Journal of a Soul Author:Pope John XX111 "My Soul is in these Pages" Pope john spoke these words to his private secretary as he turned over his spiritual diaries for publication after his death. And so it is, as readers will discover in this remarkable book, the first such work from a Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. It was begun at age 14, when Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, of peas... more »ant stock was an eager seminarian. "I must find a way of becoming like the saints" is one of his early aspirations. The diaries were continued almost without a break across 67 years, the last entry written about six months before his death in 1963. They reveal his intimate spiritual thoughts from the immaturity of adol. through the seminary, priesthood and ensuing years of difficult assignments, on through years as a papal diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey and France and as Patriarch of Venice, to the Papacy itself.« less