You ask about biographies that influenced my development. I will mention two. The first was a story written for young readers of Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House in Chicago, which I read as a ten year old. The second is a ninety page memoir “An Interview with Fr George Calciu: The Message of a Living Martyr.” I read this twenty years ago while I was learning about Eastern Orthodox spirituality.
Father Calciu was a devout Orthodox Christian priest in Romania who was emprisoned and tortured while the Communists were in power. He survived as so many did not. His parting words at the end of the interview read, “I am happy because I had this opportunity to tell you these things and to tell them to young people. They have to be prepared -- not for physical torture, not for hunger, or something like that but they have to preserve the moral integrity of their soul and their divine image within unchanged. They have to trust God and to trust themselves because Jesus is in their heart. ...”
You ask about biographies that influenced my development. I will mention two. The first was a story written for young readers of Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House in Chicago, which I read as a ten year old. The second is a ninety page memoir “An Interview with Fr George Calciu: The Message of a Living Martyr.” I read this twenty years ago while I was learning about Eastern Orthodox spirituality.
Father Calciu was a devout Orthodox Christian priest in Romania who was emprisoned and tortured while the Communists were in power. He survived as so many did not. His parting words at the end of the interview read, “I am happy because I had this opportunity to tell you these things and to tell them to young people. They have to be prepared -- not for physical torture, not for hunger, or something like that but they have to preserve the moral integrity of their soul and their divine image within unchanged. They have to trust God and to trust themselves because Jesus is in their heart. ...”