a fair and accurate description.

As a novel, the book has some problems. It has a slow and largely plotless beginning and a too-good-to-be-true main character. The dialogue can sound stilted and unnatural. And the town of Golden, where people still have front porches and only one (rather despicable) character appears to use a cellphone, feels unrealistically trapped in time.

But its heart is in the right place. The novel’s soulful intuition, rather than its literary merit, is what people are responding to.

Although the story is fictional, I’d place “Theo of Golden” in the literary genre of hagiography, or a biography of a saint or a religious leader. As a people, we’ve gotten out of the habit of reading hagiography, where the point is for readers to emulate the idealized life of a particular saint — a life characterized by good works, devout religious faith, miracles and, often, a selfless martyrdom. Perhaps we are worse off for it.

The 86-year-old Theo is clearly portrayed as a saint, if the character’s first name and the book’s title weren’t clues enough. When Theo first blows into the small fictional Georgia town of Golden, he is quite taken with a series of art portraits he finds in The Chalice coffeehouse.

He spends hours poring over these 92 portraits of local residents of Golden, a veritable periodic table of humanity. Every face tells a story. He’s so moved that he actually kneels down in front of each frame, right there in the busy cafe.

He’s disheartened to learn no one is purchasing them, not even the model-subjects themselves. He decides to buy every portrait and schedule an in-person meeting with each person depicted. They include a homeless woman, a janitor, an accountant and a variety of other local characters.

When these people hear Theo explain what he saw in their portraits, and take a genuine interest in their lives, their lives and relationships start to change for the better.

That’s the whole plot, really. It’s unglamorous and simple, and somehow the utterly perfect antidote for the cruel zeitgeist of 2026 America.

Readers need a Theo right now. We need an avuncular, empathetic, tranquil saint who goes about secretly doing good while openly confronting evil.

We need a saint who, like St. Francis, had money and power but chose to give those things away. Over the course of the novel, we learn that the mysterious Theo commands seemingly unlimited resources but puts them all to use to bless others, like paying the medical bills for a severely injured child.

Instead, today we are traumatized by leaders’ greed. We are shocked by our president’s insatiable craving to be worshipped — which earlier this week involved him posting a blasphemous AI image of himself, seemingly robed as Jesus Christ healing the sick.

We need a saint who, like St. Joseph, was known for doing good deeds in secret. Theo does almost all his work to bless the lives of others anonymously, wishing for no recognition.

We who are grieved by this administration’s heedless rush to war need a saint who, like Pope Leo XIV, is willing to follow Christ’s call to be peacemakers, not warmongers. Theo in the novel does not glamorize violent people and violent acts and would never abuse his power to threaten devastating harm. He quietly stands up to bullies and models another way, agreeing with one battle-scarred veteran that war is “utter insanity.”

We who are degraded by our president’s constant belittling, mocking and lying about whole groups of human beings need a saint who, like St. Teresa of Ávila, made a point of speaking kind words of encouragement — of building people up, not tearing them down. In the book, Theo consistently wants the portrait recipients to know how beautiful they are, even when they don’t see that beauty in themselves. Theo views every single person as a child of God, even (gasp) “an illegal” who accidentally commits a crime after coming to the United States.

This novel’s clear point is “go ye and do likewise.” We aren’t meant to just enjoy the story as a sweet piece of fiction and then resume lives of selfishness and destruction. We are meant to follow his example in becoming peacemakers and transforming our own communities.

When we do so, we find that giving our own lives away to benefit others is actually the most rewarding path we could possibly choose. As Theo tells James, one of the characters he secretly enlists to help him help others, “I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.”

“Actually, Theo, I find all this rather curious, but it’s certainly admirable,” James replies. “People like you renew my hope in humanity.”

“Yes, we can be such a terrible race at times, but at the same time, terribly wonderful. All capable of saintliness. You too, James. You too.”

Us too, reader. Us too.